We left Morro Bay and drove up the coast to just outside of Santa Cruz. This was our last purely beach stop of the trip, and we spent most of the afternoon walking on the sand. The next morning Dad attempted to top off the trailer tires with air as they were getting a bit low. The pump that Dad had previously purchased was a not of good quality, and after 15 very frustrating minutes all we had managed to do was let 15 lbs of pressure out of the first tire. Luckily we only had to go to four different gas stations to find air. We called ahead to all of the gas stations to confirm that they had air available, but the first one told us their air wasn't working when we arrived, the second had their air compressor in an impossible location for us to get to, and the third didn't have a big enough lot for us to pull into at all. The fourth gas station was accessible, but the machine was very different than the ones Dad was used to. Luckily, we have a pressure checker. Unfortunately, it had died between when we had been checking the pressure earlier and now. A quick trip to home Depot got us a fresh set of batteries. Unfortunately, that did not revive our pressure checker. A quick trip to home Depot got us a new pressure checker. And we were off, with only threr hours delay!
We arrived in Fran Sancisco (Remy struggled a bit with pronouncing San Francisco), dropped off our trailer a few miles south of the city, and headed to the beach. Emma found two very friendly golden retrievers and got some excellent running in. The Goldens were no match for her speed but were crafty in waiting for her to swing around and run back toward us. Remy got a very good look at the Golden Gate Bridge, which has quickly become his favorite landmark.
After dog exercising we headed into the city for dinner with Maria's friend Erin. We met here at a Burmese restaurant. Our dinner including several salads, noddles dishes, some excellent pork, rice, and dumplings. After dinner we went out for ice cream and Remy got to ride an electric horse. Much nostalgia was had by all (except Remy, given his lack of experiences from which to develop nostalgia).
On our first full day in San Fran (we were pronouncing it correctly by now), we had a very large agenda to tackle. First and foremost was coffee. We went to Verve roasters, one of Dad's personal favorites. The coffee was excellent, and we didn't have to work to hard to find parking.
Once we loaded up on caffeine it was time to head downtown and explore the city. Our first stop was the cable car museum. This was very interesting, but didn't quite hold Remy's attention so we ended up breezing through it. We did watch the big pulleys go for a while. Dad was loathe to admit that he didn't realize that all of the cars are actually pulled by enormous underground cables.
Back outside we collected Emma and went for a walk through one of the many Asian districts. We stopped at a playground for awhile and then looped back to our car. Our next stop was the Lego store, which Remy had been looking forward to for weeks. We did some shopping (admittedly less than Dad was expecting, although the store was also smaller than we expected), and popped back into the car to keep moving.
We headed down toward the water to visit the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium is a hands on science experience that has exhibits on light, color, physics, tinkering, and just about every other scientific pursuit you can imagine. There are a lot of buttons to press and levers to pull, but there are also a lot of words to read. Remy had a good time but he went through at a break neck pace. If he were a few years older we probably could have spent another two hours here.
We drove out to another beach and walked along the water with Emma. We got to see the Golden Gate Bridge from the opposite side this time, and we got to watch some very big boats go underneath it. You can't pay for entertainment this rapturous for a four year old.
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