January 22nd, hello San Francisco

Well it seems like forever ago but now that I have finally bothered to turn on my computer I think it's time to start catching up on the past few weeks!

January 21st we zipped the final suitcase and boarded our first airplane, Raleigh to San Francisco.  The return leg of our trip back to Asia had been booked and re-booked and re-booked again as flight times kept changing and I guess that's what happens when you book so far out, huh?  So the final iteration of our itinerary was my favorite, and it gave us a 36 hour layover in San Francisco.  Normally a layover with 14 pieces of luggage wouldn't be my first choice, but a *free* stop in such a fun city made it worth the luggage struggle.   We landed at 9pm local time, and I just considered it a head start on the jet lag journey ahead of us ;)  Luggage collected, hotel located, beds divvied up and we slept hard our first night in San Fran.

Back in Raleigh I had scoured the library for books about San Francisco, and we checked out everything from picture books about cable cars to travel guides to get ready for our day in the city.  [My favorite of all of them, Fly High Fly Low by Don Freeman is worth purchasing!  Such a good book!!]  So we woke up ready to see the sights!  Our hotel was in a great location and we could walk everywhere, except when we rode the cable cars :)

We were just a few blocks from Lombard Street, where we marveled at the steep twists and turns, walked down to the bottom and headed for the bay.

We wandered around the pier area for a while before buying some sourdough bread and walking over towards Ghiradelli Square to try out the cable cars.

The morning started off damp and overcast but by this time the sun was out and the skies were gorgeous.

Thanks to all our San Francisco book reading the kids had gotten off the plane talking about cable cars and Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge.

John Paul was looking for cable cars in the airport parking lot :)  Good thing we finally found one to ride!

We stopped at Union Square, wandered a few more city blocks and hopped another cable car line for the return trip to the pier area.  This conductor was really a treat - and since we rode to the final stop he was able to answer our questions, give a demo of how the brakes worked, and everyone got in a little bell ringing too.

After all that?  Clam chowder lunch and bike rental for seven please ;).

I was initially skeptical of this plan.  Bikes? In a big urban center?  across the Golden Gate Bridge?  But it worked out amazingly well.  We were able to mostly stick to bike paths, we got one tag along bike (John Paul and Luke took turns between the tag along and the smallest rental bike, and it was much easier to just have one free-wheeling little guy to keep up with).

The hill up to get across the bridge was long and steep.  And the bridge itself was even longer, and so so noisy!  It was a little intimidating, but thankfully the bike path was separated from traffic by fencing and the views were pretty incredible from up there!

In Sausalito we headed straight for the ferry dock and caught the ferry back to the San Fran side of the bay.

We had been riding several hours and everyone was glad for a chance to sit and rest, and it was starting to get pretty chilly.

Alcatraz was lit up in the sunlight, and the views of the city skyline were pretty impressive too.

Off the ferry on the other side we swung by pier 39 to check out the seals and then returned the bikes and drug our weary legs to In-N-Out burger for dinner and milk shakes.  Then up hill, up up up, all the way back to the hotel and YES! we slept great that night!