California Day One

My wife and I landed about 30 minutes before her mother and sister, who will be joining us on this trip. Are we going to wait for them at the airport? No. We were too anxious. We dropped this luggage and found a checkpoint (coffee shop). The hotel staff could not have been more amazing. They quickly grabbed the luggage, held the doors, and wished us a good morning. They were so kind and attentive that I had to mentally prepare myself in case they offered to carry me down the stairs. I would not have objected. We dropped the luggage and snuck out the back door to hit 1 of the 2 recommended coffee shops. As usual, my wife ordered something she hated, and I was complimented on my order. It was one of the barista’s favorite coffees. The coffee was poured to the very tippy top. No room for cream or sugar. My kind of place. They could tell I drank my coffee black. Like a crazy person. I think I’m going to like it here. My wife recommended I get the iced version, but since I left Florida at 9 am and it was about 85 degrees, and in San Francisco, at noon, it’s 55, I was in a bit of shock. I had to dust off an old hoodie since I couldn’t find any of my jackets.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law arrived and we got ready to go sightseeing. The first stop is the painted ladies. Hmm, some sort of dancing act, perhaps? No, it’s housing. About 6 Victorian houses in a row of varying colors. The 3 of them had a lot of questions, so I decided to be the tour guide. I came up with an article of 25 facts about the Painted Ladies. These are the houses featured in the opening credits of Full House but are not THE Full House house. (We will get there.) The owners of these houses claim that the tourists not only knock and ask for tours but will also enter the home if the front door is left open. Many things to look at in San Francisco are on private property and require crossing guards to keep the public moving along.

The whole time I was playing tour guide I was also trying to solicit a stranger online to trade me a Mr. Mime since you can only catch him in Europe, and someone on Reddit was asking to trade for Heracross. We get tons of those in Florida. I asked my wife to work this back alley deal into our timetable with the expectation of her divorcing me, but then I remembered that she plays too. "Do they have two, Mr. Mimes?" I love this woman.

Now we were on our way to a city park. Golden Gate Park. You might think this is where the Golden Gate Bridge is. You'd be wrong, and my wife probably wouldn't call you mean names. But she was a little tougher on me. There was a pretty lake here, and then we went to the Japanese Tea Gardens. This was the kind of place where you have a photo-op every 3 to 3-1/2 steps. By the end of this beautiful walk, my selfie arm was cramping.

Observations about San Francisco: I thought this was a bike city, but I guess it was just a "tourists ride bikes" city. I think everyone gets here and rents a bike. It genuinely looked like nobody here knew how to ride a bike. This is coming from a guy who definitely doesn't know how to ride a bike. (I'm terrified of doing the thing where the pedal hits you in the shin. Ouch.) They were all over the road playing Frogger with the Uber drivers. Basically, every car on the road is an Uber driver. And 80 percent of those Ubers are Priuses. By the 3rd pickup, I just started asking what color Prius we were looking for. It was also cold here. I wasn’t allowed to buy a shirt that said, "The coldest winter I ever had was summer in San Francisco." I did not pack enough long pants. I thought this was a 10 day trip to Napa Valley which is much warmer. I didn't know we were going sightseeing in San Fransisco or hiking in Yosemite. My wife led with Napa because she knew I'd stop listening and agree with everything she said after that. Well played, wife. But anyway we were spending a few days in Napa, a few days in San Francisco which hadgreat food and drink (checks all my boxes), and a few days in Yosemite National Park.

We took a trip to Fort Point where you can see the golden gate bridge. Obviously, it’s there. I mean it’s definitely not at Golden Gate Park. Obviously. We got excellent pictures from different angles while I complained about walking up and down hills (foreshadowing for tomorrow).

Things filmed in San Francisco. Full house and Mrs. Doubtfire. We got to the Full House house. IT’S UNDER RENOVATION. WHAT!? How is this not a historic landmark? There was a sign out front telling tourists to be quiet (they were probably screaming due to rage). This was also on private property. On to the Mrs. Doubtfire house. Not under renovation. There was a woman there who wanted to take pictures as well but parked in front of the house. Come on. She realized it and moved the car. No big deal.

Dinner was a 45-minute wait for a table (despite the 50 open tables). I’ll be at the bar. I presented my conspiracy theory that they claim there's a wait just to get you to blow money at the bar before dinner. We weren’t falling for that! “We’ll take a round of drinks, please.” We all got expensive fruit-forward cocktails, except me who got the local Steam Ale. Dinner was delicious fancy Chinese food.

There was discussion of going to the rooftop bar. The rooftop bar in our hotel was so popular the line to get in wraps around the building. Since our hotel does so well with taking care of its guests I asked if there was a secret entrance just for us— with my standard failed attempt at winking. There was. I’m sold. No one wants to hear my case. Everyone else wanted dessert. They needed very little effort to talk me into that.

After finishing late night dessert we went back up to our room. Since we had VIP status *dusts shoulder off* there was a half-bottle of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir waiting for me. Not like they opened the bottle and left me half. It was a small bottle. We drank that while watching Bachelor in Paradise.