Dad and Mom take a vacation part 2

May 5 bright and early, and I mean super early like 6am we boarded a plane headed for San Francisco. The plane was pretty empty, I think there were maybe 20 passangers on it so it was a quiet flight and we had some good naps. We landed and waited for our luggage, about 12 bags came off and we realized that there should have been at least 13 bags. We were missing one, the big one with our clothes in it. We tracked it down, it was sitting in LA waiting for the next flight to bring it to us.  We decided to head into the city and check our one bag into the hotel so they would hold it until our room was ready, our hotel was great and held our luggage before checkin and after checkout while we explored the city. We scored an awesome deal using KSL daily deals and stayed in a hotel in Union Square for 2 nights with the total being less than 1 night at normal price. It might have been a little to trendy, but we couldn't pass up the deal, when we checked in they asked if we were with the gap convention. Do Mark & I look like we are with a gap convention? I say no. After gathering our jackets and umberalla from our luggage we headed out to explore and find our way to church. We had purchased 2 city pass booklets prior to our trip at the suggestion of friends, it gave us public transportation for 7 days and saved us lots of money on attraction also. Anyway we started walking toward chinatown when all of a sudden the sky opened and the rain fell.....hard! Lucky for us Mark was prepared and we stayed mostly dry.



 

It was fun to explore Chinatown, we didn't see much beside the outside of shops as we were hurrying to make it to church. It was just a fun place to wander, it was strange coming from home where everyone speaks spanish to Chinatown where everyone spoke chinese. I was actually thrown of guard when I heard someone speak spanish later in the week.

 

All around the city signs are posted on many streets stating how many wheels a vehicle can't excede if they want to go up a certain hill. The first day there we witnessed why there are these signs.

The back tires weren't touching the ground at all. I have to admit if we hadn't been trying to get somewhere I probably would have been content to watch and see how they got the bus moving again.

After catching a bus and some more walking we found the church building. It was wonderful to see for 2 reasons; #1 it was a church #2 it had a bathroom. Chinatown was not a good place to need a restroom stop, they all looked at me like I was crazy if I asked where one was located. If you remember we arrived in San Francisco without one of our suitcases, great for traveling by public transit not so great when you realize your church clothes were in that suitcase. I realize that woman all over the world attend church in pants each week and it's not big deal. I was raised you always wear your best to church, a dress in my family, so attending church with no dress was a new and very strange experience for me. I felt so out of place. Luckily we are required to travel in business casual so we were at least in nice clothes. Feeling out of place made it hard for me to want to stay for Sacrament meeting but I knew it was improtant especially since it was the first time Mark was able to attend in many months. As soon as the opening hymn started there was the most amazing spirit that seemed to shout at me that it didn't matter what I was wearing my Heavenly Father was just happy I was there. The spirit was amazing through out the entire meeting, I was so glad Mark encouraged me to go. The memebers of the ward were so nice, we spent close to 45 minutes chatting on the steps of the church after the meeting.

 



After church we headed down to the pier. In our city pass book we had passes for activities. One of those was a 60 minutes bay cruise with Blue and Gold Fleet. We decided to do that first. We got our tickets but before standing in line decided we should grab a hotdog since we really hadn't eaten up to that point in our day. As we gathered our food the man told us with great urgency to protect our hotdogs from the birds. Apparently they get pretty aggressive. Only one bird eyed our food so we must have looked REALLY hungry and like scary humans. We got inline for the tour a met a nice couple from Tennesse, we chatted by them and actually ended up sitting with them on the cruise. It was a little choppy, some poor lady next to use wasn't ready for that and spent most of the ride saying how she didn't like this. It was a fog free day on the bay so we had gorgeous views of the city and golden gate bridge.

 

 

 

Apparently long before the brindge was built during the 1800's the passage into the bay was known as the golden gate. This makes sense why it's named the Golden Gate Bridge, I was confused until that moment at why a red/orange/rust color bridge was called golden, now I know it came long before the bridge.

As we got near the bridge everyone went crazy trying to get a perfect picture, Mark found the other tourist as interesting to look as the bridge:) There was one mad who video taped the entire tour. First off who is going to watch that! Second whoever you convince to watch it will need motion sickness pills cause that boat was rolling all over. I always giggle when I see people video taping tours and such, really are you going to watch it again?

 

For the last part of our boat tour we circles Alcatraz island. It was actually very pretty and lots of beautiful landscape. The prison itself looked like something that should be haunted. I realize it probably is :) We didn't do the actual tour of the prison but it's on our list for next time we visit. There were interesting facts we did learn. One of which was that prisoners that ended up at alcatraz were considered so dangerous that they didn't unload them from the railroad cars on the main land. They put the entire railroad car onto a boat and shipped them over that way so they had no chance of escape.

 

 

After our boat tour we decided to visit The Aquarium of the Bay on the pier. I have been to aquariums before they are usually fun but not something I spend lots of time wandering around. This aquarium was fantastic. It was local fish and they had two walk through tunnels one for smaller fish and one for larger fish like sharks & sting rays. This is a definite must see in my opinion if you are in San Francisco. The staff was friendly and knew lots of information.  Excuse the poor quality photos, aquariums are hard to take pictures in.

Fact #1 star fish eat fish! They actually spit there stomach out and surround the food to digest it. Sorry if you are now grossed out, I thought it was an amazing fact.

Looks like Mark is under attack :)

Fact #2 sting rays are dark on the top so when predators swim above them they are dark like the ocean floor and white underneath so any predator looking up will confuse them with a ray of sunshine. CRAZY!

 



After all our sight seeing & walking we were hungry, very hungry. Our friends said we needed to eat at Boudin Bakery  on pier 39. We had yummy clam chowder in delicious sour dough bread bowls, my mouth is watering at the moment remembering it. It was a little warm outside but sitting at the pier made it okay to be eating soup.

 

Now you are wishing you had a bowl too! Stay tuned for part 3 of our adventure, it inculdes pedals, hills and helmets.......