2012- Week 37

1. The day after the wedding we went to San Francisco.  It was Link's first flight.  He did great.  He was amazed when looking out the window and kept saying things that made people laugh, like "We are soo far away!"

2. The hotel we stayed in was AWESOME.  The W, a starwood hotel.  We would have never been able to afford it had it not been paid for by Bryce's company.  It wasn't the luxurious rich type hotel, it was the totally rocking super star type hotel.



3. Bryce spent Monday-Wednesday at TechCrunch events hob-nobbing with celebrities like Jessica Alba, Mark Zuckerburg, and Cory Booker. Actually it was more like gawking at them, but it was pretty cool that his small-ish company made such headlines this week.  Heard it on NPR and saw it all over the papers.

4. Day 1- The kids and I spent our first day at Pier 39.  We ate a great breakfast at the Eagle Cafe (I had crab cake benedict and Agnes had strawberry french toast) and then we walked around the pier and watched the Sea Lions.  We rode the carousel, shopped the farmer's market (bought leches, champaign grapes, and dried kiwi), and then took the cable car all the way to Market Street.  We walked back to the hotel for some relax time with Link and then headed out again.  The hotel has a free car ride in an Acura so we took it to Chinatown and walked back.

 

 5. Day 2- We walked by the unveiling of the iphone 5 going on outside next door to our hotel and then we went to Market Square and Agnes bought her homecoming dress.  We stopped into other shops along the way too like Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, etc, and ended up eating at Boudin's Bakery (famous for sourdough bread).  We took the F line cable cars (cool vintage cars brought from all over the US) and went to Ghiradelli Square for an ice cream sundae dinner.  Agnes also got some cupcakes there.

6. Day 3- We got picked up in the morning for a trip to Muir woods.  We didn't get a lot of time at the woods but it was still great to see the redwoods again.  Our tour guide was eccentric to say the least.  He recited us poems that he had written or memorized to go with our tour.  I did enjoy the short jaunt through Green Gulch.  The Zen Center Garden's look amazing and something I may want to return to.  We ended up in Sausalito where we could roam around and take the ferry back, but by that time Link was zonked out so we just took the bus back.  We went to Hard Rock Cafe on Agnes' suggestion and walked the cold harbor at night, eating crepes for dessert and looking through tourist shops. Then ended up in a really weird situation where a somewhat scam artist tour bus picked up a bunch of us at the F line.  We had been on so many shuttle buses at this time that we thought nothing of it, until we went to leave and the guy followed us because we didn't pay, although we already had F line tickets.  Had we known we needed to pay in getting off we would have saved the cash we threw into street musicians buckets, but we were plum out.  It was embarrassing.

 

7. Day 4- After a morning Starbucks run and some play time on the free Pac Man game at the hotel we checked out the hotel and used Yelp to visit the Tech Crunch office.  Christine gave us a great little tour.  Then we went to Hertz for a car and drove 3 hours to Oakhurst near Yosemite National Park.  We ended the night with some bad Chinese and a very tired boy.

8. Day 5- We traveled to Yosemite today.  Stopping first at Mariposa Woods for some more time with red woods and then off to Glacier point for some amazing views.  We ended our time photographing deer in the valley that came right up to us and having some great BBQ at Todd's.

9.Day 6- We went back to San Francisco for our last day and played at the beach.  Lorri recommended Baker Beach and it was perfect.  Link loved getting his toes tickled by the water and watching drawings get washed away.  Following the beach we had dinner at Musical Offerings in Berkley.  An friend of ours from Elkader passed away last month who used to live in Berkley.  His memorial was on Saturday and since we were near his old stomping grounds we asked what we could do to celebrate his life, his daughter recommended visiting this place.  The nice meal and the classical music reminded us so much of him.  After dinner we went to a nearby playground to visit Erch, a friend of Bryce's from Cranbrook.  His wife and two daughters were there too.  I loved getting to know his wife, MB, who had so much in common with us.  She even lived in Manchester, IA for 4 years when she was young.

10.  We had to wake at 4 am to catch a 6 am flight back home.  Still were not into the house until 6 pm.  Blah, traveling back in time is always so draining.