The AirBnb we stayed at in Walnut Creek was just a few blocks from the LDS church, so we walked over for the 9 o'clock ward in this super cool old-school building.
After church, we headed to downtown Walnut Creek to find breakfast. Lucky for us, there was a farmers market going on. Most of the booths had free samples and it was ALL AMAZING. Such fresh fruits, they put the farmers markets in New York to shame. Like, this farmer's market was professional baseball and New York's farmers markets are trying to figure out t-ball.
Needless to say, we bought some fruit. Even though we almost filled up on all the samples. It was like Costco on a Saturday afternoon, but with delicious free fruit.
We trekked back up to the apartment and got our stuff together and bid adieu to our lovely home away from home.
Then we Uber'd it over to Bart. It was already over 90 degrees and the Uber was only $5. So worth it. By the way, what is "smoke" weather? The only other time we've seen that is in Beijing, which we figured was smog. But if you look at that top picture from church, the weather was beautiful. Hot. But not smoky.
We took Bart into Embarcadero and missed a streetcar by literally 5 seconds. We were walking up to it when the doors closed. :( So we went over to the Ferry Building to check out SF's version of NYC's Chelsea Market.
Then we walked out and caught the next streetcar over to Pier 39.
The streetcar historic and only practical because it's the only line that directly connects the Ferry building and Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf. Later today, we got really frustrated that more cars/buses aren't running on this line.
At Pier 39, we stopped in to check out Cariloha and Del Sol, and leave our bags in the storage room so we didn't have to lug those around all day. We met with the new interns that just arrived yesterday (the same ones I was training in Utah this past week).
From here, we jumped back on the streetcar to Fisherman's Wharf and then walked the few blocks to Ghirardelli's. The line moved quickly and we were able to find a table after just a few minutes of searching, and our masterpiece of a sundae arrived not long after. We got the Crissy Fields Sundae.
Are you ready for this? Vanilla ice cream AND cookies 'n cream ice cream, smothered in their ridiculously delicious hot fudge. That's the base. Then cover it in whipped cream and top it with chocolate chip cookie crumbles and add two of their irresistible chocolate squares with caramel inside. MMmmm. It did not last long.
After such a decadent and delectable dessert, we walked it off by strolling along Aquatic Park and out the pier to take some pictures.
Then we continued West through Fort Mason, which gives you a great view of Alcatraz.
On the far side of Fort Mason, we reached the bus stop for bus 28. The bus rounded the corner as we got there, but after dropping all his passengers off, the driver got out and went to talk with some friends. This stop was the terminus of his route, so it wasn't too out of the ordinary, although the schedule did say he was supposed to be picking us up now. After about 10 minutes, he got back in the bus, but nothing happened. Then the driver used the phone for a few minutes. Then he finally started the bus up, which got us all excited (there were about 20 or 30 people waiting by this point). But then he switched the sign to "Not in Service" and drove off. ! Upon checking the schedule, the next bus wasn't for another 21 minutes! We were NOT HAPPY with SF's MTA. That bus was going to connect us to Golden Gate Bridge. You can't have unreliable and shoddy service on such a heavily used tourist route! //rant over
So we ended up walking about a mile over to Crissy Fields so we could see it a little closer.
Not taking the bus was actually a good thing in a round about way. This little walk to Chrissy Field put us close to the big dome we'd been seeing as we roamed the City. The dome turned out to belong to the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. And it was amazing. It felt like we were back in the Roman Forum.
We caught another local bus (luckily this one left just a few minutes after we got there) back to Columbus and Mason, where we hopped off and then ran onto a cablecar (trolley) that was coming down the hill.
The cablecar took us down to Fisherman's Wharf, where we found a ridiculous line of people waiting to ride the trolley. So we definitely recommend going up the hill and catching it for the ride back down.
We needed food, so we went to Boudin's at Pier 39 to try their famous clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. We waited for 23 minutes to get our food, which was ridiculous considering there were only 3 people in line ahead of us. When we finally got our food, it was not as world-famous as we'd hoped it would be. The chowder was mediocre, nothing compared to what we've eating in Alaska or even Seattle. The bowl was good, but not worth going out of your way for.
We picked up our bags, said our goodbyes to the staff, and then caught a streetcar back to Embarcadero where we picked up the Bart down to the airport. We weren't sure which terminal we were in until we got on the airTrain. Sadly, I realized which terminal I was in when we were rolling up to it. So Isa and my goodbye was QUICK. :(
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| Oakland (foreground) and San Francisco, connected by the Bay Bridge and a faint Golden Gate off to the right. |
Our flights our were fine - Isa red-eyed to New York and I overnighted in Seattle heading back up to Alaska.
And thus ends our very quick weekend getaway in San Francisco. :)
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