San Francisco

 The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was impressive. We were lucky to get it on such a clear day, but it was cold!  The kids didn't believe me when I told them to pack winter clothes to California.  They told me that they were good to not go swimming since they just went swimming all over the place for our cruise.  That worked out nicely. This was at Battery Spencer Cove.

Afterwards we drove through Sausalito and looked at all the cute water homes.  They were super tiny and super expensive.  Worth millions of dollars for that prime location in Sausalito.

We went and got ice cream because that was the cheapest thing we could come up with to buy there.  No way were we brining all these kids into Gucci or Prada.  We stopped by a souvenir shop and even that was above and beyond.  That's how we travel.

Next we got more pictures at Baker Beach.  Getting some pictures by the bridge was on my must do list.  And we even had a cute little photo bomber to boot. It was still freezing that day.

And the kids found some random coconuts on the beach and some homeless folks so over all it was a good time.

And I had to use this picture of my sister's crazy crew.  They definitely did good on the posing.  We also went down Lombard Street and almost rolled backwards down those steep hills!  I thought we were going to get stuck.  Our tires would squel just to get going again.  It was crazy!

The next day we hit up the Exploratorium Museum and it was pretty fun.  They fashioned this drinking fountain out of a toilet.  I could not bring myself to drink out of it, but the kids thought it was a good time.  We spent almost 5 hours at this place.  It was very well done.  The kids even learned some things.

We went driving around to see some of the sites.  We went to the old tower that was built at the top of a hill.  It had murals from the early industrial days depicting how life was in San Francisco.

The next morning we ended up going to Pier 39 to see all the seals and wait for our boat to Alcatraz.  there was seal poop all over.  I wasn't expecting that, but it makes sense.

Lucas made me take random pictures of him all along the way until we would get so far behind we would get lost.

 

Yup.  This one too.  I'm not kidding when I say that Lucas LOVES Lucas and getting his picture taken.

We were told it would be freezing on Alcatraz so we dressed in a million layers and then had to hike up a big hill and had to carry all the kids' coats.  How come I never read anything about that on any blog??  Maybe they were fine with packing layers because nobody has 6 kids who have 2 coats each that you have haul up a hill.  Never trust what you research on the internet.

This was their rec area where they got to play sports games, play cards etc.

Black prisoners and White prisoners were segregated and Black prisoners often received harsher punishments and harsher sentences.  It still is a big problem in the U.S.  Its sad to see how much things have not changed.

We learned about 3 prisoners who escaped and were never found ever again.  Everyone assumes that they drowned and never made it very far to the water, but their bodies were never found so who knows.  Maybe they had someone on the outside come get them in a boat or something.  Who knows.

We learned some crazy stories about some of the prisoners.  Al Capone, who went crazy from Syphilis and other Black prisoners who there for petty crimes like forging a check to buy food and really ridiculous things. Our justice system is not just.  I am regretting not taking the kids to Angel Island where immigrants were detained unjustly sometimes for years in not so good conditions and "quarantined" because they were thought to be diseased. Next we found a good clam chowder place to eat at and headed for Ghiradelli's next.

This was the most expensive sundae I have ever bought and will ever buy.  It was 22$.  Jessa made us get the Dubai Chocolate Sundae.  It was gross.  But Jessa ate the whole thing herself and I don't think anyone cared all that much.  We just got two to share because they were so rich and so expensive.  Yikes!  It was still a must and fun thing to do while in "Rome."

We waw these Waymo cars everywhere without drivers in them.  They are all just computerized.  It was hillarious watching people trying to figure out how to get into the things.  We even saw one run a red light.  And we were all wondering who gets to pay THAT ticket?!

We waited in line for 45 minutes to get on the cable cars to take us down to Chinatown.  It ended up not being a bad way to travel.  All the kids wanted to  stand on the outside of the cable cars and thought it was pretty sweet.  The cable cars seem to be pretty efficient even now.

Yup.  He made us take this picture of him right in the middle of Chinatown.  It will be sad when he out grown this craziness.

We walked around Chinatown for a bit and looked at all the shops.

I can't remember what these traditional Chinese instruments were called unfortunately.  It was fun to see the ingenuity of the Chinese immigrants and how they survived the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Earth quakes, the racially motivated raids all trying to take over this prime real-estate, which ironically White people in power confined them to originally.  It was fun to learn some of the history there.  Some Japanese relocated here after the concentration camps in Utah and Black folks came here making it the Harlem of San Francisco looking for more freedom from oppression, jut to find you can't out run the racial oppression in the United Stated.

Many business tried to keep the Chinese culture alive to attract tourism and also as a type of defiance.

We walked down Diagon Alley and watched how to make fortune cookies.  The kids kept trying to take the "adult fortune cookies" with adult fortunes in them and got yelled at a couple times.  We were a wreck in that tiny store.

We found the LDS chapel in Chinatown just in the nick of time before Lucas peed his pants.  Luckily I was able to convince the missionaries to let him use their bathroom, since bathrooms were scarce.

After the earthquake that destroyed a lot of buildings in Chinatown people began to rebuild using the same charred bricks that survived the earthquake.  This church is a good example of how all those burned bricks were used to rebuild.

We rode the cable cars back to the parking garage and took up the whole car just by ourselves.  It was fun to learn about the history of Chinatown, the racism it's people have faced and the struggle that is still present there.