10 « Frank Family Adventures

On October 13, 2001, I walked down the aisle and said ” I do”. Hard for me to believe it has been 10 years. It was a perfect day but I am even happier now. I never dreamed that I would be living in Oregon as a stay at home Mom of 4 children. But I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be and I feel truly blessed.

As usual I am a little behind on my blog posts. This time I feel like I have a good excuse. I am still trying to recover from my vacation. Matt and I spent 5 fabulous days in San Francisco to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Buela and Grampa Tom flew in from Oklahoma to stay with the kiddos. According to my mother I spent time in San Francisco as a toddler but of course I do not remember any of it. So for all practical purposes this was my 1st trip to San Fran and I wanted to check out all the tourist hot spots. Since I love to read other blogs and spend way too much time on the computer I discovered the Go San Francisco Card. With the Go Card you pay one price to purchase the card then you have access to over 55 attractions. We decided to buy a 3 day pass. It turned out to be a wise investment. The card paid nearly paid for itself on the first day! The discounts to restaurants and shops was nice too.

I am warning you know that this post might be long. I intend to type out all the little details since this will eventually be my reference when I find time to do some journaling in my scrapbook. Our flight took off bright and early in the morning. We arrived in San Fran at 6:45 A.M. After much debate we decided NOT to rent a car because we didn’t want to pay the nearly 50 dollars a night to park at the hotel. Instead we planned on using the BART system like the locals to get us within walking distance to the hotel. Before starting that adventure we got some breakfast at the Yankee Pier restaurant at the airport. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the Bart system since I have never used public transportation. It was a rather quiet morning and we had no problems reaching our stop at Powell/Market street. The moment we stepped off the BART, and onto Powell/Market street I was in awe. It just seemed like we were in a whole different world. I was excited to begin our adventure. We walked to The Prescott Hotel which was about 5 blocks so that we could drop off our bags and get a better idea of where our hotel was located. It was near Union Square and I thought that was pretty cool. I miss the hustle and bustle of the city so this was definitely right in the thick of things.

It is very funny to me that I was actually worried about missing work outs while on vacation. I would quickly learn that since we decided to walk everywhere that I would get plenty of exercise! As we were checking in we asked questions about places to visit, areas to avoid and innocently asked how far it was to Fisherman’s Wharf. The concierge laughed and said well, it is an ambitious 45 minute walk. That didn’t seem that difficult to me, however, for some strange reason I didn’t realize how steep the streets were. We made the walk several times but I will be honest by the end of the day my legs were feeling it.

Okay after getting checked in to the hotel we start walk towards Fisherman’s Wharf. Along the way we stop to take pictures. We walked through Union square, then through Chinatown, North Beach/Little Italy and finally arrived at Pier 39. We decided to take the Double Decker skyview tour first. My idea was to enjoy the two hour ride and get a feel for the area then we could go back to the places that really grabbed our interest. I should add that the weather was gorgeous this first day. It was sunny and warm. Everyone warned me about the fog and rain but there was not a cloud in the sky. The tour was great. I loved our tour guide. He made it fun. I loved hearing all the history and even his corny jokes. Turns out it was fleet week so there were lots of extra activities planned around Fisherman’s Wharf for the weekend. While on the bus we got to see the Blue Angels practicing. After the tour we walked around Pier 39 Festival Marketplace and ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. The restaurant was a fun atmosphere and I enjoyed looking at all the memorabilia from the movie. Food was really good too. We walked around Pier 39 for a couple of hours and then made our way down to Pier 43 to catch our ferry to Alcatraz.

We choose to do the Alcatraz night tour. The ferry ride was a little chilly since I insisted on sitting on the top of the ferry to get a better view. It was amazing to watch the sunset while on the ferry ride. I must say it was pretty cool arriving on the island at night. I didn’t know much about the history of Alcatraz. I can tell you that this was Matt’s favorite part of the trip. I think he was getting annoyed with me because I didn’t take the audio tour as seriously as he did. I think he could have stayed on Alcatraz the entire 5 days we were there. He took tons of pictures. I actually lost him for a moment when we were in the hospital wing. He was looking at all the old equipment. The night tour had a few programs that are not offered during the day. We chose to watch the cell door demonstration. It was an eerie sound to hear the doors shut.

