Alright, I’d like to talk to you about San Francisco, but before that, let’s talk about my childhood.

It doesn’t start in San Fransisco, California. I was born in Montana.  I didn’t see the ocean, but I was lucky enough to have a father from Washington state. After my parents got a divorce, my father went back to Deer Harbor Washington, which is on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands.

During my summer breaks from the school, my sister and I and would spend our summers up on the islands. Yes, it was as lovely as it sounds.  You may be asking “so what does that have to do with San Fransisco?”  Well, all of the years I spent up on the islands I actually never made it see the Pacific Ocean. 

One summer, my mom and stepdad took us on vacation to Sacramento. We were visiting my stepdad’s parents and part of the trip we road tripped to Santa Cruz and then up to San Fransisco. I was around 15 and huge into skateboarding and had a considerable interest in surfing.

Having an interest in skateboarding and surfing was hard living in a conservative area of Montana. So rolling into Santa Cruz… man was I excited!  I kind of remember the boardwalk. What I remember the most was going swimming in the ocean.

Of course, I also can’t forget to share maybe the most significant kook moment of my life. I got to the beach, and then there was a little bit of shore break. The water rolled up on to my feet and I thought “wow that’s cold.”  In my excitement, I’m standing there watching the waves roll in and crash on my feet. There was a moment I thought yep this is it, I’m going for it. I took off running towards this breaking wave. 

Now, remember I didn’t know then, what I know now about the ocean. So as I am running towards the breaking wave, I jumped up towards the wave, with a big giant smile on my face. Well, that smile went away really fast, As I was leaping towards the wave… well let’s just the wave hit back. The wave hit back really hard. As the wave hit me in the chest, it lifted me up and backward, and threw me back into the sand pushing me back up the beach.

Oh, man, it hurt so bad, and the sand had scrapped my back right above my butt. Yeah, the rest of the trip I had a scape right where my underwear band sat. Yeah, so much fun. So why share this?  Why not? It is a funny story and it’s a good warning to be careful around the surf.

So back to the trip, for a while now my wife Jodie and I would go away for the weekend around our anniversary. Usually a long weekend, but recently we had gone to Las Vegas. On this particular trip, we just weren’t feeling the Vegas vibe. We had gotten the travel bug. Jodie had never been to San Francisco, and I had very fond memories of my San Francisco trip when I was a kid. Well, Jodie found the killer airfare again and found a very cool hotel down by Fishermans Wharf. 

So where does any trip start, yep the airport? Let’s take a moment and talk about SFO or San Francisco International airport. Is it big?  Yes.  Is it confusing?  That is another yes.  Would it have been as confusing if I had looked over a map over the airport?  Maybe not. The airport is brilliant, the signs are not. When you got off any plane, you always look for two places ground transportation or baggage claim. Generally, they are very close together. I’m sorry we almost always look for one more thing when we get off any plane, yes a bathroom. I have a bladder the size of a walnut, so bathrooms are essential. 

Why is SFO brilliant?  The airport has a tram that runs through the entire airport.  The tram will take you to gates, baggage, and car rentals. Why is it confusing?   When you get off the plane there will be some escalator going up, to the tram. Somehow we missed the sign that said up to the tram and ended walking a lot further than we needed too.

I am usually pretty good about finding my way through things, but the signage was poor. We ended up asking for direction to the car rental places. When we finally found the trams and saw the map, I realized this place is brilliant.

It is the first airport I had been too that had a tram from the terminal to the car rental place. LA, Las Vegas, Maui they all have a bus that takes you to the car rentals. Just a side note, Vegas is the worst to get to the car rental.  The bus ride is so long, you start to think the bus driver is lost. Word of advice look at the airport maps on the plane, so you don’t miss the best part of the airport. 

Now San Francisco has been getting some bad press lately. The homeless problem, drugs, high living cost. I’ve been to a several big cities in recent years, and guess what, they all have homeless, drugs, and high cost of living. I think it is just the nature of a large city. Any small area with a high concentration of people, I feel you will find similar issues.  Maybe not the cost of living issues as much, because that has to do with the available land. San Francisco is expensive. It is beautiful! The architecture is fabulous.  It’s next to the Pacific, which makes it very scenic. San Francisco is the complete package- which makes it ideal to live in and raise a family.  That combined with no available land = expense.

My wife did a fantastic job of finding our hotel. San Fran has different districts you can visit and stay in- Mission, Financial, Laurel Heights, Haight Ashbury. We stayed in North Beach near Fisherman’s Wharf.  The hotel was Pier 2620 Hotel Fisherman’s Wharf. Again Jodie outdid herself, the hotel was excellent. Small, very groovy inside. The location was “wow”.  It was fantastic with (maybe) a five-minute walk to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Word of warning San Francisco is not cheap, this same hotel during the summer run you around $400 a night. You can get it for half that during the offseason. I’m not sure how Jodie did it, we were there in August, and I know we did not pay that much.  Like I have said, she has a gift on finding great deals. With all of the unique areas, you can definitely find something that is in your budget. My daughter is a big fan of Airbnb, which also an option. 

So the big reason to visit anywhere is the sights and things to do. San Francisco is no exception.  A big draw is the Golden Gate Bridge, which I say is a must. Now for the bad about the bridge, if you want to drive across it (which you should), it has a toll. If you rent a car, they will charge you, but it will be for way more than the actual toll. We did just pay the extra fees, mainly because it is the easiest. One thing to consider is that the toll is only one way. Another thing traffic is insane.

If you want to get out and take pictures a carpool works best. I went to a park on the Northside of the bridge, there was no parking, and I mean no parking. Luckily for me, it was really windy and cold, Jodie did not want to get out of the car. So she dropped me off, I went out snapped some pic’s and froze. So windy! 

Now another attraction which you can go see is Alcatraz. I didn’t get to go, even though we wanted to.  I would recommend planning ahead and buy your tickets to Alcatraz before you get there.  We didn’t and couldn’t get tickets same day.  Also, be careful there are two kinds of trips, one is a boat ride around the island, and the other is a boat ride to the island, and a tour of the isle. So make sure you read the fine print. 

One of my favorite things was Fisherman’s Wharf itself. It’s a great area, very touristy so beware if that is not your thing. You will see lots of seals. There are tons of food options, photo ops, and shopping. With San Fransisco being on a hill, you can great a great view of the city from the Pier. 

Another fun thing to do is ride the trolly cars. I rode those as a kid, but we didn’t ride them this time. Since we had rented a car, we just never got around to it. Here is a funny side note, when I was here with my parents as a kid, my stepdad, and I ran and jumped on one while it was moving (like in the movies).

Yeah, don’t do that.  The conductor was very cross with us. Now we drove all over the city and saw lots of sights. We went shopping in the Financial District, drove to the coast, check out a bunch of parks. Speaking of parks, I would check out Golden Gate Park.

Let’s spend some time and talk about Golden Gate Park. One, it is enormous.  There are a couple of museums, a Japanese garden, golf course, botanical garden, a Dutch windmill. Too much to see in one trip. We went to the Japanese Garden, you just need to go. It’s so beautiful.

We were going to go to the de Young Art Museum, but since I had my tripod, the guard had a fit, and I was going to have to walk downstairs to check it in. Which at the time seemed like more work than it was worth. We are going back to San Fran in a couple of months, and we are going back to de Young’s, but I will be leaving my tripod in the car.

I think you could spend a couple of weeks at this park and still not see everything. It’s a very cool place, I highly recommend you check our at least one thing there. As we worked our way down the park, we stumbled across this crazy little restaurant with a fantastic view.

The Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant is at the bottom of the park, with a view of the Pacific Ocean. I would definitely recommend eating here. While we are talking about food, let’s talk about some restaurants. They’re so many places to eat, and just about any type of food, you can imagine. I am quite a fan of crab, so Fisherman’s Wharf is the place for crab. It’s everywhere.

We ate at a couple of sites on the Wharf for dinner. We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary at Fog Harbor Fish House. The food was great, but the atmosphere was excellent. Overlooking the water, lots of glass and wood made up the restaurant, it was exquisite. I would certainly recommend this restaurant. 

We also went to the Franciscan Crab Restaurant. It isn’t as beautiful inside, but the food was fantastic. This one I highly recommend. I think I mentioned we will be back in San Fran in a couple of months and thinking about returning to the Franciscan Crab Restaurant.

Now for in breakfast we went all in on the tourist spot and had breakfast at Boudin Bakery Cafe. This place is pretty fun, and they make it way to easy to buy sourdough bread. We ended up bringing home more sourdough than any one family needs. 

What can I say but I highly recommend going to see San Fransisco. It is a magnificent city, with so much to offer. The crazy scary hills, unique architecture, bridges over the bay, the bay itself. This city has so much to offer. I didn’t even come close to touching all of the things to do. With all the beauty comes lots of people, so be prepared.

Driving down Lombard street is not like in the movies, there is an insane amount of people and police directing traffic. If you want Lombard to yourself, you have to go at night or the at the crack of dawn. But I will say it is worth it. Like all things pretty or unique, or things to look at, you have to anticipate people.

My wife and I do as much research as we can to try and minimize our crowd levels. Sometimes things cannot be avoided. So take a deep breath and relax and try to take in the beauty this planet has to offer, and go and see San Fransisco! Remember to keep shooting and enjoy all life has to offer.