Our late start meant that we would be skidding into San Francisco just in the nick of time to catch our ferry to Alcatraz.
In reality you don't really skid into San Francisco. You sort of leisurely roll. And you stop a lot.
As our cruise time got closer and closer our (my) panic level began to rise. The city was so much busier than we could have imagined. I suggeated that we had better grab a parking garage the next chance we got and we could hoof it in from their. Our GPS said we were just a half mile from the pier and we could definitely walk quicker than we could drive.
Except when we got out to walk and I pulled directions up on my phone, we were three and a half miles from the pier. We definitely could not walk that fast.
Jason suggested the MUNI and as luck would have it there was a station nearby. We fumbled through the process of getting our one day passes and got down to the station where we determined which train to get on to get to the pier.
Finally our train arrived, we boarded with a renewed hope.
As I sat on the train I watched my phone. We were going in the opposite direction of where we needed to be. We foolishly went that direction to the end of the line where I proceeded to have an outright breakdown. Good times.
As I silently sobbed, we boarded the same train we had just left and went back to the station. While I tried to regain composure, Jason had determined that we needed to get off at a different station and grab a tram to the pier. So that's what we did. When we got to the pier we were 2 hours late for our boat. Thankfully, they let us on right away for standby and we left immediately for the Rock. At noon. Without eating lunch. As parents we were really nailing this day so far. We had ridden public transportation for two hours and didn't feed our kids lunch. A+ for us.
Alcatraz was really cool. The audio tour was informative and entertaining, but not as appropriate for Marcus as I had hoped. Every once in a while I would look at him and he would look a little shell shocked. But why start parenting appropriately now?
We finished the tour, grabbed a boat back, and started looking for something-anything-to eat. We found a lovely, expensive, restaurant on the wharf and ate seafood like feeder pigs. It was SO good.
We walked around the shops and the boys and I rode a double decker carousel. By now it was 4:45. We wanted to tour the SS Jeremiah O'Brien but it was closed. Next on our list was heading back to Market St and catching a cable car to Lombard St. We found a stop and waited. And waited and waited and waited. Finally a tram came. And let on approximately 4 people. We where not those people. Two more trams passed us because they were full. It was approaching 5 o'clock. We figured we'd hop across the road and take the empty trams heading outbound and ride it until it turned around and went inbound. Apparently you're not supposed to do this. But our driver was friendly and pointed out that if we just got off and went ahead one car we could head back in. So we did. And we were jammed in like sardines. Soon we whizzed past the station we had been standing at for an hour and were on our way back to catch a cable car to Lombard St.
Which we did. And when we arrived at Lombard, we got out, took a few pictures, walked a little ways down, and crossed the street to catch another cable car back down.
Again we waited as a cable car passed us, full. The next one took us, probably based on the defeated looks on our faces.
We rode down. It was now 7. We spied a Cold Stone (I know, I know) and got some sustinence for our walk back to the car. Which was parked God knows where (actually Jason had an app for that).
While walking back to the car we got to see the very colorful street life of San Francisco. At this point, as a mother, I just wanted to get my kids the hell out of town. We walked and walked and finally found our garage. We collectively agreed that we would not be coming back to San Francisco.
(To be fair, I think San Francisco would have been really fun if it had just been me and J. And also if we had studied and memorized the MUNI routes.)
We ate super at a McDonalds at 8:30 on our 2 hour drive back to camp.
And when we got home, we truely slept like dead horses.
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