Chowders

Ethan and I have looked forward to eating clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl for a long time. When we left Alcatraz all the kids wanted to do was eat lunch. We walked to Pier 39 and found "Chowders" the BEST place for clam chowder. 

Ethan was in heaven:

 

Courtney had chicken strips and fries and Bryan got fish and chips. It was great food.

There was only 1 seal in the Bay.

Then we went walking around the pier. Ethan found a Lefties store that was really cool. They had a special lefty pen and he loves writing with it.

Courtney wanted to go in a Del Sol store because they were advertising a free gift for going in the store. Del Sol specializes in clothes and accessories that change color in the sun. It was a fun store and they gave both Courtney and me a color changing ring as our free gift.

Bryan wanted to go into a tech store and that was fun.

Then we got on a bus and went back to the motel for a rest. We are going to have a late night tonight. We are going to a Giants game!!!

Alcatraz

The first stop on our San Francisco trip was Alcatraz. I was so excited!! Before we left, we borrowed movies from the library on the different places we would be going. We saw a Myth Busters in the escape from Alcatraz so the kids were excited to go.

I had bought tickets a few months ago and also a CityPass which entitles us to a lot of free things in the Bay Area. I was glad because the tours for the day were sold out. 

We got ready for the day, ate cereal for breakfast and then took off for the Muni stop near our hotel. We had free Muni (bus) passes so we decided to save money on parking. It was pretty fun and Ethan got to pull the "stop request" cord. 

We walked to the pier and found the ship we would be riding on. We loaded on and were excited to be going.

While we were crossing the bay, we saw one of the sailboats entered in the America's Cup race. It was really cool!!

After landing at Alcatraz we listened to a guide tell us a bit about the island then we hiked to the jail house to start the audio tour. That was nice because you could hear all about the parts of the prison and listen to narrations.

We told the kids we would leave them there if they weren't good. They didn't believe us!

Ethan in solitary.

The "escape" cell.

Courtney was hungry because he didn't want to eat much breakfast so she was a bit grumpy.

We saw a seal as we loaded back onto the boat to go back to San Francisco but I didn't get a picture of it. 

San Francisco and San Ramon

We made it to San Francisco!!

We found our hotel, checked in and took a little break. We are staying in the marina district which has some cool buildings. 

We were going to see some friends from college and have dinner with them so we decided to leave early and go to the temple and see a few sights.

There was construction at the Oakland Temple so we couldn't walk all the way around it but we did get to explore a bit of he grounds. We went into the visitors center too and it is exactly like the one in St. George. Bryan loves the view of the city.

On our way to the Higbee's house in San Ramon, we drove by the church building where Bryan went to seminary.

Then we made our way to he Higbee's house. It was great to see them and the kids had fun playing with their kids.

After we has finished visiting with them, we drove around to see the old neighborhood.

Here is the first Pack house:

Here is the second Pack house:

Here is Bryan's elementary school:

Here is the junior high that is completely remodeled:

Here is the football press box at Cal High:

Fun times!!

Driving Down the Coast

It is amazing how much earlier you wake up when you are camping than you do when you are in a hotel. We got up, ate breakfast and were amazed that no one else in the entire campground seemed to be up. We packed up and got going.

We wanted a beautiful drive so we decided to drive down to San Francisco on Highway 1. It was beautiful but a really windy road!! Bryan had fun driving it but after a few hours we had had enough of curves. But it was gorgeous. There was quite a bit of fog though. We saw a lighthouse too.

Mackerricher State Park

We are camping near the beach at Mackerricher State Park. It's cold here!!

We set up our tent:

Then went to the beach to look around and look for seals. We saw some seals but I couldn't get a good picture of them. Here are some other photos I took:

The Ocean

We drove down Highway 1 which was really windy and really green. It wound around and around so it was crazy! But the trees were beautiful and the views of the ocean were gorgeous.

Redwood National Park

We loved going through Redwood National Park. The kids had a great time getting out and pretending to be Star Wars characters as we went on a short hike. It was beautiful!!

 

The kids did a junior ranger program and so we had to stop at a ranger station and take a walk on the beach. It was a pretty easy ranger program so they were able to get it done quickly. 

Here they are at the beach:

Here they are taking the oath ( Ethan was so embarrassed because the ranger had everyone clap for them after they took the oath):