Spring Break San Francisco Bus Tour Day

We decided to pay the money on Friday to do a Hop on Hop Off Double Decker Bus Tour of San Francisco.  It was an awesome idea.  I plan on doing this in any city I am unfamiliar with.  It was awesome.  Anyway the day started with us admiring the sea lions off of the pier as Rob went to track down our tickets.  Lots and lots of sea lions hanging out, pleasing the tourists.

 After the tickets were sorted out we decided we needed some more food so we got some sourdough bread and pain au chocolats.  Parfait.  We made our way through fisherman's wharf and over to Ghiardelli square where we stocked up on snacks for the day.

 Then we hopped on our hop off hop on bus and began the tour:

 We got off at Union Square and made our way to H&M where the ladies shopped and the men waited outside:

From there we hopped back on and got off near Chinatown.  We meandered through Chinatown where we enjoyed looking at the kitsch and the interesting food:

 We veered off our Chinatown path and found ourselves in Little Italy just in time for lunch.  We found a delicious meal at Trattoria Pinnochio.  Best of all we had a waiter who insisted Tucker go on back to the kitchen to wash dishes:

 After lunch we urban hiked up Lombard Street where we climbed the steps to the top.  My quads were super sore the next day.  If you lived in SF you would be in excellent shape.  My poor gimpy Dad did it on crutches. The hills are a killer:

After this we decided to redo the entire bus loop without getting off and it was a great choice.  We had a really fun tour guide on this loop and she even played her violin for us.  She was pretty dang good.  Bus tour guide is her day job, for sure:

 San Franscisco bought all the old vintage street cars from all over (Milan, Brooklyn, LA, Chicago, were a few I saw) that run along the Embarcadaro.  I loved them:

 Lots of great architecture in SF:

 Where we usually spend Spring Break:

 The church where Joe DeMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had their wedding photos taken (it's a catholic church and because of divorce issues they weren't allowed to marry there.  See what you learn on tours?):

 We ended the day back where we started:

 Clara had a glorious day and performed a dance to express the feelings that were spilling over, as usual:

Fantastic Day.  I love SF!

Spring Break: Monterey+

On Thursday we got up and got ready and were out the door with a send off by Hank and Colette, our hosts.  We drove down to San Juan Bautista, and California was glorious.  The golden hills were green and it was a beautiful drive.  We arrived at the mission and took a self guided tour:

One of my favorite parts of the interior were the dog paw prints in the tile floor.  A dog must have been running around when they were drying outside.  

 Then we drove to Monterey where we had lunch and spent several hours at the awesome aquarium.  Clara said it was the best day of her life.  It was fun:

At one point during the aquarium they were feeding the penguins and they let kids ask questions.  Clara had her hand up for a good 15 minutes and got to ask how penguins swim with their eyes open.  Good question from our persistent girl. 

Watching the otters play in the kelp beds.  Very cool:

From Monterey we went to the amazing Point Lobos State Park and enjoyed the cliff top trails.  Rugged, dramatic, and beautiful.  And can I just add that running at sea level is A LOT easier than running in Reno.  Holy cow.  What a difference!!!

 We had grand plans for an evening spent at the Board Walk in Santa Cruz but it slipped our mind that it was April and in April they close at 5.  So we stopped at a beach.  It was chilly, but no one cared.  No one got in the water (maybe because when anyone got close I yelled at them.  Who wants to deal with wet sandy kids?)

So for dinner we headed back to Palo Alto where all the HDT's were gathered for dinner.  It was fun to see everyone.  We had a terrific day!!!