San Francisco for Spring Break

Travel Log

day 1
We got up at 5:15 am and caught our early flight to San Francisco on April 3rd 2015. We had our rental car by 9:30 AM and drove to Oakland to visit the temple. Weston was suddenly not feeling well, that has happened for the past 3 trips consecutively that Weston comes down with something while we are traveling, poor kid. He kept his spirits high none the less. This time it was a head cold so I let him lay down in the car and watch something while Fiora, Savanna, and Jared did some baptisms. They had a lovely experience, and the grounds around the temple were exquisite so I didn't mind waiting out there. The only problem was by the time that was done we were all starving. I had on the itinerary a suggested cafe in downtown Oakland--Rio California--located in a beautiful and quaint preservation park. Thankfully we found it, because the food was SO GOOD and the park beautiful. I highly recommend it to anyone. We made our way back to San Fran and the Golden Gate park, through heavy traffic on lots of hills. We had to get used to paying for parking everywhere we went, even the hotel charged $22 a night to park our car, but the convenience of the car was unappreciated until we tried the public transportation which I will address later. We visited teh California Academy of Sciences, saw a nice film there called Habitat Earth, saw a white alligator and lots of animals and butterflies and fish, and experienced an earthquake simulator. We decided to explore the park by renting a bicycle cart, what a beast! We were quite a spectacle all five of us trying to pedal and push and steer that around all the people. It was heavy and slow but we laughed more on that hour ride than the rest of the entire trip, the kids kept cracking jokes, they are getting to a really fun stage to travel with. Very beautiful weather and beuatiful scenery. We navigated to a Target to buy groceries for the next couple days, then finally got ot our hotel, the embassy inn and suites. Nice facility! Big atrium with a fish pound and a nice pool and hot tub and an amazing hot breakfast, buffet or made-to-order, and complimentary snacks in the evening, I liked to call the continental dinner. the room was nice and spacious as well, with a living room and a bedroom, a table and 2 double beds and a pull out bed. Someone got sick in the pool that night so the kids couldn't swim, which was a blessing, since they were too excited to realize how tired they were. We got ready for bed, and tried to sleep with poor Weston coughing and sniffling throughout the night. 

 Day 2 april4
Jared and I were a little excited to get out the door and go the the Muir wood forest, and we had a little conflict with the kids who wanted to go slow after a fitful night's sleep, so we all ended up having breakfast at different times, and it happened to be the busiest breakfast day we experienced there (lots of people there on Saturday), so after a rough start that our impatience only made things take longer, we all made it out to travel to our destination. The Muir woods were beautiful! We were all amazed by the huge and tall trees, and though it was cold we hiked for two hours the trails up to the canopy overlooking the forest and back down. Lots of picture opportunities, I wanted to stay there all day. Fiora had a hard time going up but coming down (and with a few snacks) she was great, and I found her a great walking stick to help her up. After our hike we visited some nearby beaches, by then our legs were tired and the wind was ferocious, so we didn't stay long at either beach although they were beautiful too. The winding roads on the panoramic highway made us all a bit nauseous, but again, beautiful views of the pacific ocean and rocky cliffs of California. We spent a bit of time finding a place to park so we could walk the golden gate bridge, and had to hike a bit from our parking spot before we could get to it, and the wind was still ferocious, but it was cool to be on a historical and tall bridge like that. Weston and I liked observing all the wind surfers taking advantage of the gusts. By the time we made it to Olive Garden we were tired and hungry and on edge, and unfortunately the waitress and waiter who served us were not very kind. We had selected that restaurant because we had a $50 gift card, but nonetheless we paid $26 more than that because the prices for food are higher in CA, and we had to tip the ornery servers. But we were grateful for the food and that we could SIT DOWN for a while. The kids still had energy to swim that evening at the hotel but I was beat, I shoved the earplugs in and crashed at 8:30.

classic photo bomb by Fiora

Day 3 April 5
Happy Easter on this Day. This was my favorite day collectively of the whole trip. Jared let us sleep a little longer and watch General Conference in the hotel at 9:00 this morning. I love being spritually fed! We got the hang of the breakfast set up and enjoyed the food we wanted without feeling rushed. I hid some sugar free chocolates (1 each) for the kids for a mini hunt in the hotel room, and they savored those while we watched conference. We packed some lunches and got in our rental car and headed back to the Golden Gate Park, Jared dropped me off there and took the kids to the Exploratorium near the wharf. I spent 3 hours enjoying the art collection at the de Young museum and having some alone time. The kids were no where near done exploring and the exploratorium, so I took myself on some tours through the Japanese tea garden and the botanical gardens in the park. Talk about pristine! I felt like I was in the garden of Eden strolling through those gardens. Sacred beautiful nature, God's creations, exquisitely manicured. Around 5:00 the kids were finally done and Jared came back to get me, it was a lot of walking, again for me and I was in a daze that evening, but the kids still had energy to swim! Jared reported that they were on their feet a lot but not a lot of walking, and they loved going from one interactive science experience to the next although it was hard to verbalize what they experienced. The kids said the stop motion movies they got to make were their favorite.