The McCullough Family: san francisco saturday 6/23

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

san francisco saturday 6/23

my sister has been telling me about the little city of Sausalito, just north of the golden gate bridge for a while now. not only is it a cute, picture perfect town on the water- but it is known for the hundreds of houseboats there!

so, we had to go to sausalito on our way to SF that day. and the best houseboat we found was at the end of this dock-

yup, a mini taj mahal! look how big it is and how tiny tate is-

it was wild to see all the houseboats, i wish i had taken more photos. we WILL go back!

just before crossing the golden gate bridge, brian was told there was a turn off that you could take to head up to an overlook of the city and the bridge...

we found it and headed to the top of this "hill"-

AS YOU CAN SEE BELOW, THE DRIVE UP WAS WORTH IT FOR THE VIEWS-

our first stop in SF was at the ferry building for lunch. we were quickly overwhelmed by all the choices! while we were walking around dazed and trying to decide on food, i noticed a couple walking towards us. seeing how i move around ALL the time, i couldn't figure out how/where i knew them from right away, but i knew i didn't want to just let them pass without saying anything. so i approached them and just planned to introduce myself- and hope they knew/remembered me!

then it hit me- katherine's parents! katherine was a non-military friend when we lived in little rock. (we just saw katherine and her husband drew last november out here when they came to napa...) katherine and her mom actually helped throw my baby shower for tate back in 2006!

i was SO glad i stopped them, even though i called them by katherine's married name, instead of her maiden name! they couldn't get over the fact that we had 2 kids now and live in cali. i couldn't get over running into- and remembering- them in a food market in SF! (they were in town for a weekend wedding.)

they took this picture to send to katherine, thinking she'd never believe who they ran into!

after lunch, we headed into the city. as we approached LOMBARD STREET, i looked back and snapped this photo of the city behind us-

brian and i (and therefore his family) had never seen the famous "painted ladies" or rainbow row, so we drove to that part of the city and they were perfect, just like in the movies! i took this picture from the large park right across the street-

we thought about taking macy on her first trolly ride, but the wait would have been over an hour- so she will have to wait!

brian was so brave to drive down lombard street- the very steep street with 8 tight S curves within 1 block! here we are going down-

and looking back from the bottom-

next stop, chinatown-

a sweet statue that reminded me of tate and macy, on a good day-

more of chinatown-

when tate was 2 and we lived in monterey, we came to SF for the weekend. we discovered this great little park in the middle of chinatown. since then, we have always stopped to play there each time we visit the city. here is the playgroud- check out that skyline!

within about 10 minutes, tate made a local friend- he had a travel 'bey blade' stadium and they battled each other the whole time we were there-

throughout the park, there have always been small groups of men and women playing some type of fierce card game. we can't figure out what game it could be (played in a large box!) but it just feels so authentic having them there playing, being in chinatown and all-

what we had never noticed on trips to this park before, was this plaque-

it marks the site of the first public school in california- opened in 1848! how about that?!?!

we had an awesome dinner in north beach, the italian section of SF. during dinner, we noticed a lot of people having their pictures taken in front of this bookstore, across the street from our restaurant. turns out it is the now famous bookstore (and former publishing house!) where Jack Kerouac once spent time writing-