Leaving a Piece of My Heart in San Francisco

My birthday just happened to fall on Day 6 of our trip. And we were spending it in San Francisco!

But first, we packed up (again!) and went out to breakfast at a great little place called First Awakenings in Pacific Grove. It was in a little outlet shopping center, and they were very busy. We got to sit out on the patio in the coolness, and it was great. We had to laugh at the birds, though, because they were showing up as people finished their food and walked away. One of them tried to eat a piece of pancake or bread that was just too big, and as he was trying to choke it down, he was accosted by about 10 others who tried to grab it when it fell to the ground. Funny!

The food was absolutely fantastic!

 

And then, there was a sock shop inside that I had to go to. I have a problem… I love socks and pajamas.

When I was younger and didn’t have two pennies to rub together, I worked at a savings and loan. A girl worked there who really had no money problems at all, and she wore the CUTEST socks. I vowed to myself that if I ever had money, I was going to buy all the cute socks I wanted. Socks. They were my status symbol.

So I went into the shop and spent $40. For myself. On socks. For my birthday. And I didn’t care.

 

 

Before leaving the Monterey area, we drove back down on Lighthouse and took pictures. Jim wanted to stand on the north end (at least, I think it was north) and get a picture of the entire street. That area is absolutely incredibly beautiful. That seems to be the theme of our trip.

 

We stopped to get gas, and Jim wanted a good picture of Challenger (it has its own persona now!), and when we were standing out there, a girl was driving by and stopped to ask if it was new. Jim said it was a rental (but if the truth be told, it is a 2016!).

 

We arrived in Berkeley, and when we got off of the interstate and onto the city street, right under the bridge was a homeless tent community. I was pretty surprised, though I don’t know why. It really is such a sad sight to see.

We were staying at The Doubletree by Hilton on the marina. We arrived earlier than check-in, and our room wasn’t ready. Either you pay to park your own car there, or you pay for valet parking. Jim was outside talking to the valet, and he told us that there was a shuttle that drove into downtown Berkeley so we could catch the train into San Francisco. We left everything in the car and took off to the BART. It was so exciting!

 

When we arrived, we had to stare at the maps, figure out what we were doing, and Jim downloaded the app. You could always tell when it was close because of the wind that came first. And then our train arrived! It didn’t seem to move that fast when we were sitting down. Lots of people jumped on, and it actually goes in a tunnel through the ocean (I think). 

 

We got off in downtown San Francisco and just stood there and looked around for a minute. And then we had our regular dilemma. Had to use the restroom. So we went to Starbucks (that also had a PIN system on their bathroom door) and got some coffee and made a plan. We were going to Pier 39. And using (what I call) the trolley, railcar, whatever you might want to call it.

 

It was such a cool area! So much fun. We had dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and looked out over the ocean and at Alcatraz. A huge speedboat, and I mean huge, that took people out on the water, was basically doing donuts out there on the choppy water, and I was glad I wasn’t on it. 

 

 

It seemed the ocean was very choppy every time I saw it. But it was still lovely.

 


After dinner, we walked down to the edge of the walkway, and there was a gigantic heart for people to take pictures by. Someone in the crowd offered to get our picture, and when they found out we were there celebrating our 25^th anniversary, everyone in the crowd yelled, “Kiss! Kiss!” So we did.

 

 

 

 

By this time, we were kind of worn out, if you want to know the truth, but we hadn’t bought anything for Noah’s girlfriend, Haley, yet. There was a puppet shop, and I love puppets! So we went inside, and I saw a cat puppet that won me over. Haley loves cats, so she was getting a fun gift of a cat puppet from San Francisco.

When we got back on the train, there wasn’t any available seats. We had to stand up. I thought it was interesting that full-grown men were sitting in the seats, young people, too, who could have stood up and let older people or women sit down. No one even offered, and I thought that was disheartening. Finally, someone got off the train and I sat down. Although the train didn’t seem to go fast when you are sitting down, standing up is a different story.

This young student “kid” lost his phone on the train, which I don’t even know how it happened, and he was panicking, cussing, looking everywhere. His friends got off, and he stayed on to look for it, but he didn’t find it.

When we got back to the station, we called the hotel to get the shuttle back. When we were waiting, a family was standing there, too, and waiting for a ride back to our hotel. The shuttle driver, Peter, was a great guy. We all talked the whole way back, and we found out the family was from Houston! All of us were from Texas!  So funny!

And Peter told us about the schools there in Berkeley and his niece and how proud he was of her violin playing. It was so sweet.

When Peter found out it was my birthday and our anniversary trip, he was excited. And when we returned to the hotel, he made sure we had cookies and asked the manager to give us some free drinks/food from the bar, which they did. It was so nice of them.

When we went to bed that night, it was hard to believe we only had one full day left on the trip. At that point, I was pretty ready to get home. I missed my boys, but I didn’t know how much I would miss some things about our vacation.

I had my husband all to myself. We weren’t on the phone with other people, and we got to laugh together and talk and have fun.

I had nothing to do work-wise, housework-wise, bill-paying-wise, I had really no cares in the world.

And it was very nice.