Adventure: Bay Area, California

For Thanksgiving this year I headed to San Fransico, California with my uncle Doug to visit my uncle Donn and aunt Debbie. Now let me tell you this before you get too involved reading this post (because it will be long), if it is in San Fransico I probably saw it or visited! My uncles and aunt were excited to show a San Fransico 'newbie' around and let me tell you we did it in style, meaning we had a bear from a classroom in Iowa and a flat cow from a classroom in Wisconsin that traveled with us and saw the sights and had pictures as well. We hope the 2 classrooms that are getting the pictures and postcards from us enjoy the fun we had with them both!

Thanksgiving Dinner
Doug and I flew out of Portland at noon on Thanksgiving Day and arrived in Oakland just before 2:00. Donn picked us up and we had a relaxing afternoon while he smoked a turkey in his 'Egg' grill. We had our Thanksgiving meal at dinner time complete with gobs of side dishes. It was excellent.

Day 1: Driving TourThe first day we drove around the Bay area and saw much of the area including Golden Gate Park, the Bay Bridge and the Oakland Raiders headquarters and stadium.

Full House Park a.k.a. Alamo Park
I was asked when I got there what I wanted to see, I had know idea what to say because I didn't know what San Fransico held besides the Golden Gate Bridge. But as we watched the news I saw what I call the Full House Park, because it is shown in the opening credits of Full House and I loved that show. Luckily Doug knew the correct name of the park, Alamo Park, and we went to see it and the 'Painted Ladies' which are the line of Victorian Houses in the background.

Lombard Street
The streets in San Fransico are not flat, but that is common knowledge. However, seeing them in real life they are crazy! Lombard Street is very steep, but its the way down that makes it so popular. It is a brick road that zig-zags all the way down. People line-up for blocks and probably destroy their brakes because they are on the steep side of the hill! But we waited for a while then snuck out and cut back in a few blocks later. Donn opened the sun/moon/whatever roof so I could stick my head out for pictures. Unfortunately, we were on the darker side of the hill, but it was still cool!

Golden Gate Bridge
To end our long day of driving we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Fransico must do! The bridge was solid traffic as was Vista Point, luckily we stopped on the south side of the bridge and took pictures too. After crossing the bridge we crawled through the exit to get to Vista Point. Doug and I jumped out while we were sitting in the exit and walked up to the overlook while Donn and Debbie drove through and picked us up. It was a tad crazy, but the traffic was not fun for anyone!

Day 2: Public Transportation/Walking Tour For day 2, we planned to do our walking tour of downtown San Fransico. When we woke up it was raining a bit but we decided to brave it out and luckily never got rained on! We visited and saw many different tourist attractions of the city.

BART
We started the day by taking the Bay Area Public transportation system, BART. The style there was more like Chicago than Portland is. I love watching the city go by on public transportation systems, so it was enjoyable to see a new city and the back side of the Oakland Raiders/Athletics stadium too.

Cable Cars
Well you can't go to downtown San Fransico without riding a cable car, so of course we did. We waited in line for a while, which showed the impatient side of all of us. But once on the the trolley we all rode holding on to the outside and snapping pictures. At the end of the ride we stopped at the famous Buena Vista Cafe for an Irish coffee before walking on. We then visited the Ghirardelli factory area for our free sample and headed to the Maritime pier, a national park with ships and maritime history.

Pier 39 & Ferry
After ducking into a restaurant to miss the rain. We watched an acrobatic street show and headed to Pier 39. We walked around the huge tourist area for a while before heading to the ferry dock. We then rode the ferry back across the bay to the Alameda side as the sun was setting and the city lights were coming on.

Day 3: Roadtrip TourFor the final day we decided to head to Santa Cruz. It was the warmest day and very sunny, an excellent day to be on the pier and near the beach.

Santa Cruz Boardwalk
The pier had an amusement park with a bunch of rides. We of course rode the Giant Dipper rollercoaster, which has been shown in several movies, the carousel and bumper cars. We also walked around the pier and saw an amazing amount of sea lions and watched sand volleyball on the beach. At the end of our adventure we took the coastal highway home and I got to see the Pacific Ocean at many different points and see the sun set.

At the end of day three we had our final meal together in Alemada before Doug and I were dropped off at the airport to head back to Portland. We made it back at about 10:45 and I was back home by midnight. It was a great trip, I fully enjoyed spending time with my uncles and aunt and getting a tour of the Bay are in their style and not in the 'I'm a super tourist' complete with bus tour.