She's 18 She's beautiful and She's Mine!

A person only turns 18 once. But you can be 29 for as long as you can get away with it.
Princess Cynthia has been making the most of her "coming of age". On her actual birthday last week the little ones decorated the house and made birthday cards for her. Sorry Hallmark our family is into crafts and do-it-yourself. Her friends at school gave her flowers and various trinkets and gifts and her mom made her a rice-krispies three tier "cake" with a gallon of vanilla bean and a gallon of cookies and cream ice creams.

She also wanted to do a repeat of her 16th birthday and take a couple of friends to SF to tour about and eat. I, her dad, was invited as tour guide, money bags, and as her friend. Imagine that, a teen, uh, um adult daughter who wants to hang ouot with her dad.
Since I am recovering from that chest cold tat's been running rabid across the country I have to admit that waking at 7 am to drive into the City was not appealing. The energy having a cold zaps was another concern. The was a 30% cahnce of rain too.
We hit pockets of drizzle from time to time during the 3 hour drive. But any thought the possibility of a bad day was completely washed away after we passed through he toll plaza for the bay Bridge. We noticed the line we were in as we sat in the toll plaza traffic was a little slower than the other lanes but if you know the SF Bay Bridge toll plaza traffic changing lanes can be difficult as the other drivers are demons and filled with road rage for anyone trying to "cut" in front of them so I just road out the longer wait. The reason for the wait, we noticed, was because the toll agent seemed to have animated conversations with each car the pulled up to pay. His hands and body movement suggested he was passionate about whatever he was saying.
When it was our turn we discovered a very happy, full of life, middle-aged man from some Caribbean Island (by his accent). He greeted us with great vigor and asked where we were headed (not like a border agent might ask but like a friend asking) so I said we were headed for a day in the City. He asked if the girls in the back were my daughters. Instead of trying to explain they were my daughter and her friends, I just said, "yes."
He turned his attention to them and said, "Now , girls. Obey your dad. The bible says to obey your parents. And remember, no boyfriends." He said then turned his attention to me, "I have a 22 year old daughter a UC Berkley and she has no boyfriend. If I found out she had a boyfriend she would be in big trouble." We gave each other a fist bound and he wished us a good day. The girls laughed and all agreed today was going to be special.
The plan was to pull into Pier 35 parking lot and leave the car for the day. The rest of our travels would be by foot or by local transit to avoid the outrageous parking prices. (SF is only hurting their tourist trade with the crazy prices they are charging for parking, occupancy tax at hotels etc. )
Just to get it out of the way allow me to mention that it would drizzle or sprinkle all day with moments of sunshine. It was either really cold where jackets were required or really hot when the sun popped out. So through out the day it was a symphony of peeling layers off or piling them back on.
First stop was Pier 39. The girls and I split ways so they could hit all the shops and get T-shirts, and other trinkets. It was too early for entertainment on the stage there so to my chagrin we missed out on that treat. But by the time we finished with the pier various street performers were materializing along the wharf.
One other thing anyone coming to Pier 39 can't miss out on is the great view of Alcatraz and the sea lions that make their home on the boat docks.

The sea lions were sparse today but there were a few to sound out the familiar bark that makes up the sounds of Pier 39.

Along Fisherman's wharf there are a ton of gift shops and novelties to visit including the wooden pirates near the end of the wharf.

I took advantage of the great seafood along the fisherman's grotto area and had a calamari vinaigrette dish. It was scrumptious. The girls passed instead going for a thrible chocolate-caramel apple.

And of course we enjoyed the free sample of chocolate at Ghiradelli Square.

While walking about the wharf we saw a new concept in travel. The Segue tours. Instead of bikes or scooter or even a tour bus you go an a Segue and are shown the sights. The lead man (tour guide) has a wirless mic and each rider's helmet has a speaker so you can get the whole tour bus effect. So like ducklings following their mother they meander the streets of SF.

