Chris and Kati Carbonneau Family: PERFECT 10. Our anniv. trip to SAN FRANCISCO

I ramble a lot, but this was our trip! It was a blast! I think some of the funnest memories are Chris noticing how many people stare at me (I get it w/ or w/o kids in tow) and me reassuring him that I had google on driving directions, but they were really walking directions. SO we took the scenic route...no biggie, it was fun.

SAN FRANCISCO!

To celebrate our 10 year anniversary Chris and I decided we wanted to have a little get away trip. close enough to not take a whole day of travel, but somewhere cool with a lot to do.

WE HAD THE BEST WEATHER EVER! and a million things to do!!! City, Beach, Forest, Great Food, even better company. and we had a babysitter for 2 1/2 days :)

Drove past AT&T park

FRIDAY:

Flew to San Francisco, CA.

Drove to the docks. BEST APP suggestion award goes to Hannah. She suggested a parking app. My parents just went on vacation and spent a lot of time and money on parking and I was worried about that. this app gave you all your choices and when one spot cost $65 around the corner was one for $12. Thanks for saving us Hannah!! We drove right to the spot we wanted and got in line for tickets to Alcatraz. (Wesly likes to all it Azcaban)

HOWEVER, friday morning, the only tickets available were for Sunday. uh, not gonna work. We figured out the system and got STAND BY tickets for friday night. And swapped out evening and afternoon plans.

Off to PIER 39 we went!

I would suggest if you like to beat the crowds, this was the perfect time to be there! Some people, not too many crazies, but shopping was at it’s best. Later it is fun to go and people watch. lots of crazies :)

On Pier 39 was this little gem of a mirror maze. I thought it would be some cheesy carnival thing and went to pass it up. chris asked if I wanted to try it out and I thought, okay, why not. SERIOUSLY it was so fun!! I was just so impressed that I really couldnt find my way! LEVI PIKE, I could see you making a maze like this. I thought of you the whole time. It was a blast!

I loved the Sea Lions and the weather in general

We walked to Ghiradelli Square and shared some Ghieradelli chocolate ice cream. When you go into the shops they gave us some chocolate squares. We went into another shop and they gave us another. We went back to another to buy some souveniers and they gave us some more :) yum! However, I did find out my favorite were the Hazelnut filled ones, and toffee bit ones. I also liked the chocolate pumpkin caramel squares. I had never seen them sell these 3 flavors before. one or 2 of them are only found at that store. lets just say we may be internet shopping for more soon.

Note to self: WEAR SUNSCREEN when walking around all day. We found a walgreens just before sunset and bought some! too late...my summer tan lines are starting off all wonkitated!!!

We took a rest at the park next to Ghiradelli Square and a 15 minute nap had us ready for more walking.

chris loves him some crab (HIS FAVORITE). We found a yummy looking stack of crabs and Chris had some fresh meat and shared a few bites with me :)

He made me find a place with things that looked more appetizing to me. The crab shack had a lot of fried foods and I was craving more fresh and cold things to eat. We shared a tall smoothie and I bought some chicken tacos, I was thinking fish tacos, but I wasnt too sure on which fish to avoid right now, so I played it safe with chicken while Chris tried some fish ones. Spicy but good.

We were stuffed and ready to go wait in the stand by line for Alcatraz and we were really hoping to get on!!

THANKFULLY!!! we made it on! our whole group of 20 waiting did and that was a fun relief. The boat ride over was so scenic and perfect weather. not cold at all. I think it was about 67 or 70 degrees. PERFECT.

The birds put on a fun display for me and I was impressed with the black birds (don’t remember the kind) the tour guide said they could dive 120 feet for fish!!)

I had a ton of fun listening to the tours on the island. I loved the stories and I wish we could have stayed longer. We had an option to stay an extra hour and catch the last ferry back, but I was beat. Walking all day in the sun wore me out and it was getting really cold. (mostly super windy!)

sitting listening to the escape stories and the birdman of Alcatraz stories, so interesting!!

I am glad we headed back because the wind didnt let up on shore, and we were ready to find our hotel.

Driving in SF is an adventure. and SUPER HLLY!! beats walking, I am pretty sure it would take me ages to make it up these hills these days.

