I could tell that today is going to be a “meh” day. I woke up at 4 am because I literally could. Not. Breathe. I was so stopped up. Thanks a lot, Oklahoma allergies. At least it was sunny and warmer today. 

We had a great weekend as a family. Evan was off work this weekend so we took Isla to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. It was not all that crowded so I let her run around and she had a blast looking at the new exhibits. I’ll do a post on some fun stuff around OKC soon. 

I really am excited to tell you about a trip to San Francisco that I took a couple of years ago. I write really detailed travel journals when I’m on vacation and when I re-read it for this post it’s like I was just there yesterday. If you don’t keep a travel journal when you take trips, I encourage you to start. Pictures are great to have but it’s hard to remember the little details like that cool restaurant you tried.

I knew that I would one day try and start a blog so I kept a really detailed log on my 48 hours in “The city” as the locals call it. Don’t let them catch you calling it “San Fran.”

The reason I was in San Francisco to begin with was that I was on a work trip – but once the work part was over, it turned into a quick girls trip with my coworker who was also there without her husband. I was so excited to go because I had never been that far west and it has been on my bucket list for so long. The only bummer is that Evan didn’t get to go with me. I promised him that I would take him back though.

Be sure to read my post here about how I plan trips. I used pinterest to find a lot of the restaurants and things to do while we were there. I had a work buddy go with me and that made the trip a lot more fun than going by myself.

We had the pleasure of staying at the Westin St. Francis which was super nice. It had kind of an old Hollywood glam vibe going on. I looked at the room prices just for fun. This place is pretty pricey but if you can swing it, I highly suggest that you do. The food was great. The rooms were a wonderful escape and I had so much fun taking photos throughout the hotel.

I was not expecting San Francisco to be so cold. I had looked at the weather before hand but the weather literally changes depending on what side of the street you’re on. It was insane. I thought we had crazy weather here in OKC.

Check out this clip that I have of the fog rolling in. It was so cool to watch. Like something out of a movie.

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Being the planner that I am, I had a list of places that I needed to see. Our flight got in around 7 am and we were able to check into our hotel early and go in search of breakfast. We saw that the place we wanted to eat ( Mr. Holmes Bake House) was only like a mile away. Mind you, this was not a flat mile. This mile went up and down some of the steepest streets I’ve ever seen. If you have any cardiac history, steer clear of San Francisco.

The pastries that we got were delicious though and we ate them all the way back to the hotel. Messy but so worth it – so much so that we decided we needed to go back the next day too and get a Cruffin-check them out here.  

After we caught our breath from all the steep hills. Who’s idea was it to build a town here? A girl can choke on her cronut while trying to walk. We decided to see what the whole trolley thing was about. There was a pick up location right outside our hotel. (They call them cable cars here) but that didn’t stop me from calling them trolleys the entire time we were there. The thing about the cable cars is that it’s pure chaos and you gotta just be ready to jump on. There really isn’t a line/ Just push your way to the front and hop on. It was $7 cash to ride. I was already tired of walking so I would have paid just about anything.

Just a warning, don’t use a selfie stick on the trolley. You will get yelled at. The cable car was a ton of fun except you will be thrown into complete strangers so be ready for that. I have no idea how they keep folks from flying off those things. (Update: They do not keep people from flying off. Seriously. Look it up.)

We took the cable car to Lombard street which is so steep that it has EIGHT curves to keep people from going too fast. Pictures are pretty hard to get because it is so steep. It has some of the prettiest landscaping that I’ve ever seen.

That afternoon we spent some time at Fisherman’s Wharf and ended up taking a spur of the moment boat tour. The tour was an hour long and the guides were hilarious. The boat took us out and around the Golden Gate bridge and also around Alcatraz. The guides were super knowledgeable and accommodating. They took our photos with the bridge in the background. I would highly recommend doing a tour like this. There were several boats leaving the harbor so finding one should be easy.

The Golden Gate bridge is enormous. I wasn’t sure what I expected but it was massive and beautiful. Love this photo I snapped. I want to get it framed for our living room. It was such a neat perspective to be underneath the bridge. The water looked so cold and dark.

If you ever do take a boat tour in the bay and think it is smart to leave your jacket in your hotel room, don’t just don’t. WE FROZE. We got great pictures but at what cost? Haha.  So. Cold.

At the end of our boat journey we saw a seal swim up to the boat and our lives were changed forever. Those things are seriously cool up close. We spent the rest of the afternoon eating lunch/ screeching every time a seal came up out of the water. We ate at a place on the dock called Scroma’s. It was a neat little place overlooking the water (more seal screeching took place). The food was delicious and the service was very fast. I would definitely eat here again.

After we finished  lunch we decided it was time to see what Pier 39 was all about.

Peir 39 is a tourist’s dream. So many souvenir shops and all the hip San Francisco gear you could ask for. It was at this point in the day that we were very cold and deeply regretted leaving our jackets in our hotel rooms but at a shop on the pier we found some awesome fleece jackets for $11. Yes, $11. They had a giant “SF” and picture of the golden gate bridge (I might add at this point that while they had several colors to choose from, we both picked gray) and we spent the rest of the day looking like matching nerds. Did we care? no.

We passed by some really incredible street performers and I wish I had taken some videos. 

The pier also had a lovely market with fresh produce and I really wanted to get some but I didn’t have anywhere to store it. There were so many little shops and candy stores. I honestly could have spent all day there.

