california adventures: the last day edition

All good things must come to an end. Like summer camps (all of mine ended today), and cartons of ice cream (good thing I have a back-up in the freezer), and beach vacations (oh wait, that doesn't ever have to end for us), and California vacation recaps. I can't stop looking through all gazillion of the California pictures and reading through the blog recaps. Chyeah, I reread my own blogs. Hair flip. If my denial that this trip is over is this bad after only a month then I don't even want to be around me come 6 months time. Or a year. Or 5 years. 

Gotta get back to Cali!--said everyone ever, I'm sure. 

Our best week ever week ended in San Francisco. The city of...? NYC is the city that never sleeps. According to Google SF is the city that knows how and waits to die. So...okay. Moving on. 

I used Mara's handy dandy 36 hours in San Francisco blog and jam packed our day with everything. Everything! No rest for the weary and no free minutes for my family. 

Spoiler alert: We didn't get it all done. Freddie and I had one day and only got to jam pack in 40% of the fun while my family had 3 whole days there and got to hit up all the funnies. 

We started the 24 hours in San Fran tour with breakfast at The Buena Vista. 

That meant several glasses of the famous Irish coffee for Freddie and several plates of bacon and eggs for my father. 

Oh, and a pile of whipped cream for Ann. 

^^2 things: 1) this was the hill we rolled down walked down to get to breakfast and 2) Alcatraz. Right there. In your face. No big deal. 

We parked right by Lombard St. we figured Hey! Why not?! Such a touristy amateur thing to say, but...it was so cool to be on Lombard St.! And to be curving around it and to be squealing with glee about the fact we were curving around it! And to be taking pictures! I loved every minute of it. Which is good because it took quite a few minutes to get down.

Next up was The Walt Disney Family Museum. I don't really know how to even put into words the effect this museum had on me so I won't even try (I did kinda sorta try here). Just know that if you're ever in the area you have to go. Even if you're not humungous Disney fans. Just shut up and go.

Oh...and p.s.-this is the view from the museum. So...go.

We were there during the Mary Blair exhibit and it was fascinating. A woman, who in the 40's, 50's, and 60's (so taboo!), was a prominent artist and animator for Disney. Ever ridden It's a Small World? Her work. Ever seen the huge mosaic in the Contemporary? Her. Those among many other things. 

^^she did concept art for many movies including Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Peter Pan.

And on to the whirlwind walk through of every thing Walt Disney accomplished in his life. Hint: it's a lot. 

When we pulled up and saw the outside of the building we assumed we could get in and get out rather quickly. Three hours and one time cruncher Emily later we were reluctantly leaving. 

 Moral of the story? Plan for a 5 hour visit to this museum. At least ;)

Next up? The San Francisco Ferry Building for lunch and a view. It was a success on both accounts.

^^That top picture would be our view during lunch. A model in a sun hat. That middle picture would be my mom's reaction to anytime my dad calls her his soulmate. Obviously.

^^Family selfies: the theme of this trip.

We did a speedy tour of the Fisherman's Wharf area and Ghiradelli square. All ya need to know about those places are it smelled like fish and the chocolate was delish. 

Oh, and one more thing you need to know: it's cooooold. And people were playing in the cold ocean. Bless their hearts. Some people are just crazy. 

But wait! The day wasn't done yet! There were still more hours and minutes to be filled with all things San Francisco. So we headed to the Golden Gate Park to get amazing pictures with the Golden Gate Bridge.

...but the fog had a different idea.

...but we didn't care and still took a trillion of our gazillion trip pictures in this one location.

See?

9=one trillion

Finally it was time to head back to the hotel and whine/wine about having to leave on a jet plane the next morning. However, we couldn't leave SF without a stop to the Painted Ladies. <<<as my father was driving us and we were guiding him via Google Maps and we were getting a little lost, he finally emphatically asked why we were going to see a painted lady. Pretty sure he had a Moulin Rouge-esque night club in his mind. Actually I'm not pretty sure about anything that goes through his mind. Regardless, these are the Painted ladies.

Just houses.

Phew.

 ^^there's a Full House fanatic right there.

What. A. Trip.   

I can't wait to reread this entirely too long of a post in another week and get all teary. Sigh. California, you treated us so well. We'll be back.