April 2011 San Francisco vacation - Part 1

For those who weren't already aware, my son and I went up to Sacramento, CA last Friday (4.8.11) with my grandfather and sister for a family reunion.  From there, just my son and I headed to San Francisco on Sunday (4.10.11) for a 3 day exploration and sight-seeing trip.  What an adventure it was!

I absolutely fell in love with this city.  It was a never ending plethora of sights and sounds, beauty and history.  We stayed right in the hub of the city near Market Street, a block from the Powell Street trolley and next door to the Chinatown entrance.  Prime location, it really couldn't get much better.

I want to do a full debrief on my trip here on my blog...there is just so much info and pictures that I want to spew out for my own memories, as well as to share with my friends, family, and blog readers.  This is Part 1 - but there's oh so much more...

Day 1: Sunday, April 10, 2011

Caydan and I had been staying with my Great Uncle Dick and Great Aunt Ruby (my grandfather's brother and wife) in Sacramento.  Uncle Dick then drove Caydan and I to the downtown Sacramento Amtrak station around 9am-ish.  Caydan and I killed some time getting some Starbucks coffee and hot cocoa next door for our train ride.

Once on the train we settled in for the hour or so ride to Emeryville, CA.  From there we had to take an Amtrak bus to the San Francisco Shopping Center stop.

Breakfast of champs, lol! :)

Once we got to San Francisco, the bus dropped us off on Market Street next to the Westfield shopping mall.  We headed over to Walgreen's (there seems to be a Walgreens on every block in the tourist areas!) to get our 3-day Muni Passport.  $20 gets you unlimited rides for 3 full days on all Muni buses, trolleys, and street cars (not BART though).  Amazing deal considering the trolleys are $5 one way and the buses are $2.00 a ride (you can get a 1-day pass and maybe a 7-day too?).  We definitely made good use of our pass, you can easily get ANYWHERE in San Fran with the public transportation system....that was one of my Top 5 favorite things about this city!

We then headed to our hotel...we were staying at our timeshare, Worldmark, on Bush Street and Stockton (fyi - if anyone is interested in a Worldmark timeshare purchase, let me know so I can get a referral credit!).  What an amazing location....walking distance (about 4 blocks downhill) to the hubbub of Market Street, a block from Chinatown and all it's amazingness sightseeing, a block from Union Square, and a block from Powell Street where the trolley will take you all the way to Lombard Street and Fisherman's Wharf.

We couldn't check in yet, but was able to leave our bags there so we could travel lightly around the city.  We were then on a mission to find lunch....and I had a craving for some sweet tea. :)

Along the way to find a McDonald's, we passed so much great art and murals everywhere (another Top 5 thing I loved about the city - all the art everywhere!).  Random stuff like this on buildings:

After walking for awhile and ending up back on Market Street, we found what we were looking for...McD's and my sweet tea. :)

And lastly, Caydan being silly at McD's:

More to come on our adventure in tomorrow's post. :)

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