San Fran in a Million Pics

I had never been to San Francisco. It was one of those places that seemed everyone I knew had been to and looked crazy fun, but hadn't been granted priority status. After Ellie headed home at the end of Summer and Aeryn headed to her dad's, Jim and I headed out on a little mini-vacay. Of course the tater tot came along.

We were able to check off another National Park on the list; #34 for us (I think) was Pinnacles National Park in California. It's a fairly recent addition to the park list, and frankly it was a little less impressive to me. I think being the first new park we've seen since Alaska last fall worked against it since the Kenai Fjords totally blew my mind.

Yup. It pretty much looks like this.

I had packed for San Fran, which was supposed to be cool and gray much like home. I hadn't thought about what it would be like wearing cool weather clothes in the scorching hot, dry, miserable desert. It was nice to check it off, but I confess it isn't one that I feel compelled to revisit in the summer. Perhaps another season would be better.

I kind of love Golden Gate Park. I love how big it is and how much variety there is. It's similar to how I feel about Millennium Park in Chicago just with a lot more "park" to it.

We walked all over and made the little dude sit in an umbrella stroller for seemingly unending periods of time, after he'd already sat in a car for hours.  He handled it like a champ despite the fact that he had pinkeye and his eyes kept trying to glue themselves shut. When we finally let him out to roam he was ecstatic.

Of course we had to head to Ghirardelli and get ice cream. It's a good thing we were ok with getting it to-go, or else we'd probably still be in line waiting for a table.

The highlight of the trip (for me anyway) was biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. We happened to be there at the tail end of Europe's summer vacation and there were more tourists than I could have imagined. That caused a bit of confusion with our bike rentals but once it was all figured out we headed on our way. I may have had a bit of a bad attitude at times because I haven't been terribly active for the last year and am completely out of shape. It was harder than I expected at the beginning, but once we made it onto the bridge it was smooth sailing. At least it was smooth if you don't count the wind that tried to knock us over each time we'd come around a turn.

Proof that the little man was there. He will never be able to say that he was 38 before ever making it to San Francisco.

This is where I remind myself why I carry a real camera. The iPhone is so convenient and little that I often rely on it instead of carrying a nicer camera. Half the pictures in this are from my phone and half are from the dslr. I'll let you guess which are which, but it probably won't be too difficult to determine.

Tate loves when daddy tosses him in the air. Actually, Tate just loves daddy. For a time he was a mama's boy and I was perfectly ok with that. Now that I'm working and he has more time with Jim it has completely changed (at least I'm blaming it on that). It's not uncommon for him to crawl over me just to get to his dad now. I can't say I blame him. He's got a pretty remarkable dad.

Timed family shots aren't as easy to accomplish as they once were. Tate latched on to my hair and fortunately all I did was laugh even though it wasn't the most comfortable situation.

I had hoped to walk the bridge the next morning on the pedestrian friendly side to view the skyline as the day had been clear and the colors vivid when we were biking, it just wasn't easy to see from the bike friendly side of the bridge. Morning traffic was crazy and the sky was quite hazy so we decided to just head out, but I had taken this one from the park on our way up to the bridge so I feel I got that covered, even it is far less stunning.

As we left town we headed up to the Marin Headlands and drove the scenic loop. The day was cool and foggy and just plain perfect. I love this kind of weather. I love that the top of the bridge disappears into the fog. I love that I can now say I've been to San Fran. I loved this whole weekend, and I love that my hubby plans amazing experiences for us to have. My life is much more adventurous than it has ever been and I have the best company imaginable.