San Francisco, part 2

I went back to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago to get my teeth finished up. This time, though, I took Haley so she could pal around with Holland. Let me just say how easy it is to travel with only one child, especially an 8 year old who can pack her own bag and cart it around the airport.She spent most of the flight doing this....We stayed in a nice downtown hotel on the 26th floor, which gave us a great view of the city. On the first morning, Haley and I had killer banana and blueberry pancakes in bed.
Pretty cool just hanging out with each other and having someone else do the cooking. :)

We went down to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf with Jamie & Holland to see the sights and hang out. First priority for the girls was to see the sea lions. It's almost like watching a Sea World show -- they bark and push each other off of the piers. The city finally decided to stop fighting having the sea lions there and just let them take over the area. We walked past a bike shack that advertised, "Ride across Golden Gate Bridge and ferry back." I casually said, "That looks like fun." Jaime, who is an avid road biker, immediately said, "Ooohh! That would be so fun. Let's do it!" I have to admit that I actually thought that the people would drive us to the bridge, we'd get out with our bikes, ride across it and down into Sausalito and then ferry back. I didn't for a second think that we'd be riding from Pier 39 to the Golden Gate Bridge and down to Sausalito, which ended up taking us about an hour and a half. The minute I saw the actual map of our pending adventure, I knew immediately that I'd made a huge mistake. There I was, in my jeans and cute little sandals, getting ready to bike with Jaime, in her exercise clothes and tennis shoes and who rides her bike in 100 mile races. Hi. I look happy here but I was thinking, "Oh crap! What have I done??" Miracle of miracles, though, Haley and I did just fine and we had a great time! Here's the route we took -- from the land on the far left of the 1st picture, followed the water all the way to the bridge, walked our bike up to the bridge (the hill was more than I could do at that point) up and over Golden Gate and then coasted downhill into the beautiful town of Sausalito.Gorgeous views along the way.Haley was awesome during the ride. When I was dying on a hill, I'd shout, "Help me, Haley!" and I'd feel her kick in and get an instant boost.Taking pictures one-handed while crossing the bridge. Yeah, I'm not the safest biker.We ate at a quaint little place on the water in Sausalito and then hopped on a ferry with our bikes (and about 100 other bikers) to head back to the city. I never, ever, ever, would have done it without Jaime encouraging me and knowing that I couldn't let them all down. It was so worth it.

Haley and Holland clicked right away. With the famous Bush Man. According to Wikipedia, this guy makes 60k/year for just hiding behind these branches and jumping out at people.Haley with her turtle bread from Boudin Bakery.Another highlight for Haley and Holland was getting wax molds of their hands at the Wax Museum.The only downside to the trip was getting my ATM card stolen and having $500 charged up in the 30 minutes it took me to figure it was missing. But it's all good now.

And then the purpose of both trips ... I now have these pearly whites and a beautiful smile, especially with the clear mouth guard-things in there. :)