San Francisco

Wait, what? This isn't a national park. What's wrong with you guys? This was supposed to be a national park trip.... yeah, but we needed something different! When we were planning this trip, we'd map out how we would hop from national park to national park and realized how close we were to San Francisco, so we added it in!

Trip Details:

Where: San Francisco, CA

Campsite: Marin RV Park, Site I-16

Length: 3 days

Itinerary:

Day 1: San Francisco

Day 2: Winery Visits in Sonoma and Napa

Day 3: San Francisco/Alcatraz

Charlotte’s Highlights: Visiting Alcatraz Island

Paige’s Highlights: Visiting Alcatraz Island

Adult’s Highlights: Riding the trolley, the wineries and Alcatraz Island

Let me just be honest here, and say how excited I was to not have to hike on this portion of the trip. Those national parks have been gorgeous, but it felt good to be back in city life!

The first day we spent getting to know the city and driving around a bit. We did lots of touristy things like......

.... Drove over the Golden Gate bridge. But it's not golden. Why isn't it the Red Gate Bridge, or at least painted gold? Come to find out the body of water that spans the two peninsulas is called Golden Gate, thus the bridge that spanned that water was named after it. Since California was rich in gold, travelers who came to California went through the narrow Golden Gate passage in search of gold.

.... Checked out the San Francisco Giant's home, Oracle Park

.... Drove down Lombard Street. So this was cool and unexpected for me as I know absolutely nothing about San Francisco. Lombard Street has a block that is one-way due to 8 sharp turns over the corse of 1 block, which makes it the most crooked street in the world! When they were building streets in San Francisco, this part of the street had a 27% grade!!! So they got creative. We noticed other streets around the area were 11-12% grade, so I could only imagine how steep that street would have been if they didn't make it winding!

.... Visited with the Pink Ladies. If you've seen Full House, then you know what I'm talking about! The opening credits feature the Tanner's enjoying a very practical picnic full of laughter on the lawn in front of the pretty houses!

.... Visited Mrs. Doubtfire's home. Miranda: "I'm at 2640 Steiner Street." Daniel: "Steiner. Oh, how lovely, dear." If you didn't read that in a British accent, please re-read. 😁

.... and of course we visited Ghirardelli Square. No one should be surprised by this if you know my love of chocolate.

Credit for the plans of day 2 go all to Mr. Gurley. When we were traveling to San Francisco, he asked how far away we were from Wine Country. When we realized we were only about 45 minutes away, I went to Pinterest to find some recommendations for family friendly wineries. Our first winery, Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, was our favorite of the two we visited. We booked a Barrel Tasting and Winery Tour which was a pleasant surprise for all of us! We enjoyed listening to the history of this 1857 winery, how this Hungarian royal traveled from Europe to the US to start his own winery. We learned about his multiple failures in business - for example, his attempt to grow grapes in Wisconsin. Whomp Whomp. Aaron and I enjoyed a lot of tastings while we walked around the winery and went into a few cellars! Highly recommend this tour if you're looking for something to do in Sonoma!

Also, this place had a fun little maze for the girls to get lost in! It really was a great little winery!

Our second winery was V. Sattui Winery in Napa. Aaron and I shared a bottle of wine in their picnic garden area while the girls ate some ravioli and we shared a charcuterie board which we got from the deli at the winery. This was a beautiful winery as well! We learned that one 5 oz. glass of wine = 8.4 clusters of grapes = 630 grapes ... so be like the Gurleys and drink your fruits! :)

On our final day in San Fran, we got up early to take an Uber to our 9:10am ferry departure to Alcatraz Island. We had heard San Francisco had a big auto theft problem. Then one day as we were doing laundry in the Redwoods, we heard first-hand from a woman who just visited San Francisco that their car got broken into at Fishermans Wharf. After hearing her horror story, it made sense to us to take an Uber down to Pier 33 for our ferry ride, which certainly gave ourselves a little comfort knowing our car was safe.

After walking around the island a little bit, we made our way to the cell house, grabbed our audio tour and learned so much about Alcatraz history, violence within the cell house and heard the story of the Escapees of Alcatraz (who still haven't been found and would be in their 80s by now). Before heading back to San Francisco, we realized Alcatraz had a junior ranger program. So we sat down and filled out the books so the girls could get their badges! So heads up, run by the ranger station before touring the island so the kids can work on their book while you're looking around! Alcatraz was a favorite by all 4 of us, so if you're visiting San Fran, add it to your list!

After Alcatraz, we headed into Fisherman's Wharf to look around and found a bite to eat at In-N-Out Burger!

Finally, to end our stay in San Francisco, we took a few rides on the Trolley! The Uber driver recommended we take Hyde to Union Square and it was our favorite with all the hills up and down!

Thanks for coming on our adventure! Until next time….

~ Mary