For Maxine's 17th birthday, Merril had an idea to give her a trip to San Francisco, with a parent of her choosing, to see the musical, "Hamilton." MLK weekend was the decided time and I was able to go with her. Merril had taken Maxine to New York City and Washington D.C. the year before.
Friday, January 17th. We drove to Vegas and hopped on the cheap flight to SFO. It was $85 for 2 roundtrip tickets! So crazy cheap. Maxine had a long list of things she wanted to see and I wanted to make it all happen. We mapped out things to see and eat and set off!
After landing, we rode the train into San Francisco and dropped off our bags. We snagged some food and caught another train out to Oakland to do baptisms at the Oakland Temple.
Their temple was lovely and unique! When we caught the train back, we didn't realize we caught the train headed in the wrong direction. It was 3 stops before I looked up and noticed that we were headed into the hills of Oakland instead of back towards San Francisco. We hopped off and sat freezing in dresses on an outdoor train platform for 6 minutes. Then we jumped on and started moving back towards San Francisco. Woops!
We made it back to the hotel safely after another Lyft ride and our hotel room was cold. And we were freezing. Our hotel was a small, old, boutique hotel and our room didn't have climate control. I went downstairs to the front desk to ask what could be done about the temperature in our room and the lady handed me a space heater. Sweet!
Saturday, January 18th. The next morning, we went around the corner to a bake shop Maxine had wanted to try. It had all sorts of croissant type breakfast pastries, including a cruffin (croissant/muffin).
They were excellent! And we thought the sign was funny.
We walked around Chinatown because there was a festival going on. We saw the cool dragon puppets that are often in Chinese parades. I love the ways the eyes blink on the puppets.
We ended up stopping for lunch at a Greek place that looked like it had lots of vegetables and also had shawarma! There's a scene in Avengers and Iron Man is talking about shawarma and so we had to get some!
Then it was time to head over to the Orpheum Theatre for Hamilton! Maxine was so excited!!! She couldn't wait for it to start and the architecture inside was very awesome!
I'd never listened to many songs from Hamilton so I was going in a little blind but it was a good show and Maxine loved it. King George was probably my favorite character and he's not even in it very much. :)
Then we went to Coit Tower for beautiful views of the city at sunset. We had to wait for a half hour to ride the elevator to the top. It was open at the top and windy, making for a cold observatory. Nice pictures though.
After we went to Ghirardelli Square for dinner and dessert. We had fondue and a Ghirardelli chocolate sundae.
We decided to walk down by Fisherman's Wharf and on the way, Maxine saw Madame Tussaud's wax museum and we jumped in on a whim. We had fun snapping selfies with celebrities, but I had forgotten how weird they are. I keep expecting the wax figure to flinch or say "Boo!" They're so realistic that they seem like real people. Selfies with Steve McQueen, Taylor Swift, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Nicolas Cage.
We wandered around fisherman's wharf and we went to a mirror maze. It's super trippy and it's hard to get out of. We were stuck in for a while.
We caught a Lyft home to the hotel, wasted.
Sunday, January 19th. We started our day at the Golden Gate ward for church. We went back to the hotel to change. We had a million things to see on our list but all we really wanted to do was take a nap. Which we did. :) This was our vacation so we did what we wanted. Half an hour later, we were ready to see the Painted Ladies.
Then to Ramenwell for some fantastic ramen.
Then a Lyft to Golden Gate Park and we wandered through the flower conservatory. It was nice because it was kind of warm in there!
We wandered through the park for another bit until I was afraid we were going to miss the Golden Gate Bridge because it would be too late. We got there about 45 minutes before sunset and the wind was whipping! We ordered 2 hot chocolates and proceeded to brave the wind so we could walk across the bridge and back. We walked to the 2nd suspension tower and turned around to head back, 2.5 miles total. The hot chocolate helped and we were walking briskly so that helped warm us. We saw 2 dolphins swimming in the ocean below!
I know this one is blurry but we kind of liked it the best.
And then a Lyft to our dinner reservation, Causwells. We split a burger and dessert and then walked to the Palace of Fine Arts. Built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, it's just cool to look at.
Then tired and cold, we headed back to the hotel to crash.
Monday, January 21st. Our last day in San Francisco was all about Alcatraz. We had to get up early to catch the earliest group, since our flight was in the afternoon and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time.
It was creepy and old and everything that it should have been.
Please don't commit crimes, my children. You don't want to end up in these types of places.
On the way to Alcatraz in the Lyft, the driver asked if this was our first time to Alcatraz. I said it was my 3rd and Maxine's 1st. Then I remembered that she was there as a small child. I bet she's 18 months in this picture in the cell house. She didn't remember at all so it really felt like her first time.
We popped down to Fisherman's Wharf again for some clam chowder for me and to see the seals. There weren't very many of them but still a few to look at.
Then we hurried back to the hotel to pick up our bags and made our way back to the San Francisco airport. We ended our vacation with all-you-can-eat sushi in Vegas, although we were stuffed from all the eating. We got a little adventurous and had quail egg (left) and sea urchin (second from left). The quail egg was hard for me. It made the sea urchin palatable, which is really saying something.
We spent so much money on Lyfts. They were SO EASY and fast! We were able to see so much in San Francisco because of the Lyft rides, instead of waiting for the bus and then walking 6 blocks.
My only regret is that I didn't build a rest day for Maxine after we got home. We got home from traveling at 10:00 p.m. and she had to go to school the next day. Sorry girl. However, we saw and did a lot in San Francisco and hopefully that's all we remember.
