Need to finish up writing about our San Francisco trip!
Beware! This may be a long post!
Sunday May 15
Bay to Breakers Day!
Here we all are at the very beginning of the race.
We got up very early so we could figure out how to get the muni to the Embarcadero where the race started.
On the muni we met a homeless man who was making a sign advertising
his availablity for adoption.
He kept us entertained with jokes and funny comments on our bus ride.
"No checks" he said, "but Visa and Mastercard are okay"
It was a poignant and sad encounter.
There are SO many homeless people in San Francisco.
Bay to Breakers is a long standing tradition in San Francisco.
This was the 100th annual race!
The run is know as the Mardi Gras of the west
because of all of the alcohol, costumes, nudity and general craziness!
Before the race started we recognized that the man in the photo
above would probably we naked when we crossed the start line.
I wonder where they store thier clothes during the race?
It took us 2 hours and 55 minutes to walk the 7.4 miles course.
The serious runners finished it in under 45 minutes!
Alot of folks worked really hard to prolong the experence!
If you are interested and would like to see more Bay to Breakers
costumes, youtube, and info
Check out this link:
We probably walked another 2 or so miles getting our really sweet
finish medals AND trying to find a bus stop to get back to our hotel.
We had some lunch then Brian and Jen had to leave us to get a flight back to Phoenix and Mike, Rafael, Jenny, Mia and I went to the Aquarium.
Nice aquaruim located close to Pier 39.
Mia got a little touchy feeling with a large lizard at the Aquarium.
Monday May 16
We had a 9am tour time for Alcatraz this morning
so we grabbed some doughnuts from the shop adjacent to our hotel
and hopped on the trolley.
Jenny spent alot of time on the internet before our trip scoping out
places to visit and to eat.
The place pictured below is supposed to be where the locals eat
and hang out.
It was raining at this point and we walked a long way trying to find it.
So here we are finally at Red's Java house located right on the water and full of local color! I could have eaten the onion rings here all day! They were delicious!
No trip to San Francisco is complete without a ride on the cable cars.
Here is Rafael hanging off the side.
The rain must not have started yet in this picture.
By the time the cable car stopped everyone who
was hanging off the side were SOAKED!
Then we had to find a ride BACK to our hotel since the cable car was
not a round trip ride!
Tuesday May 17
We visited the Acadamy of Sciences which is a wonderful
Science museum. They had a really cool place for toddlers
crawl around and experience science at thier level.
Mia had a blast here because she got to actually crawl around,
something she didn't get to do much of on this trip.
Who wants to put a baby down on the floor of a hotel?
After the science museum we boarded the muni and were off to see the Presideo.
The Exploratorium was located right beside this so we visited that next.
Mia getting some tactile experience in the sand.
Playing with bubbles with mom and dad.
A Sip of Conflict.
Would you take a drink from a water fountain made from a toilet?
I didn't!
We finally boarded another muni to get back to our hotel to pick up our bags and head to the airport.
I have to say that SF has an extremely good transit system.
They always seem to be full.
Sometimes to the place of having NO PERSONAL space at all.
Makes me wonder why I always see completely empty buses here in Phoenix.
We had one pretty tense moment on the muni.
The bus was packed, standing room only, and 3 big scary looking dudes get on the bus and one of them started blaring music on his phone.
Everyone was pretty uncomfortable,
especially when the words of the song started getting raunchy.
So I hear this voice from somewhere in the crowd asking the guy to please turn the music off....it wasn't appropriate for the kids and women to hear.
It was the voice of my husband!
As you might imagine the request was not met with compliance, but with a verbal onslaught of "I can play whatever I want, whenever I want, etc, etc"
The young man finally looked over at Mia who was sleeping and said that he would turn it off, but only because of the baby.
There were a few moments when I thought there could be trouble
but it all worked out okay and I was very proud of my husband for
speaking up for what is right.
Good Bye San Francisco...........We had a great time!
Hope we'll get to see you again soon!
God Bless,
tammy
