This year we took advantage of lucky timing between my business travel on the west coast and Maclaren's spring break and headed to San Francisco. Allan, Maclaren and I spent Maclaren's first year there and we were excited to revisit with kids in tow. For the highlights click
here.
After reassuring ourselves that the school didn't
really desire a bunch of "rubes that have never left the county" [sic Allan], we sprung Maclaren loose from school the week before spring break and spent over 2 weeks in the city riding cable cars, buses and boats. And we walked miles and miles and miles through Chinatown, Japan town, our old stomping grounds in Pacific Heights and the Presidio. The weather was chilly and conditions were even more variable than I remembered. It was typically foggy, misty, rainy and cold in Union Square but bright, sunny warmer and windy less than 4 miles away on Crissy Field! Each day the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped with it so we all purchased hats, long sleeve shirts and jackets while we were there. (Um...did I mention that Allan packed the kids because I headed for the west coast earlier in the week? There's only so far that a couple of pairs of undies, jeans and a t-shirt will get you.)
We did ALL of the touristy things including Fisherman's wharf, North Beach, shopping in Union Square and not-so-touristy things like Golden Gate Park, Crissy Field, Baker's Beach and North Beach. Allan LOVED retracing the walks he used to take with Maclaren and visited our old neighborhood and all of his favorite places including the playgrounds and overlooks along the way.
I did convince Allan that maybe the hot spots today may not be the same ones we remembered 7 year ago and we quickly converted to using Yelp! and were never disappointed...Nick's Crispy Tacos in Russian Hill, Lou's Sandwiches in Outer Richmond. R&G Lounge for Chinese (sorry House of Nanking..but we have a new favorite now). We made a sojourn to Muir Woods and hiked up to the Mountain Home Inn which was one of our favorite weekend activities when we lived there. The kids did great and thank god we weren't schlepping them in a kid carrier!
The kids were incredible travelers! We shared one room with a king sized bed and pull out sofa the entire time and no complaints...not one! Once we established a "system" for who got to push the elevator buttons and who got to open the door with the key card...BLISS! And even though we rarely dine out with the kids at home, they were amazing little diners in the restaurants..tried every kind of Asian cuisine including dim sum (no likey), and by the end of the visit had their "favorites". Angus picked the Mexican joint next to the Marriott (HA!) and Maclaren developed a soft-spot for the Cable Car Cafe (across the street from the Marriott) for their specialty crepes (actually I can substantiate her rating)!
Viva San Francisco!
Bloggers notes:
1- We made the trip with our point-and-shoot which Allan manned for most of the trip (this isn't a disclaimer or anything...just want to establish some context)
2- I was only able to upload the "highlights" slide show to smugmug with a medium quality setting (what the????) which tends to emphasize point 1 above.
3- Only upon returning home and downloading the pics did I realize that we ended up with a disproportionate number of "posed" shots in front of cool landscapes (which are aplenty in SFO). I had fun with the editing the landscape shots (playing around with b&w, etc) and I think I would have preferred more candids to "tell the story". Allan and the kids were 5 days on their own and went EVERYWHERE via bus routes and cable cars but we missed photographing the sites/places (like Japan Town, Chinatown, Washington Square...) which I think the kids would have recognized/remembered and enjoyed. I guess that means we'll have to plan for another trip back to...San Francisco!