We saw the mother load of seals (it was at this time a local informed me that they were in fact sea lions). I honestly didn’t know there was a difference.  We witnessed so much sea life at the pier. We saw a seagull steal a lady’s churro and it was absolutely fascinating. The wildlife, (seagulls and pigeons) will come right up to you for food.  I could have stayed there the rest of the evening but we had a work dinner to get to.

We apparently took the China town scenic route on the way back to the hotel, which was in Union Square.  I wish we could have spent more time there. There is so much to see and do. If you’re ever wanting to try food of a different culture this would be the place to do it. Lots and lots of fresh seafood and treats. It was on this very long walk uphill to our hotel that we noticed a trend in the local wildlife. THE PIGEONS ARE GIGANTIC. Like, can’t fly anymore gigantic. Their wings are just for show. They just waddle around the ground and find snacks from tourists.

One take away from this post: wear comfy shoes. You will do more walking up and down hill than you ever have in your life. No wonder everyone that lives there is so fit.

That evening, we had a lovely work dinner at our swanky hotel. The food was delish. They offered just about anything you could want and the dessert buffet was amazing. I may have over done it but I had walked like ten miles so I wasn’t all that worried.

I crashed at about 8pm and I don’t think I’ve ever slept so hard. The bed was top notch. I had a wonderful view of the city lights and I always sleep with my curtains open in hotels so I can see all the lights.

The next morning we had a work meeting to get to but it got out about 3 pm. After the meeting we decided we should see the painted ladies. You know, from the Full House intro? They were magical. We stayed all of 5 minutes because they were re-doing the park at the time and we were starting to get pretty hungry since it was dinner time.

We were hunting for some coffee at this point so that we didn’t fall over from all the walking/ time difference and we found the most perfect hipster coffee joint.  A man with a very impressive beard will make your coffee and then grunt when he hands it to you. Words are overrated, ya’ll. If you’re ever in the area I can’t recommend Four Barrel coffee enough.

We needed to check a lobster roll off our San Fran bucket list so dinner was next on our itinerary.  We found what we were searching for and boy, oh boy, Lobster rolls are the most delicious thing since the cookie part of an Oreo. If you like the cream part of an Oreo, you are wrong. We ate at the Woodhouse Fish Company. If a roll with mayo isn’t your thing you can ask for just butter and lobster meat on your roll. This place was so cute and I’m not exaggerating when I say my lobster roll really hit the spot. Honestly, I would have been happy going home at this point. Haha. I live for seafood and San Francisco had some of the best seafood that I’ve ever had.

We spent the rest of the evening shopping around Union Square and got back to our hotel pretty late. There are so many great shops and things to do in this area. When I go back, I’ll for sure stay in this area because it was pretty centrally located to everything that I wanted to see.

The next morning we got up early to make sure we made it in time for Cruffins at Mr. Holmes Bakehouse. We did. It took us an hour in line but we did it. If you’ve never been to The City, a cruffin is a a croissant muffin. and you can’t just walk up and ask for a cruffin. No, no. They make you work for it. You have to be in a special line to even get a ticket for the cruffins and even then you are limited to two and you just have to accept the flavor of that day. Which thankfully was nutella. I got my two cruffins and even though I wanted to eat them both right then, I saved one for my husband. He is so lucky that thing made it all the way back to Oklahoma. We walked back to our hotel to drop off the “valuables” with powdered sugar and nutella all over our faces. Priorities, ya’ll.

After our carb loaded breakfast we thought an excellent idea would be to see the top of Coit tower. Which would have been great. If I had trained for it. I had not. Google maps insisted on taking us up the steepest street I had seen so far on our trip. So steep, that the street itself has stairs as a sidewalk. I was sure that I was not going to make it. Even my work buddy, who is in great shape, was breathing hard by the time some friendly locals assured us that there were even more stairs when we turned the corner at the top of the street. The friendly locals were also getting into a cab because they were smart.

Coit tower had the very best views. You could see the entire city and bay area! We got some great shots of the bay bridge (Which apparently lights up night but, we didn’t get to see that. bummer).  We stayed at the top of the tower just taking it all in for about an hour. It was beautiful and not too crowed. They had a great gift shop at the bottom and I bought my some books for my nieces and nephews.

After our time at the tower we walked until we found a place for lunch and on the way, we stumbled upon the most beautiful restored cathedral. We went inside to see if they had public restrooms. They did not. But we were able to hold it long enough to check out the sanctuary. Gorgeous.

Lunch was a pretty high priority at this point because we needed to head back to the hotel and grab our bags for the flight soon. We found a great little seafood place called Sotto Mare and decided to eat outside. The weather in San Francisco varies so drastically from one block to another. Its crazy. But the weather was nice so outside we stayed. We sat next to some nice older gentlemen with a very fluffy white dog. We discussed whether or not we should pet said dog but decided against it because our clam chowder appetizer came out. So warm and delicious. After even more carbs, we walked back to the hotel and took in the sights one last time of the city.

We caught an uber to the airport and back we came back to the flat prairie.  I will say that If you try to uber around the city, it can be done but you may have to stand in the middle of the street for the car to find you. This is a very busy place. Traffic does get crazy in the evenings but most places are walk-able.

We had the best time.

Have you been to any of these places? It was a short trip but I feel like I saw quite a bit of the city. This city has so much history. The only thing that I regret not doing is the Alcatraz tour. You apparently have to book it months in advance. I’ll catch it next time. I can’t wait to go back with Isla and  Evan. It seemed very family friendly. I hope you feel prepared to go check it out. Now, go to San Fran and see all the things!

Hope everyone has a great week! I’ll be back on Wednesday with another DIY post!