San Francisco: Day 2

Monterey Bay Aquarium
Our first full day in San Francisco, we drove two hours south to Monterey to enjoy the aquarium there. 

Before heading out, we caught this beautiful rainbow hanging over the city!

Sea Otters

The first show of the day was the feeding of the sea otters. It was a pretty crowded show, but it was fun to watch the antics of these rat-like creatures :o)

Kelp Forest
There are a number of really "big" tanks in the Aquarium. The first one we checked out was the sea kelp. We were able to view this tank on three different levels: ground floor, mid-way, and even from above.  

Jellies

Another favorite section was the jellies, of which they had all sorts.

Tentacles

The aquarium is currently having a special exhibit called Tentacles:The Astounding Lives of Octopuses, Squid and Cuttlefishes. Coincidentally, all of our favorite things!

A nautilus

The Giant Pacific octopus

One of the nice features of the Monterey Aquairum is their texting alerts. At the start of the day, you can sign up to receive texts about special feedings. We managed to get over to see them feed the Giant Pacific Octopus. It wasn't quite the astounding display that we were hoping for. They placed a large, rubber ball-like thing in the water that had a hole filled with fish. The octopus grabbed the ball, brought it to his mouth, but then we were no longer able to see anything, as his tentacles completed covered the ball.

The Broadclub Cuttlefish

Outside the Aquarium
The aquarium has a nice outside area with benches and a view of the bay. While we were relaxing there, we noticed some sea otters at play a few hundred meters out.

With Dave's new teleconverter, he was able to take some close-up, zoomed in pictures that allowed us to confirm that they were actually sea otters.  See below for the zoomed and cropped version!

We also got a glimpse of this cool bird. Not sure what he is!

Other exhibits
Kyle's favorite exhbit was the "big" tank. It looks like we didn't get any photos of it, but it was essentially a huge tank that had hundred of sardines swimming around in it, as well as a few hammerheads. It was mesmerizing to sit and watch the ebb and flow of the sea creatures.  Poor Kyle first started getting sick during this visit, and he wasn't feeling very well. So he spent a lot of time laying in the upper balcony of the big tank room, just watching the fish. It remains one of his fondest memories of the whole trip.

Below are some other photos Dave took of various sea creatures:

The Ride home
We left around 3:30pm and decided to take the scenic route. We had some good views of the setting sun. At one random point, we got out to enjoy the view.

San Francisco 2016: Day 1

Austin to San Francisco
After an uneventful direct flight from Austin, we arrived in San Francisco, picked up our bags and headed to our hotel. 

Before even arriving, we passed by Lombard street and stopped to show the boys.  We looped around and then headed down ourselves!

Dave tried all week to get a good photo of Lombard, but never were we and the light in the right place at the right time.

We checked into our hotel and we were ready to explore!  It was early San Francisco time, but we were two hours ahead and ready for lunch. Dave wanted to get the quintessential sourdough bread bowl with clam chowder, so off to Boudin's Bakery we headed - the oldest sourdough baker in San Francisco

Boudin Bakery
All three boys ordered clam chowder bowls. I was a little nervous that one of them might not like clam chowder, so I ordered a chili bowl. 

No worries, the boys gobbled down every last piece of their lunch :o) Below is a photo of Kyle proudly showing off his last piece of bowl.

I had heard some good things about the self-guided Boudin bakery tour.  The tour opened at 11:30am, so after a little waiting around, we started the tour. The ticket taker at the front told us the tour took around twenty minutes... we were so mesmerized by the whole thing, we were there for at least an hour.

The bakers mixed up the bread in a giant-sized kitchen aid (Okay, it wasn't really a kitchen aid, but it sort of looked like a giant version of one.) It held hundreds of pounds of flour!  After the dough was done mixing, it was too heavy too move.  Fortunately, the bowl was on wheels. The baker wheeled the bread over to an elevator-like machine.  The machine raised the bread, and the tipped it over, where it then poured into the machine below.

After the mixing bowl, the bread was cut into pound sized pieces, and rolled through a machine to make a round loaf. It then was allowed to set for a time, and then it was rolled into two different rooms to both proof and raise the bread.

In addition to the actual workroom, there was a room of San Francisco history as well as some information about sour dough.
The elderly ticket taker saw our interest, and whenever he wasn't taking tickets, would come over to fill us in on another interesting fact.  He and Kyle really connected!

Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39
After the bakery, we headed back out to Fisherman's Wharf.  Along the wharf, there are all sorts of street vendors/artists.

We were mesmerized by the street artist making San Francisco scenes from just a few cans of spray paint, an old can and a chisel! For $10, we could own our own copy :o)

Another street artist with his homemade, one-man band!

And all of this commotion was surrounded by the beautiful sights of Alcatraz and the San Francisco Bay!

Sea Lions
We walked further down Fisherman's Wharf to Pier 39 to check out the Sea Lions. There are typically hundreds of sea lions in the area, but due to higher than normal sea temperatures, the fish had gone elsewhere, and thus, so had most of the sea lions. During our stay, there were probably between 150 and 200 lions lounging on the docks at any time. 

In addition to sea lions, there were plenty of bird to look at too!

The majority of crowd was watching the sea lions from Pier 39, but we found the pier just west of that gave us a better view.   

We then strolled around to the Pier 39 side. There were a few sea lions up close, weighing down one of the boat docks.

Further down, a naturalist from Aquarium on the Bay answered a bunch of our questions.

Being Thanksgiving weekend, Pier 39 was decked out for the upcoming holiday!

Throughout our stay, we stopped by multiple times just to watch the sea lion antics!

Musee Mechanique
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by the Musee Mechanique, filled with old time games and entertainment. While some were less than thrilling, some were pretty entertaining. Dave found some of his old favorite arcade games, and the boys played a round of air hockey.

Ghiradelli Square

Exhausted after our trip out here, and then Fisherman's Wharf, we headed back to the hotel for a brief rest.  We then headed to Ghiradelli square for a little "pick-me-up" Banana Split.  Yum!

Dinner
And then on to Chinatown for dinner. Dave fondly remembered his meal at the R&G Lounge, so that was our first pick. We ordered their signature dish of Sal and Pepper Crab, Special Beef, a Seafood Clay Pot plus some duck soup.  The dinner was delicious, with Dave's favorite being the clay pot, and the boys and my favorite the Special Beef. We all found the crab entertaining, though, as Dylan put it: A lot of work :o)

Although it was probably only eight o'clock or so, we all headed back to the hotel and collapsed into bed. It was ten o'clock Austin time for us, and we were all exhausted!