Tom’s back to running this year, so we took his latest event as an excellent excuse for a little weekend getaway in San Francisco!
We were a little worried about the weather, but wouldn’tcha know? It totally cooperated. It rained only when we were in our room, and it stayed away for the duration of Tom’s run and for the rest of the day while we explored!
The kids were awesome, as usual. Both of them love being away from home!
It didn’t rain, but it sure was cold! On our first day there, we got a new knit hat and gloves for Cameron and a pair of “magic” gloves for Dylan (but they were too floppy for him to want to wear!)! We also got mass transit passports for unlimited rides on Muni, the streetcars and cable cars, so we took mass transit everywhere!
Our first stop was the Expo so Tom could pick up his bib. We walked along the edge of Crissy Field and through the Presidio and got great views of the Golden Gate and Alcatraz.
By the time we were through with the Expo, Little Miss Active absolutely needed to get out of the stroller, so we set her free during our walk to Fort Mason where we had lunch at Greens at a window table overlooking the yacht harbor.
Cameron still sees Swiper everywhere and wards him off with the usual chant.
Dylan tried to keep warm in the stroller until, finally, Cameron’s antics enticed him to join her. This gal has so much energy, it’s incredible! She loves doing things on her own (putting on her shoes, applying lip balm, carrying bags, etc….) and she loves climbing and balancing and running! All along the way, she practiced bear crawls and turtle walks!
We were planning to spend the rest of the day, afer our lunch at Greens, hanging out at Crissy Field, but Cameron needed a nap. So we headed back to the room where Dylan did lots of acrobatic/tumbling performances for us….and Cameron never fell asleep!
The next morning, the kids woke up early!! So while Tom set out on his run, the kids and I had some breakfast, played restaurant, watched the streetcars go past our window (turns out having a room facing the street had an upside!) and got ready to see Tom at the finish line!
The start/finish line for the race was mere minutes away from our hotel, so it was a quick and easy walk…and it was an absolutely gorgeous morning!!
I love how Dylan’s face lit up and he started bobbing and swaying to the music as soon as we got into the finisher’s area and he heard the music blaring from the speakers!
Tom, by the way, had a great run!
It was still pretty chilly, so we slapped that knit cap onto Cameron’s sweet little head.
Then, after checking out of our room, we headed for lunch at a family fave, Herbivore, via cable car and bus!
There was no line to get on the cable car (and the cable car station was minutes way from the hotel as well!)! We got great seats and it was so awesome to watch Dylan’s excited expressions during the entire ride!! He’s clearly still interested in all things on rails!
After lunch, we rode the cable car back up to the Cable Car Museum and spent about an hour or so checking out all of the gears and cables that make the system work. In all of my years living in California, this was the first time I’d been there (!) and it was so awesome to see it! Even more awesome, is Dylan’s interest in it. He is clearly interested in how things work and seeing the inner workings of the cable car system was no exception. He spent minutes on end watching the workers repair a cable (one line happened to be down, so the wheels weren’t cranking!) and had endless questions and comments on how it all worked and why did San Francisco decide to keep their cable car system, etc…? At one point, when I pointed out that the cable car was busted and we could tell because the wheel wasn’t moving, he corrected me and told me that the cable was busted, but the cable car was just fine!!!
He also just liked ringing the bell!
We all had so much fun, we’re thinking of going back again for an April run…Dylan already wants to ride the streetcars (that also ride on rails), but he wants to ride the older ones with the peeling paint…he’s even willing to let the newer-looking ones go by so we can get on an old one (he knows there are older ones because he “spent a lot of time at the curtain” (as in the curtain in our hotel room!)!
