The Bancroft’s paid a visit to the Bay Area this past Memorial Day weekend. They stayed with me Friday night and then I ran all of us ragged for a jam-packed next 3 days.

Saturday

• Morning walk around Marina through Fort Mason and down the pier at Van Ness.
• Drove to the airport to fetch a rental car via Palace of Fine Arts, The Presidio, Legion of Honor, Sea Cliff, Golden Gate Park, Haight St, and bits of Mission/Castro
• Picked up sourdough sandwiches at the tiny but adorable Lucca Delicatessen (est 1929).
• Afternoon stroll (ended up ~4 miles) up & over Russian Hill to see the crookedest street & cable cars
• Walked down through North Beach & Chinatown, where we did a little shopping and checked out the Coppolla Building
• Continued up & over Telegraph Hill (where we passed an awkward photo shoot at the bottom of the steps on Montgomery…). We checked out the Coit Tower murals and noted that Golden Gate was invisible behind a layer of fog before taking the Filbert Steps down to Embarcadero where we failed at taking a street car because they were all packed
• Caught a bus over to SOMA where we had dinner at 21st Amendment (and Adam got his taste of watermelon beer), before walking through South Park and touring my office
• Experienced the dirty 30 ride back to Marina and savored some It’s-It ice cream sandwiches for dessert

Sunday

• Drove up to Muir Woods. Well, took a scary shuttle down the winding CA-1 and met some people who were moving TO Indiana and were excited about its flatness.
• The three of us completed the Muir Woods quest (targeted for elementary kids) and found the treasure box at the end. After we unlocked the combination and got our reward stickers, a little kid as tall as my knee came up and said, “Oh, did you do the quest, too?!” He continued to ask if we had figured it out. That could have been a sad moment if we hadn’t. Muir Woods was gorgeous though, and we even got to see 3 fawns.
• Stopped at the Marin Headlands on the way back to the city, where we had the clearest view of the bridge. It was kind of amazing.
• Cut through The Presidio and landed at Haight St, so Adam could shop at Kidrobot. Continued on to drive by the Painted Ladies and other Victorians. Stopped at Japantown to walk through their mall.
• Drove home through Pacific Heights to see the mansions and give them the experience of driving down a steep hill.
• Ended up getting dinner at Pacific Catch and I dropped them back to their hotel at Union Square

Monday

• Early morning ferry ride to Alcatraz where we spent about 3 hours walking around. Cellhouse audio tour was pretty great. The gardens were the highlight for me, as well as seeing baby Snowy Egrets.
• Walked to In & Out for lunch and spent the remaining couple hours at Fisherman’s Wharf before they had to hit the road for Seattle (via Eureka, Coos Bay, & Portland)

Definitely an all-around awesome weekend. Finally saw some of the typical fog on Monday, but the rest of the weekend was pristine. Such a nice break from the past week of rain and cloudy days. Of course, naturally I’m completely beat (and sick) from all the adventures, but it was worth it. Gotta live up the visits with good friends (and enjoy the chocolate & awesome MINI stencils they bring you)!