Sonya's Blog - Day 305 - San Francisco in the Rain
Sonya’s Blog - Day 305 - April 22nd - San Francisco in the Rain
It was going to be a drizzly, rainy day in San Francisco, with a high of about 16. Luckily, our walk to the ferry was in the sun. It took about 15 minutes to walk to the ferry and we had plenty of time to buy our tickets and get on board. It is a passenger only ferry and the ticketing system is similar to the subways and trains in other cities we have been to.
It was not a full ferry and we managed to nab seats with a table. I had stated, after our last boat ride, that I was not getting on another boat. Now here I am, on a ferry, which is a boat! I also, have to take a ferry across to Alcatraz when we go and will probably be taking this ferry more than once. It is a little catastrophic for me! The road was okay, it was a good thing I was sitting down. We did hit some rougher patches, but nothing like the Newfoundland Ferry (not sure I will get over that one anytime soon).
The Golden Gate Bridge from the Ferry:
There is a lovely market in San Francisco, where the ferry lets us off. They had a great bookstore, which Natasha immediately disappeared into. They let us take a picture of her on the ladder:
We would love to do something similar to this in our house (like in the office or bonus room), we all love it.
After we were done poking around in the bookstore, we headed outside. It was raining, by this time, but we sucked it up and started on our jaunt. We were at Pier 1 and we had to get to Pier 33 to pick-up our Alcatraz passes and City Passes. Unfortunately, this was the only way to get Alcatraz included in the price and they did not have online booklets. It was about a 15 minute walk to the Pier and it started raining harder and harder as we walked along. It wasn’t a downpour, or anything, but we all got wet. Blake went and got our passes, while the rest of us hid under the canopies and tried to stay dry. After we had the passes, we walked up to Pier 39 to try and find something to eat and to get warmer. Here we are walking up the street:
As we were walking to Pier 39, the rain let off a bit, so it wasn’t too bad walking around. We found a place that served chowder in a sourdough bread-bowl and went inside. The bowls were pretty massive, so luckily we only got 2. Here is Natasha digging into hers:
When we were done lunch, we decided to visit the Aquarium on the Pier. As part of our City Passes, we were allowed to choose between the two Aquariums in San Francisco. Isaac had looked up the two Aquarium and wanted to visit this one, because it had an area where you could touch the stingrays, sharks and other creatures. It had started to rain again, so we went inside.
It wasn’t a very large aquarium, but it had some neat stuff. Isaac loved the hands on areas. I liked the walk through aquarium areas, where we were actually under the Bay and the jellyfish area (they are just so weird looking). They also had a large Pacific Octopus and were showing videos of the octopus figuring things out, like how to get to some crabs that were in a jar (he twisted off the lid and got them out, a beaker (squished himself into the beaker) and escape from tight quarters down a tube (squished himself down the tube). It was pretty neat and Natasha, Blake and I were fascinated. Here are some pictures:
Natasha behind the Anchovy tank:
The cutest jelly fish ever, they just moved around like crazy:
Isaac in the Octopus Tank:
When we were done in the Aquarium (it only took about an hour) we walked around Fisherman’s Wharf for a bit. It had stopped raining, which was a huge bonus.
Alcatraz is in the background:
We then hopped on the trolley car and took it to Pier 15/17, so that we could visit the Exploratorium. This was also included in our City Passes. We thought we would spend a couple of hours there and then go back to the ferry and head back to the campground. The Exploratorium is a giant Science Centre and had lots of neat stuff to try out and experiment with. We ran around and tried out as many things as possible and got a few pictures along the way:
Natasha!!!, what are you doing?
Showing us where the heat is:
The upside-down mirror:
The Bay Bridge from the Exploratorium:
Natasha seeing if different colours affect her mood:
When we were done, we hopped on the trolley car and took it the one stop to the ferry terminal. We grabbed some drinks and then headed off to catch our ferry. We had perfect timing, as the ferry was just boarding when we arrived. We managed to find a table again, and settled in for our ride home. Here is a picture:
It had been a pretty long day for Kizmet, so Blake and I took her for a long walk when we got back. There are abandoned rail road tracks at the end of the campground and we walked her along those. She was so happy to see us and to be walked. We then came back and organized for supper. We needed a few things at the store, so we left the kids in charge of getting the salad ready and walked Kizmet down to the store. It was only a few blocks to Trader Joe’s. I wish we had one of these in Calgary, such a great store. They even have a doggy house, tie up area outside the store.
When we got back, we had supper and when all the clean-up was done we watched The Martian with Matt Damon. I wasn’t so excited about watching it, but it was really good. Matt Damon was excellent in it, and really, it is mostly just him in a lot of the movie. We all enjoyed the movie, so that was a bonus. It is really long, though, so we were up quite late.
Sonya