Day 2 - San Francisco

Happy Anniversary to my sweetheart, best friend and THE best looking man ever...Will.

This second day we just wanted to do whatever.  No agenda.  I always have shopping on my mind and I wanted to find something for the kids in China Town.  Top quality, of course.  It's the only time that it's okay to see the little "made in China" tag on something.  You feel like you have the REAL thing, even though half of the toys in the stores across the country are made in China as well.  Oh well...I felt a sense of victory!

What I really wanted to find was fortune cookies.  Found everything else from dried fish, veges, spices...and...other...things, like all parts of chickens and pigs...burned in my brain forever...but no fortune cookies.  You'd think that China Town would have fortune cookies.  Are fortune cookies not from China? 

No luck...with the cookies, but the kids got some cool stuff made in China!

We shopped in all the big name stores like Nike, Macy's, Levi's, H & M...which was so crowded and too fast for me.  I tried to fit in with all the other shoppers and looked through racks and racks of clothes.  I wanted to find something that didn't scream...I'm a mom of 4 children, a Mormon, I love to watch design shows and I'm almost 39!!!  Will and I went different ways in the store, he went looking for sun glasses and I looked for everything else.  I called him about 30 minutes later to find out where he was in the store, and he was in the exact same place I had left him.

He was a little overwhelmed too!  I just love that he'll stand in one place amidst shopping chaos, just for me!

The trolley cars were fun...kind of a must-do when you're in SF, I think.  I wonder what the locals think about all the tourists who stand in line for up to an hour waiting to get on a trolley car when they can catch a car along the entire route...not even having to wait in line!!  How about that?  We finally figured it out when we got sick of waiting in line and decided to start walking and caught a trolley later.  The bad part about that is that you will most likely be one of the people standing up and hanging on.  Just when you think that not one other person can squeeze their touristy self onto a trolley...the conductor says, get on!!

This night, it was so cold and windy and we had purchased $27 worth of salt water taffy (I had no idea it would be that much...but there were so many different flavors, I couldn't stop!!)  that Will was having to carry all this stuff so we jumped on an already very packed trolley and I stood in front of a lady who looked at me like, you have got to be kidding...you are not going to try to stand there!!  On the long ride we discovered that they were also from Utah, and that the man was an uncle to my sister-in-law Lezlee!  Saying it's a small world is an understatement!!!  We saw them the next day at Alcatraz too.

And here I was thinking that we were the only peole in the world to be going to San Francisco for a vacation!  Little did I know that ALL of Japan and S. Korea, and most of India would be there as well!!

After China Town, we made our way to Fisherman's Wharf.  I wanted sour dough bread and Will wanted fresh crab!  We did end up getting sour dough bread...y-u-m-m-y, but not the crab...yet.  We also were "entertained" by more street vendors...sheesh!

Will with Alcatraz over his shoulder...that happens on day 3!

While Will was deployed, my sister-in-law, Anna gave us some neat WWII, retro, era gifts.  The girls got cute metal lunch boxes and I got a bag with this lady on it...with a much prettier, more proportionate face. 

Then we ate our "linner" as I like to call it. Lunch/Dinner mixed together, at this Boudin restaurant. We sat and watched the huge waves in the bay and the wind blowing the flags straight out

These lazy seals...sea lions?  I can't remember which one?  And I didn't get close enough to see if they had an ear hole or a flap!  They reminded me and made me home sick for Willie.  How he finds the only spot of sun in the room and spreads himself out in it!  But Willie smells better than these guys! 

I'm sure the birds are just as domesticated and used to swarms of people that not much will interfere with a much desired nap...on one leg!!

And our second glace at the Golden Gate bridge.  Our first was when we flew over it coming into San Francisco.  Very, very cool!  I totally wanted to get my camera out, but it was in the overhead compartment a few rows up and I didn't want to get yelled at by the stewardess or the man who I almost dropped my bag on as I was trying to heave it into the overhead compartment with one hand.  If looks could kill...

We never really did have a clear day.  It was a lot more clear in the city than it was in the bay...which is normal, I know.  I took 66 pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge...just a few...most of then I took in hoping that I could make something neat out of it.  We'll see, but a hazy picture is a hazy picture!
So day 2 ended in a cold, windy way.  Pounds of salt water taffy...coconut, banana cream pie, pina colada, pomegranate - Julie...heaven!!...gifts for the kids from the store we laughingly called "Shell City" thanks to the Sponge Bob movie (little shells assembled with hot glue (made in Mexico) doing different things, all with googly eyes...we laughed a lot in that store!)  Trolley home.  Warm, soft bed to relax in and eat the taffy, and chocolate, I had to find chocolate, and snuggle with the man of my dreams!