Just What You Wanted To Do: View Someone Else's Vacation Photos

Because we love him, Bee and I recently said, “Sayonara, Sucker!” to Mr. C, dumped him at a friend's house, and flew to San Francisco for the weekend.

As it has been several years since Bee and I have taken some time to just be with each other, we thoroughly enjoyed this trip.

We are very lucky in that my cousin lives in the area, and he and his wife were kind-enough to pick us up from the airport (saving us a shuttle!) and chauffeur us around the first day. This was particularly awesome because, not only was I able to hang out with my favorite cousin for the afternoon, but Bee and I got to cross off several sites from our “We-Must-Be-Tourists” List that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. Such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito, the artsy town across the Bay.

Our first full, solo day was the most intensive, as we walked all over the place. For those of you who are unfamiliar with SF, allow me to try to impress you with our physical stamina:

We were staying in the Marina District, so we started by walking over to the big purple circle, which is Ghiradelli Square. Because we wanted hot chocolate. Then we moved on to Fisherman's Wharf.

Please note the newly-bought, $3.99 umbrella because -- yes -- it rained all morning.

We were going to stay in the area for lunch because I really wanted fresh crab, but Miserly won out (again!) and we just decided we didn't feel like spending the money. So we went on to Chinatown instead. My favorite part of the walk was when I randomly stopped partway through our walk to take this picture:

. . . and realized afterwards that the famous twisting street is there in the background. Check another thing off my Must-Be-Tourists List!

After lunch in Chinatown, we retraced our steps BACK to see the famous City Lights Bookstore (check), then retraced BACK past Chinatown to see the Ferry Building, which has an indoor market Bee really wanted to see (check!).

By now it was late afternoon, and we were tired, so we decided to spend the money on a Historic Cable Car ride back to the Wharf area . . . but the waiting lines were too long. So we walked allll the way back up, instead. I didn't mind too much, though, because this allowed me to force Bee to again detour through Chinatown so I could see the infamous gates to the city (check! [but was it really worth it?]) . . .

. . . AND so I could FINALLY get potstickers (check!!)

We couldn't stay for long, though, because we had to hoof it back north in time to get to Ghiradelli Square AGAIN for a $9 ice cream sundae (check).

We did so much walking that day that our feet, hips and backs were screaming at us. All that walking also had the unfortunate side-effect of causing the dye of my jeans to rub off on my legs, leaving me looking like I'd been repeatedly bruised:

did you notice that the lather running towards the shower drain is also now blue?

The next day we decided we didn't want to walk EVER AGAIN, so we took a bus to Golden Gate Park, making it to the Japanese Tea Gardens just in time to get in for free (check)!

Then we headed over to the Must-See California Academy of Sciences . . .

. . . where we checked it off our Must-See List by just walking around the gift shop for awhile.

We got to see a few majestic California redwoods (check) on the way back to the bus stop. So that was awesome.

And, after we ate lunch in the Marina District, I made Bee return with me to the hotel for a 2-hour break. So that was REALLY awesome.

We spent the rest of our trip hopping back to relive the glory of our Fisherman's Wharf/Ferry Building expeditions, being thwarted yet-again in our Historic Cable Car Ride (the lines were down. So; no check there), before taking the subway system back to the airport and flying home.

Upon our reunion, our child proved how much he missed us by immediately announcing that he didn't want to leave our friend's house, then proving it by softly crying during the car ride home. He immediately cheered some when I bribed him to love us again by giving him a set of magnets I'd bought at the California Academy Of Sciences gift shop.

And then we returned to our usual lives, which included: