Monday - Day after the Race

Day 5

Monday July 19th:

Now that the race was over, it was time to get on with the rest of the vacation. We got started a little on the late side (I was a little tired) and we started off to San Francisco. First, we had to drop off the rental car, then get gas, ice, etc. By the time we were on the road, it was around 10 AM. We really needed to get to San Fran as soon as possible in order to make the most of it. We only had one day to see as much as we could. The drive (78 miles) was not too bad, other than some bad patches of traffic. We successfully negotiated the toll booths and bridges as we made our way to our next campground, Treasure Island RV in South San Francisco. The really nice thing about this campground is it’s close proximity to the BART station. That was how we were planning on seeing the wharf and Pier 39.

The RV place was nice, nothing fancy, level spots in a parking lot style set up. We hooked up, gave the dog some food, and headed over to the BART station. This is where things start to get interesting. I have never traveled the BART before and had no idea how it worked, but it is a fairly simple process. You walk up to a machine, put your card in, tell it where you want to go, and it prints out tickets. The tickets to Embarcadero were $7.10 each (round trip) per person. Luckily, the boys were free….finally some advantage to having little ones. :) So we got the tickets, walked through the turnstiles and got onto the right train. Everything was going smoothly at this point.

Once we got to our destination, we exited the train and we needed to put the same card into the turnstiles to exit the facility. Well, Heidi had a little trouble with this one and went into the wrong turnstile, while putting her card in. Chaz was able to get through, since he picked the right lane, but Heidi was now trapped! Her card would not work a second time and the machine kept telling her to see the agent. Well, there was no agent in the booth. This was a nightmare…we were isolated from Heidi and she had no way of getting out. She was like stuck in the Matrix or something. Finally, I caved in and bought a new card (minimum $16) Grrrrrrr and handed it to her to get her out of there. We had to use it on the exit since we bought it outside the gate so Heidi had to walk quickly through the exit as it started to close on her.

Now that we were all back together again, it was time to make the trek to Pier 39. We were slightly dismayed as we got to the street level only to find that we were at Pier 1. That’s right….we had to walk 38 piers down to our final destination…..and these are not small piers. Do I have to remind you that Heidi is 4 months pregnant as well? Made for an interesting walk.

Along the way, the boys, in their typical fashion, had to pee. Fortunately, the City of San Francisco was thoughtful enough to install these fancy restroom structures along the pier walk. These high tech buildings featured a sliding door that opened and closed with a button on the outside and the inside of the building. Push the button and the door opens, Star Trek style. You get the picture. Well, Heidi went in with the boys since we certainly cannot leave them alone. As she exited the structure, she wanted to take a picture of them in the bathroom since it was really cool but the door shut so quick and they were locked inside behind the Star Trek door. Now our two sons were trapped in a public restroom and we were yelling through the door to explain to them how to get out!

It was really amazing we were able to stay together as a family at all this day. Once we made it to the Pier 39 area, we had a good time. It was so cold out so Coffee, Hot Chocolates were perfect to warm us up, Live juggling shows, the works. Unfortunately, I was on the cell phone most of the time dealing with Kaiser. We were running out of Anthony’s asthma medicine and did not want to go without for the rest of the trip. That could be disastrous. No emergency room visits for this trip please. I was able to get them to refill his prescription and we were set to pick it up the next morning at the Geary facility in San Francisco. (More on this later)

We did some shopping, saw the sea lions of course. Anthony wanted a sea lion stuffed animal that he calles sealy and wont put down, and then went over to the famous Boudin’s Bistro for dinner. I was not leaving Frisco until I had a bowl of their famous clam chowder. The restaurant was a bit pricey and there was quite a wait, but the food was worth it. Heidi’s order got screwed up, but they were nice enough to take hers off the bill. Love that customer service. They also gave us a free Boudin bread round for our wait.

Now it was time to make the long long walk back to the BART station it was so cold and windy. None of us was looking forward to it, especially the boys. They were beat and already whining about going back home. That was when we noticed the Pedi Cab driver. Normally, these pedicabs can hold two, maybe three adults. We approached the young proprietor and said “Can you take all of us? He paused briefly and said “What the heck, we can make it work” So all 6 of us piled onto this poor pedi cab,and he biked his ass off trying to get us the mile and a half back to the BART. It was slow, but hey we did not have to walk. $30 later and we were entering the train station. Made it back to the motorhome around 11 PM and hit the sack.