I had been stalking the weather in San Francisco for weeks before we left and since Josh was already in California for nine days, I thought I would be prepared. It turns out mid-sixties in sunny Alabama with high humidity is a stark contrast to mid-sixties in a foggy, drizzly, zero-humidity city. The moral of this story? Pack sweaters and jeans for coastal towns in Northern California. Thankfully, we knew that morning that we needed to wear our warmest clothes. For Josh that was workouts (again) and for me, it was my new jeans and sweater from Stitch Fix. Our plan for the morning was brunch in Haight Ashbury before heading south.
We started out at The Grind and it was an even better breakfast than the day before. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had french toast and hashbrowns again!! After breakfast, we walked around this famous neighborhood for quite awhile. I must tell you, Josh was less than thrilled about this stop, but he knew better to argue with me about it. I am a huge Grateful Dead fan and I couldn’t resist visiting their place of origin. Much like I randomly found myself in NYC on the anniversary of John Lennon’s death, I happened to be in San Fran on the anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death, too. Random and completely not planned, but it actually worked best with our schedule to visit here on the 9th! We walked up to the corner of Haight and Ashbury for a photo op (Josh felt ridiculous taking this picture of me) and then visited 710 Ashbury Street where they lived during the sixties. We stumbled by a really cool shop full of great clothes and accessories and I bought a beautiful scarf. It was timely because the wind was whipping and I needed an extra layer!
Next up was Alamo Square. We had tried visiting the Painted Ladies the day before and couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere. Since we used Uber for transportation all day on Saturday, we didn’t have to worry about it that morning! Not to mention it was in the lower Haight, so we were able to walk here from breakfast. In case you aren’t familiar with Uber, it’s like a cab service, but so much better. You set up an account on-line, fill in your billing information and download the app on your phone. It uses GPS to locate you and sends a car to pick you up. No cash changes hands and the tip is included! The most expensive trip we took was just over $12, but most of them were between $7 and $9.
Alamo Square is so gorgeous! It’s a park with a huge hill that overlooks some gorgeous Victorian homes. The most recognizable ones are these behind me. If you were a Full House fan in the nineties, you probably recognize them from the opening montage. I swear I was singing the theme song all day long after that! Ella is a new fan of the show, so I was sure to text her a photo from this neighborhood!
Aren’t they gorgeous?! Of course, one was being painted, so the scaffolding blocked your view from here, but I loved all of the bright colors. I also feel like such a cheese-ball posting so many photos of myself?! Most of the ones we have together are “team selfies” and Josh made a face every time I took one of him alone. My mom used to fuss at me for taking pictures of all these landmarks with no people in them when I was in college, so I’m almost sure to stand in front of something.
And the Painted Ladies aren’t the only pretty houses in the neighborhood. They pretty much flank the park on all sides and every single street in the Haight is lined up with brightly colored houses.
How amazing is this VW bus?! It said “Love Tours” on the side and I was incredibly sad not be riding around San Fran in this thing.
Soon after, we scheduled another pick up and had the driver take us to Fisherman’s Wharf. We caught our first glimpse of the cable cars as we headed down Taylor Street towards the Embarcadero.
We had lunch at a cute little restaurant right on the water called Fog City. In true form, I had a burger and fries again, but Josh had the Saigon Pork Dip sandwich and said it was great. I wish I had taken pictures while we were there because it was adorable, but like I said yesterday, Josh has a strong no camera policy in restaurants!
After lunch we walked around the wharf for awhile. We toured this Submarine, but got out of there as quickly as possible. I’m not usually claustrophobic, but pair a small space with the rocking of the water and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. We took a few photos inside, but I looked green in them all. We also managed to catch the sea lions sleeping just off of Pier 39. I couldn’t believe how many of them there were! There were a few really large ones that had a floating dock to themselves and any time another sea lion tried to climb aboard they started barking and knocked them off!
Our biggest adventure of the day was a tour of Alcatraz Island. Tickets sell out weeks in advance and since we were traveling so last minute, I kind of had to finagle the tickets. I ended up getting combo tickets from Columbus Cyclery that included a bike rental for not much more money. Our plan had been to bike across Golden Gate into Sausalito the day before, but the bus to Muir Woods doesn’t run on weekdays. Rather than come back and pick up our car after the bike rides and head back over to the redwood forest, we just scrapped our bike rides. I’m sure we would have loved it, but I don’t regret how we ended up scheduling the weekend.
We were on the last day trip to the island and after waiting in line for about 30 minutes, we were on the ferry headed out to Alcatraz. Excuse the smudges and glare on the photograph below — I snapped it through the window where I was sitting inside the ferry. I don’t love big boats and was trying to stay as still and quiet as possible during the fifteen minute ride.
We did a 30 minute audio tour in the cell block that was very interesting. I took some pictures, but who really wants to look at old toilets and bars? I learned a lot and I’m really glad I can check it off my list, but this part of the day was all for Josh. He loved it and I happily followed him around. Probably my favorite part of the island were the decaying homes – particularly that of the Warden. There are bits and pieces of furniture and fixtures laying around, but they are almost completely overcome with plants and birds. I thought they were beautiful!
And, of course, there was a photo op near the wall! The flowers and the bay were just too good to resist.
After we were back on dry land, we found a discount store to duck into and I picked up another sweater for the next day. I had worn all of my warm clothes and it was obvious that a tank top wasn’t going to cut it for our plans on Sunday. We weren’t the only ones with those thoughts — it took almost 30 minutes to check out and then we were in an Uber car headed back for nap time.
We decided to check on our rental car before walking upstairs and discovered that we misunderstood the parking situation. Apparently “park free on the weekends” really means “park free on Sundays” and we earned ourselves a $66 parking ticket. Thank you, San Francisco. The good news was, it was after six o’clock and at least we didn’t have to move our car again until we left for the airport Monday morning. We decided to take another nap until time for dinner since we were exhausted from so much walking. I remember Josh waking me up at 10 o’clock and then at some point after midnight he told me to take off my jeans and tennis shoes. We were so tired that we slept straight through dinner! When we woke up the next morning we had logged twelve hours of deep sleep. It. Was. Glorious.
