San Francisco

After we visited the North Pole, we drove to San Jose, CA to be with Neil's family for Thanksgiving. We got there Saturday night and went to church the next day. Madoc ended up with a fever and laid on my lap the whole three hours of church. 

After dinner that night Neil and I left our sick children with Grandma and Grandpa and went to San Francisco by ourselves! We stayed for two nights and had a great time. We stayed at the Drake Hotel in downtown. It was really nice and pretty but it's an old hotel so our upgraded room was just really big and didn't really have anything special in it. We won't stay there again.

For breakfast we went to Boulette's Larder in the Ferry Building. Best. Breakfast. Ever. I don't remember what any of it was called but I had an almond tart and Neil had a fruit cake/bread. His was way better. But I had a European hot chocolate that Neil tried to recreate for the rest of the week. He couldn't quite do it but he got close once.

Then we did the usual. Walked through Chinatown. Walked along the piers. Ate clam chowder and fish and chips. 

 Then we went to Alcatraz which was by far the coolest thing we did all day. So fascinating. I've been to San Francisco before but never took the Alcatraz tour. I'm so glad we did this time.

The Golden Gate Bridge behind us as seen from Alcatraz.

After we got back to land we headed to Ghiradellis and split a brownie sundae. At this point it was getting cold and dark and I was really tired. The line for the trolley was ridiculous so we started climbing the hills. We made it to Lombardi street and went down and then back up that crazy twisty street. Then we managed to squeeze onto an already packed trolley and headed back to the hotel where we were really boring and watched tv until 10pm. At this point we were finally hungry for dinner so I sent Neil out into the dark and cold to find take out. Isn't he great?
The next day we checked out and went to pick up the car just to find out that the battery was dead. What an adventure. We finally made it out of the city a couple of hours later and home to our kiddos!