We caught the Cable car down at the wharf and we fortunate to get a standing spot. It really is the only way to truly experience the cable car. If you don't know how it works the best way to describe it is....there are a series of cables that are constantly running under the streets of SF. The cable car has a device that grabs the cable and takes the car for a ride. The brakemen have clutches and breaks to control the speed and or stop the car. At various points the car is released from one cable and grabs the next continuing on it's journey. Timing and skill is involved in being a brakeman or operator of the cable car. I was able to hop off here and take a picture of the girls because our car ended up stopping at a cable change spot and missed the cable partially because the rains brought a pile of sand down a hill and it was interfering somehow. The road we are blocking was slowly filling up with cars and the steepness of the hill and narrowness were making it impossible for people to back out. The funniest part of the whole thing was this all happened in front of the cablehouse/cable car museum (the brick building behind the car). A few of the impatient drivers volunteered to help push the cable car the 3 or so feet forward that allowed the operator the grab the cable again. I am glad it happened because had it not we would have had less a story to tell.

When we pulled into the Powell street terminal area the girls immediately noticed a big shoe store. Need I say more. The next thirty minutes was spent there. They found a few other stores but were drawn to the Ross store. We spent another hour and a few dollars there. Though I do admit they found some cute outfits. Ross was running a promotion getting patrons to donate a dollar to the American heart Assoc. and every time someone did the clerk would get on the loud speaker and say, "Julie just donated a dollar to the American Heart Assoc....WooHoo!" That went on the entire time we were in there. Before long we were joining in the woohoos.

In Union Square.

I had to have a Stanley Steamer while in Union Square. It's my wife's favorite. We used to have these often when we were dating 22 years ago. This picture is for her.

China Town..Oh my China Town.

Lots of shops and every shop owner ready to offer you a deal. "Only $30.00" you'll like it." "Do you want to have the soup too? It's only $3.95 more. That's cheap." Every store was the same. The shop keepers were ready to make that deal.

We had a great lunch though and rolled out of the shop as we worked our way across own back to the piers.

At the end of China town you step onto Columbus Street the "Little Italy" of SF. Cafes line the streets and the smell of Italian spices fill the air. We noticed that for the light drizzle that was coming down there sure was a lot of water in the street. Apparently one of the storm drains up the hill was clogged and was spilling out....

We noticed as we were zig-zagging the streets heading back to the piers that we were passing awfully close to Telegraph Hill home of Coit Tower. So we decided to visit the tower. Telegraph hill was crazy steep. We climbed and climbed and with two of us recovering from colds he wheezed and wheezed and coughed and hacked our way up the hill. At the top we discovered a sign with and arrow, "Stairs to Coit Tower". They too were steep and there were hundreds of them. At the top of those steps there was the driveway for the tower and across that road was more steps....the girls posed for a pix here.

Coit tower in the background.

After Coit Tower (which we did not climb up..they want $5.00 to climb a few hundred more steps..............) we painfully walked down Telegraph hill and found our van. My legs were shaking as we climbed down the hills that were as steep going down as they were going up.

Once in the van we worked our way across town to the ocean. The Sutro baths are ruins of an old resort from 100 years ago. It too had stairs so I stayed in the van as the girls climbed down.

The frolicked about for a while and saw a couple sitting enjoying the ocean view so they decided to create the moment for themselves and made the photo of Jess and Julie mimicking the couple.

Afterwards it was Ocean Beach and the foam of the ocean.

The foam looked like clouds and the wind caused the foam to float across the ground. Sometimes a strong breeze would cause a piece of the foam to break away and roll like a tumble weed. It was nice.

The girls ran bare-footed and their toes turned red. It was cold.

Cynthia loves herself.

From there it was dinner in Japan town. That almost didn't happen because there was no parking spot anywhere. My can is too tall for the underground garages and the street spots were filling up fast. Just as we were about to give-up Cynthia spotted a spot and the evening was saved. Noodles and sushi were the order for the night.