Summer Vacation Day 4 - San Francisco and Novato

This was our day to explore as much of San Francisco as we could.  I usually have a really great plan of what to see/do and how to fit it in and how much walking we will do to accomplish it all.  San Francisco was a bit of a challenge for me because of all the hills.  I must have said it 150 times while we were there, but everywhere you look, everything is uphill in every direction!  There's never a downhill!  Because of this, we decided we'd walk when we could and Uber the rest of the time for efficiency.

Our first stop was a bakery for breakfast with my cousin Caitlin, her boyfriend Matt, and their sweet new baby girl, Vivienne.  Caitlin came to see us in Oxford and also in the Bronx right before we moved to Houston.  It had been a long time we've seen her and it was our first time meeting Matt and Vivienne.

It was very coincidental and convenient that the bakery in Caitlin's neighborhood where we met happened to be a block and a half away from the Full/Fuller House house that we wanted to see!

And Leighton doubted that this was THE house and thought it was this one next door ... it wasn't ... and the other groups of tourists arriving to take photos were all the proof I needed!

Next up was an Uber ride to the Painted Ladies across from Alamo Square Park (famous for US from Full/Fuller House).  Riley played on the playground, we played catch, finished our pastries, and enjoyed the nice weather.

Another Uber took us to our next destination - Chinatown.  We wandered into shops, contemplated whether to eat lunch anywhere there, and visited the famed Chinatown Fortune Cookie Factory.  I don't usually like fortune cookies, but these were delicious!

We exited Chinatown and started walking trough North Beach.  We were ready to eat and Riley requested pasta.  We looked at a few menus, realized prices were going to be a bit elevated no matter what we chose, and went for the place with outside seating.  It was a great decision.  The wine and food were good and we had a really fun time as a family.

We continued our walk and stopped in at a playground.

Riley was NOT keen on walking up the hill to see the 'Crookedest Street in the World' but we did it!  It actually wasn't nearly as bad as it looked like it might be.

It was then back down the hill (finally a direction that wasn't uphill everywhere you looked!!) to head to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square.  I had read both were touristy, but we were tourists and I wasn't sure if we'd be missing out on something if we didn't go!  The kids enjoyed the old arcade games, we wandered in a couple stores, and had ice cream.

We then walked back to our hotel to pick up our car.  We weren't sure if there would be heavy traffic so we wanted to leave a lot of time to cross the Golden Gate Bridge back over to Marin County to meet up with my Uncle Frank, cousin Trevor, and Caitlin, Matt, and Vivienne for dinner.  We got there when there was great light, but we didn't think to take any nice photos outside - so all I got were these ones inside the restaurant.

a restaurant with a SNO CONE on the dessert menu!   

We drove a really short drive to our hotel for the night in Novato.