My children are mouth-open, don't care that they are sharing double beds tired. They both fell asleep before we turned out the lights. In all our travels, that is a first. When we got back tonight, we were all dirty...but the best kind of dirty. Explore a city, take the Bender route when the public transportation plan falls through, climb statues kind of dirty. I love cities. I love the energy. I love that at 10:30 at night someone is playing the saxophone outside beautifully. I'm getting ahead of myself...
6am wake up in Tifton was rough, made rougher by the fact that I slept awful. Maybe three hours. Zoe does not share a bed well, and I think I was just too excited to sleep. All would have been well, except wifi was out. Really? I'd rather the hot water be out! Come on! But we were up and out quickly. The drive to ATL was easy and before we knew it we were on our shuttle to the airport.
We were worried about screening lines in Atlanta, but it was a breeze. We grabbed breakfast and made it to our gate with time to do a bit of work before our plane took off.
Plane selfie!
Chris and Zoe commandeered the window seats, but Zack and I were happy to spend our flight absorbed in our books. The view was pretty awesome (or so I heard...and now see.)
It was an easy flight. No issues! Soon enough we were back on the ground and headed to grab our rental.
The guy at the rental desk tried to sell us on upgrading to a Lexus or Mercedes SUV. Which sounded amaze-balls until he threw in that it would be an extra $50/day. Hello Toyota 4-Runner.
We got our first taste of San Francisco (I am so tempted to just write San Fran because the whole name is long y'all. But I read somewhere that locals DO NOT like it when you don't use the whole name.) traffic. Nothing horrible, but it took us 10 minutes to go .7 miles. On the way we called and sang Grandma L her only California-based Birthday wishes ever! Happy birthday L!! We arrived at The Kensington Hotel and voluntarily gave the car we had just gotten to the valet guy to take care of. No need for a car for what we had planned today! Check out this cute lobby! Bender is pretty cute too.
And the crazy elevator with a bench. Zoe was very impressed with this...Zack not so much.
The room is cozy (read crazy, smaller than what we were used to in Europe small). This is literally the whole thing...
Then we decided to take the stairs down from our room on the 11th floor. Our hotel is actually shares floors and elevators with the Elks club and a theatre.
Pretty cool setup! Very cool staircase.
They were obviously ready for me in the lobby...it was sherry hour! I've never had sherry before. It was pretty good.
Then we were off to explore! Our plan was to take a cable car down to Fishermans Wharf. Fantastic plan. Unfortunately, all the cable cars were full before they got to our stop, so they weren't even stopping. Plan B...as in Benderz...walk. Despite Zoe totally wearing the wrong shoes, we made the two mile, all uphill trek (at least that's what it felt like!) in record time. We saw Union Square on the way.
Our walk took us through both Chibatown and Little Italy. Fishermans Wharf is pretty incredible.
We stopped for some clam chowder in a bread bowl and some chicken tacos at Boudin @ Fisherman's Wharf. Just a little snack. It was around 5 here...so still kind of early for dinner for the Benderz!
Chris was in bakers heaven. Check out all the fun loaf shapes!!
Then we kept on trucking! Next on the list was Ghirardelli Square. But first we took a few minutes at the park to enjoy the "NY" grass (you have to tell Pop Pop mom!).
A gymnast's work is never done!
Ghirardelli Square was pretty sweet (see what I did there?). We got free chocolate samples and found a banana split that feeds 4 that only costs $40. What a steal! We passed on that today...maybe tomorrow!
Then we spent some time at the beach watching the crazy swimmers in the crazy cold water. It is COLD here. At one point Zoe pulled out a NY reference! Chris dipped his toes in, but that was all his thin blood could handle.
There was even a little bit of time for a coastal engineering lesson! So intense these three are.
We walked a little farther to get a better view of the Golden Gate Bridge. We're looking forward to driving over it tomorrow! We also saw a lady completely bust on a Segway tonight. Like fell off. Was glad she was wearing a helmet busted. She was fine...just embarrassed!
Then it was time to head over to Pier 39. When Chris and I did our cross country trip we have funny memories of dinning at a restaurant that we were totally underdressed for! Like our shorts and tees did not match up with their cocktail dresses and suits underdressed! It was fun to show Zack and Zoe someplace we had explored before!
Pier 39 family selfie! We also had a chance to see the sea lions. There weren't a ton but we saw them! And heard them! What a ruckus!
Then, I needed wine. The day was catching up with me and I needed to sit and chill for a few. So dinner at Eagle Cafe it was with an amazing view of the water. Zack had pizza, Zoe had pasta.
Chris and I shared an order of fish and chips, but had our own glasses of wine.
We squeezed in one more family pic in front of a gorgeous sunset.
And then it was finally cable car time! Yay! We had pretty horrible timing. We must have waited in line at least 30 minutes while the employees were boarding, selling tickets and taking (very) long breaks. It was fun to see them turn the cars around and get them moving again! Zack and Zoe were super patient...
Who am I kidding? This was two minutes before the last pic. They were done. It was 9:30 west coast time, which puts it at 12:30 east coast time. We are so very lucky our kiddos are such rock stars. Only one person cried today and it wasn't either of them (it was really time for wine y'all!).
I'm so glad we waiting and rode the cable car. So fun! Totally recommend it if you get out this way.
And Zack even got to read a couple pages of his new Alcatraz book.
And that brings me back to this picture. 1am easy coast time in our lobby. Bender is kissing a horse. We'd all been up 19 hours. It was an excellent, fantastic, amazing day and night, but it was so over.
Love and XOXO,
Benderz
Safe travels from all the schaffners . We will miss you guys so much in Germany!
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