San Francisco 2016- Part 1

On Wednesday we left Wilton and headed for Boston. After a short night of sleep we hopped on an airplane and flew across the country to San Francisco.  Everyone did so well on the flights with only a few moments of high anxiety when Audrey started to breakdown at the end. It felt like it took forever from the time we got off the plane to when we were driving away in our rental car.  All of our bags except one made it.  Unfortunately, the one bag contained most of our overnight things, but we made do.  We were extremely exhausted by the time night rolled around and were happy to be in our home for the next two weeks.

Friday morning we woke up feeling much better and had finished grocery shopping by 7:30am thanks to the time difference.  The fog rolled in that morning, so our first trip across the golden gate bridge was unexciting to say the least, it was completely engulfed in the fog.  The view from the scenic overlook was really quite impressive to see the fog in motion.  

Our next stop was Muir Woods. Noah got to use his 4th grade pass for the second time and all of the kids were excited to participate in another junior ranger program.  We learned SO much about costal redwoods! They are the tallest trees in the world, they can grow either from a single seed the size of a tomato seed OR from burls off the tree or root.  As a result they grow in "family circles" where you can identify the original "parent" tree. They are also one of the few trees that can continue to grow even after being burned in a forest fire.

We drove to the top of Mount Tamalpais for an expectedly gorgeous view of the bay below.  We had a picnic lunch and got sunburns in the 72 degree bright sun.  The fog had not yet "burned off" over the ocean or the Golden Gate Bridge, so it looked just like a blanket of snow covering the entire ocean.  We drove along the coast hoping to stop at a beach or two, but the fog was in full effect and we were able to see nothing. 

We got home in enough time to hop on the Muni (subway) to the conference center.  We registered and made it to Kids Camp.  There were so many things for the kids to do there.  We met the illustrator of the Ivy and Bean books, danced, competed in air guitar contests, made lego robots and got a caricature of all the kids.  Everyone was beyond exhausted by the time we finally made it home.  We are most excited that the public transportation is right by our house and so easy to take!