Day 2- Our first adventure the Golden Gate Bay Cruise. The weather was still sunny and gorgeous. As I mentioned before it was fleet week so once we had an added treat. We got to watch the parade of ships while aboard the cruise. Afterwards we went rented bikes so that we could see the bridge up close and personal. I was very excited to go on the bike ride. What I didn’t expect was the THOUSANDS of people all along the bike path waiting to watch the Blue Angels show. Many of you know that Matt rides his bike to work to so he had no problems on the route. It was a nightmare for someone like me that doesn’t ride very often. I was worried enough about not falling off the bike and dodging crowds of people was not part of my plan. I made it across the bridge! The self guided tour took us through Aquatic Park, Fort Mason, Marina, Palace of Fine Arts, Crissy Field, Presidio, Fort Point, Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Baker to Sausalito. After dealing with all the crowds of people(and Matt yelling at me for going slow) we cheated and took the ferry back. After returning our bikes we walked to Little Italy to find a restaurant for dinner. Right now I can’t even remember the name of it. But I can tell you the food was amazing. It was also a good thing we had just finished biking the bridge because I can tell you that I ate a lot of calories. Ha ha!

Day 3 – We took the Blue and Gold Ferry to Vallejo so that we could ride roller coasters at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. The weather was still beautiful and sunny. While waiting in line for the ferry we began talking to a family of 4 from Alberta, Canada who were on vacation for their Thanksgiving Holiday. They were such a cool family the hour long ferry ride only seemed like 10 minutes because I was enjoying the conversation. Discovery Kingdom was a really neat park. In addition to roller coasters they had many animals. We watched a killer whale show, saw dolphins, penguins, and a butterfly exhibit. They also had a Tiger show but we didn’t make it to that one. The entire day we kept thinking how much fun the kids would have at this park. I have always been a fan of roller coasters. But now that I am older I am a little bit more scared of the coasters. I had to close my eyes on a few of the rides and I feel sorry for those sitting next to me because I couldn’t quit yelling. But then I would get in line to ride again. Medusa was the best coaster at Discovery Kingdom. Thankfully the lines were not too long. I don’t think we waited more than 20 minutes for anything.

Day 4-This was the day the fog and rain rolled it. I guess we couldn’t escape the famous San Fran weather entirely. We rented bikes anyway thinking that the rain would stop. Our goal was to ride to Golden Gate Park. The guy at Bay City Bikes asked us if we wanted to purchase a poncho and foolishly we said no. By the time we made it to the we were soaked. Instead of the rain letting up we were riding into it. I was happy that the crowds of people were gone so it was a smooth ride on the bike path. Such a difference from the other day when the Blue Angels were in town. We stopped at a cute little restaurant to dry off and an early lunch. While we were eating we kept a close eye on the rain outdoors. We finally decided to call a cab to take us to the California Academy of Sciences. We spent several hours at this museum. They had some really neat exhibits inside. Unfortunately the rain never let up so we were unable to explore the rest of Golden Gate Park. We waited an hour to get a cab ride back to our bikes. For some reasons we couldn’t get a cab to stop at the museum even though we called several times. There was at least 20 people waiting for cabs with us. Crazy! We were so glad to return those bikes! We spent the evening in Union Square. We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at the top of the Macy’s building. You know I had to get my pumpkin cheesecake. It was hard for me to believe that Matt had never been to a Cheesecake Factory.

Day 5-Would you believe that the sunshine was back on our last day? We spent most of the day around Fishermans’ Wharf. We did some souvenir shopping for the kids in Chinatown. We had lunch in Ghiradelli Square. We walked along Hyde Pier. As fun as the trip was this was also the day that I really missed the kids. Our flight left at 10:30 P.M. and shortly after midnight we were home sweet home.