Craig and I had the opportunity to take a quick trip to San Francisco the first weekend in November. Neither of us had ever been before and we had put off going because we had heard that the city had kind of gone to crap. We finally decided it was time to check it out. Our main reason to go was for a 49ers game and then figured we would work the rest of the trip around that. We flew in Friday morning and had most of the day to check out the Pier 39 area. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel and then walked to Pier 39 for lunch and then walked around the pier until we could finally check into our hotel. Craig then realized he had the time wrong for the Sacramento Kings game that evening, it was actually an hour earlier than we thought and he figured out that it was going to take 3 hours to get there. Not ideal for me, I hate being in the car especially since we had already been on the plane that morning and I also had to skip my workout because Craig convinced me to not wake up extra early to workout before our flight, because we would have plenty of time at our hotel before the basketball game. I was in a little bit of a bad mood on the drive to the game, but did take a little nap while Craig dealt with California traffic. We found our parking garage and made our way to the arena. The Kings were down quite a bit heading into the 4th quarter but made an awesome comeback and took it into overtime. They ended up losing, but it was sure an exciting game. Luckily the drive back took less than half the time.
Saturday morning after a workout and breakfast we went to go check our Alcatraz. While we were standing in line to get on the ferry over to Alcatraz, we figured out how close we were to San Jose, which is where BSU was playing that evening. Craig bought tickets on his phone on our ferry ride over. Alcatraz was one of the few touristy things we really wanted to do while we were there. We did an audio tour and it was really cool to hear about some of inmates and what life was like there. After we got back on the ferry, we grabbed a quick lunch from some street vendors and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the game. Of course the one time neither of us back anything Boise State, is the time we decide to go to a game last minute. We always have something with us, so this was very weird. It took us just over an hour to get to San Jose. The stadium looked like a high school stadium, it was quite small and didn't even have bleachers on one side of the field. We sat in one of the end zones and we were so close to the players. The game didn't start out pretty, but luckily BSU figured it out and ended up winning the game. I'm glad that we ended up going and our car didn't even get broken into while we are at the game, so definitely a win-win.
Sunday morning we slept in a little. After grabbing breakfast at the hotel (which was a pretty dang good buffet) we headed back to the room to get ready for the 49ers game. We drove to Levi Stadium and had a quick walk from our parking lot. The stadium was beautiful. We first went to the team store and got the kids each a sweatshirt. We then found our seats and then checked out the rest of the stadium. We then paid way too much money for lunch before the game started. There was a great fly by at the start of the game, since it was just after veteran's day. They were playing the Seahawks, but ended up losing. It was still a lot of fun to watch and to just actually be there. I even brought along Craig's 49ers jacket from when he was like 12, there was an old gobstopper wrapper in one pocket and a ton of sand in the other pocket. I don't think it has been work for over 20 years. On our way back from the game we drove down Lombard Street a couple of times. It was so crazy that people actually live on such a zig-zag street. After we got back to the hotel we grabbed a quick dinner at Pier 39 and some yummy salt water taffy for the kids, before walking over to Ghirardelli Square. Sadly at this point I had some massive heart burn so I didn't even get anything chocolate related. On the bright side, it saved me probably about 1,000 calories, so not the end of the world.
Monday morning after a quick workout and breakfast, we headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was super windy, but we still walked just over halfway across. It really is quite amazing and it was fun to learn about how it was built. We then drove over to the Pink Ladies and then checked out a couple cathedrals before heading back to the airport. It was a quick trip, but we filled every minute of it. We fit in 3 games, lots of driving, and all of the touristy things that we wanted to do, so I would call it a very successful weekend. The flight back was easy and the kids did great with Nana and Pops. We will see where we end up next fall for our weekend of games.
