Spent the rest of the day on Sunday 8/4 over at Alcatraz Island. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip- you know me and my twisted sense of whats awesome. All I could think was Walking Dead (prison) meets Shutter Island. Unfortunately, whatever we had for lunch at Pier 33 made me sooooo sick to my stomach so what I really got was a great tour of the Alcatraz bathrooms. Awesome. So I didn’t take the tour, just stayed outside (and close to the bathrooms) and shot from there.

The boat on the way over. I told Jack that the boat was reeeeeeeally little and they had to take one person over at a time. Like in Splash. “where are you going mr. fat jack??”  “to get the little boat” “the LITTLE boat?!?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-bw_1n5tJA (you HAVE to watch it. You’ll laugh, guaranteed.)Again, one side sunny the other side cloudy. Its like a schizophrenic city.I knew container ships were huge, but this was crazy huge in real life.Those are people on the second level from the bottom. All I could hear in my head was the Shutter Island music. (you should keep the music playing in the background while you view the rest of this post.)My favorite part of the whole Island. Visions of photoshoots right there.Need this super big in my house. This picture and the next one were taken within minutes of each other (how long it took me to walk from one side to the other). Crazy city.The next day (Monday 8/5) we did the next touristy thing (after another delicious breakfast at Sears) and took the cable car down to the wharf area.We lucked out and got the outside standing area. However, I couldn’t change my camera settings or hold the camera correctly cause I was busy trying not to fall off and to hold onto Timmy who was standing too. Not an easy task I can tell ya.Where they turn the cable cars around. Reminds me of Thomas the Tank engine days.You can barely make out the bridge in the background just to the left of Patrick’s head.Lombard St. Can’t see the curvy part from where we were very well.Our trip wouldn’t be complete without it.
Ice cream for lunch.And then we (I) had the bright idea to walk back uphill to Lombard St and take the cable car back from there to the hotel. The cable car part was a great idea. The walking uphill not so much.Francisco. That’s fun to say! (name the movie)Yeah, we walked up that shit. Stopped quite a few times leaning on trees and mailboxes and having a few small heart attacks.He was particularly good on the bells.When I asked Jack to take one picture where he didn’t look annoyed, a few other tourists found that quite amusing. Jack, however, did not.Ok, who in RVC remembers Swensens??! He was NOT happy with me after the hill. That’s kinda the “get the fuck away from me” smile. Then all was good when they went shopping at the team store before the game (this store was in SF city). Mommy Dearest, I’m so sorry I didn’t get you this shirt. It would go great w the Florida toll-takers one you have. Happy because there is baseball stuff around. Then they headed to the Giants game (and I found another sushi restaurant nearby the hotel. Thanks, Yelp!)I’ll leave you with this total amazingness to end the SF part of the trip. Next up, SoCal  including Disney, San Diego & driving. 

So I think pretty much everyone already knows that we went on a big trip this summer to California and Arizona. John wants to take the boys to every major league baseball park (so the trips are centered around the games, and the sights are just an extra.) and they are now up to 26 out of the 30 parks at the conclusion of this trip. Timmy is a little behind so they’re going to have to go back and do a few twice, but I’m pretty sure they’re not too terribly upset about that. It was a GREAT trip, so much fun (well, except for the baseball for me. You all know how I feel about that.). Big thanks to John for setting it all up and funding the trip for all of us, and to Erin at Top Shelf Travel for all the arranging of flights, rental cars & hotels in accordance with the game schedule. And here comes total picture overload for the next few days until I finish up the trip.

We flew into San Francisco from JFK on 8/2. Those of you who know me, know that I am not a fan of flying. I did manage to do it drug free, however but man that was a loooooong ass flight. Read a lot and watched a lot of JetBlue TV. And flying into the SFO airport so soon after that big crash didn’t help much either. But we made it. A little (disclaimer: a mix of iPhone, fujix100 and the canon 5d mark ii pictures all mixed in here.)

Went to Lori’s diner our first night for dinner (at like 5pm sf time, so 8pm ny time.) Took some getting used to for the time change but by the following day, we were doing much better. 
We waited 1.5hours (yes, hours!!!) for a rental car in the sfo airport. And then when we got to the counter they said they had no more minivans left. Yeah, the NY came out just about then. We ended up getting a minivan but the brakes were metal on metal grinding at every stop and the change oil light came on immediately. The rental car line from across the street from the hotel wasn’t any better. And it looked like that through our entire stay in SF. We did eventually get a new car the following day which the company delivered, but I never understood the last rice truck in the world long lines during the trip. While the boys went to the A’s game on Saturday 8/3, I took a cab to Japantown for some sightseeing and lunch. Sushi of course. (hey, they can visit every park. I can visit every sushi restaurant.)Selfiies and sushi. Grandpa Ken (aka Hakka) snapped a few on his cell. The boys in their “natural habitat” (the stadium store).
It was a Zuba’s giveaway. There are no words.More from Japantown.Ah, the elusive Queen of Pakiscandinavia.I walked back to the hotel from Japantown after a little walking tour around the area. Met a nice mailman who showed me Janis Joplin’s first house (not pictured). After a few hills, I called it a day and headed back to the hotel to meet up with the boys. Do you notice that everyone is dressed super warm? It was freaking freezing in San Francisco. In August. Whatever.Waiting on line for Sears Fine Food for breakfast the next day. Totally worth it- best waffles ever. Good call, Hakka. Then Sunday 8/4 it was the double decker bus tour all around San Francisco. The first “sight” on the tour. Yup. When we checked into our hotel, John upgraded us to a suite. As it turns out, the suite was on the smoking floor (seriously? I had no idea that there even WAS a smoking floor anywhere anymore!) and the whole floor and our room reeeeeeeeeeked like cigarette smoke. Not to mention the pot smoke that filled the hallway. We “graded” right back to a regular room that was non smoking (pot or otherwise). However, you can get a good contact high pretty much anywhere in the whole city. The building on the right is the Coppola’s studio, both father and daughter. Sophia Coppola directed one of my favorite movies- Marie Antoinette. Is it just me or does anyone else think of Jan Brady ” F-F-FIL-L-L-LMO-O-O-ORE. Fillmore Junior High!Chinatown- one of the things we didn’t have time to do. Heading across and back the Golden Gate bridge. The fog/mist was so cool and ever-changing. Patrick is NOT a fan of bridges. One side of the city is all cloudy/foggy/misty and the other is all bright and sunny. Looks like a toy out of the 50’s. Love it. Alcatraz. That’s the next blog post. Coit tower. People kept telling us we could go up. Too many stairs. Dinner at Tadich Grill was amazing. Another win by Hakka. Next up: Alcatraz, Giants & CableCars. Ohmy.