SATURDAY

We were hoping to meet up with Molly for breakfast and I hike to Sutro Baths, but she and her son caught a stomach bug and had to cancel :(

We used an app to find a good breakfast stop and it did not disappoint. I LOVE CREPES! and my husband knows it. So he found an awesome creperia and it was tasty tasty! We split one sweet and one savory.

We headed to LANDS END and the Sutro Baths for a fun GORGEOUS hike!

We met 2 Air Force veterans while hiking and learned that one had flown over 400 combat flights during WWII and the other flew 322 combat flights during Vietnam in one year! These men were both ACE fighter pilots (meaning they had been given credit for shooting down more than 5 enemy planes). One had said he shot down 17 but was given credit for maybe 6 or 7? and the other had more than 5 as well. I can’t imagine going up against one other fighter plane, let alone that many missions. The man who had the 17, also flew with Charles Lindberg as a wing man on about 5 different occassions. He told Lindberg he would give him a signal if things were getting rough and he would have to leave because the man was escorting bomber planes and didnt want to have to choose between Lindberg and 5 men in the bomber to protect. The other man said during Vietnam he had only 2 days off a month and shot down the last enemy plane of WWII, I think just after the bombing off Hiroshima (?) (the men kept correcting their hostesses as the host was telling more details, so I am not sure which parts were all correct or not, and while at time I questioned their memories :) I have no doubt that they did a great service to our country and I was very pleased they stopped to talk to us. We had offered to take a picture for their group and their hostesses started telling us who they were. They were to speak on a WWII discussion panel in SF the next day.

This was all near the Sutro Baths on a trail towards Lands End. It was SO PRETTY there. I loved hearing the stories of the buildings there and who owned them and why they look the way they do now.

Going on tours was a bonus of this trip for me. Our kids are a little rowdy and noisy for us to do many guided tours, so I was enjoying this part of our vacation :)

We had hoped to stop at the Golden Gate Park, but clearly we were spoiled on friday morning with our tours because saturday was crazy packed and there was ZERO parking by the bridge, but we were headed across it anyhow, and enjoyed that trip.

We stopped for lunch in a small town Sausalito. Super cute. and BONUS! t happened to have a bike shop that Chris had thought would be fun to stop at. He was nice and didnt make any demands to stop there (sometimes mom needs a break from bike talk) but when we chose where to eat we didnt look up the shop. I told him to look it up and see how far it was. It was only 1 block away, so clearly we stopped. I should have gotten a picture of him with the wooded bikes. but the shop next door had fun ones too ( i think he is pointing out the electronic shifting system on the bike he points to in the pic) We stopped at one more bike shop and then headed on to MUIR WOODS.

random pretty church

Brelee loves light tunnels, this was for her :)

Sausalito. cute town. Cyclist central!!! Bad driving tourist and intense cyclists both. CRAZY infested with bikes.

Ate lunch here. Would suggest trying the breakfast menu, we tried the Danish lunch and while it wasn't bad, it wasnt really our thing.

SO GORGEOUS. I always think of Star Wars and the Ewoks when I see the red woods. The trees at Muir Woods grow to be about 250 feet tall and are SO BIG! this place is really kind of out of this world beautiful. It was rough finding parking, but they have a lot of shuttles that run there. The walk there wasn’t too bad, but Chris was doing good taking care of me and had me wait at the park while he hiked back to get the car when we were done.

After Muir woods we decided to head back to pier 39 to get some souvenirs for the kiddos and then check out the Painted Ladies (have you seen Full House?) and head to dinner. We had tried to find China Town the day before on our way to the hotel, but every road we tried to take into china town was one way the OTHER way. We gave up, but came across Japan town on our way to the Painted Ladies. We even tried to take a trolley around town, BUT the line was probably 2 hours long, okay maybe 1 hour. but we decided to drive ourselves around instead.

The Painted Ladies happened to be on our way to Bi-Rite Ice Cream. It was recommended and Chris wanted to try it out. Of course I didnt object. The line was CRAZY LONG, but only took about 20 minutes. The ice cream was AWESOME. I had Brown Sugar and tried the popular honey lavendar but wasnt impressed. But I LOVED the brown sugar. Another super popular one if the salted caramel and Chris said it was a little too salty so we skipped that and he got hazelnut and it was AWESOME!

We decided to use the YELP app to find a burger place and found a SUPER yummy burger place with the BEST burgers. It was in an interesting neighborhood but the burgers were worth the adventure. :)