driving with kids: Day 25, Monday, May 12

We left our campground around 10 or so to go into the city of San Francisco.
We were going to do a "49 mile scenic drive" and wanted to stop at the visitor's center to get a map. We drove around the city for an hour and a half and never found that visitor's center!!
The kids LOVED the hills in San Francisco!! They were putting their hands in the air and saying "weeeee" and even Ruby made happy noises! The roads are SO incredibly steep!!! Going down isn't a big deal, it's going up (and then stopping at a light when you're at such a steep angle!) that's hard, I think.
We decided to stop looking for the visitors center and to go to the Exploritorium, which was the starting point for the sceninc route in a book I have. Our gps guided us down a road and then said "turn left" where there were no left turns. The only option was to go straight, and straight brought us onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Oooops!
We decided to go to Saulsilito, a small Bohemian town on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We had lunch at a small cafe there, which was run by a woman from Greece. It was great food, but kind of spendy--and we thought Disneyland was expensive! :)
Saulsilito was a cute little town with fun shops & a pretty water-front atmosphere.
We're disappointed by our campground's distance from the city, and the awful crazy roads to get there. Our campground's gate closes at 10 pm, so we can't really spend evenings in the city...And that 10 pm deadline is for safety, because those roads are NOT safe after dark...so we'd rather be driving them by 8 pm at the latest. We decided that for 1 night we'd stay in the city--leave our trailer at the campground, and find a hotel in the city.
So, tonight we're in a hotel, near Fisherman's Wharf in the Marina District in downtown San Francisco!! Our original plan (prior to the road trip plan) was to stay inside a city (to rent a furnished apartment or do a house swap or something!) for a month. This is our one night of city life. ;) I read in one of my books that this particular hotel we're staying at is kid friendly and the best value for the $$ in the area. Hotels in the city can be expensive, this one is one of the least expensive that I could find. Every hotel we talked to mentioned a fire code that wouldn't allow our whole family to stay in one room. Yeah right...Anyways, we'd be forced to get 2 rooms that are connected, or a suite. We ended up getting THE penthouse suite at this hotel, the Wharf Inn. I've never stayed in a penthouse suite--how fun! :) It's not as impressive as it sounds though. This is really a motel, I guess, because the doors are on the outside--so imagine a low end motel with 2 rooms, a living room, and a small kitchen (that reminds me, no joke, of my great-grandparents' kitchen--in other words, it hasn't been updated!!). We have 2 little porches and a sliver of a view of the bay! It's nice, and the kids LOVE it, but the best part about it is the LOCATION!!!
Tonight we walked along the bay area to see all of the fun shops, including a sourdough factory. We went to Hard Rock Cafe on Pier 39 (we had a discount card from the last Hard Rock we went to :). We walked up Pier 39 and saw fun shops (like a puppet shop! Isaac and I played in there for a bit!), and a place called Chocolate Heaven (oooooooh!), and a 2 story carousal which Karry and the boys rode on. I was snapping photos of Ruby while they rode, and a man walked by and (without looking at me) said "flashes are not good for children's eyes." Ok dude, thanks for the tip!
We walked to a Safeway in the city to pick up some milk and baby food, and then back to our hotel. We have wi-fi this one night, and then won't have it again for 2 more nights. We're waking up early to walk along the pier again, to go to the donut shop and maybe the creperie (it all looks soooo good!), and then to walk around as much as we can (while we have free parking in the city) until check out time at 11 am!!
We've booked another campground for the next 2 nights, one that's a bit of a closer drive with less windy roads (but still no wi fi :( ). It's an RV park, probably lacking the beautiful rustic nature of the state parks, but it has laundry facilities (our current park doesn't, and we need to do laundry!!), and it's close, and there's no gate closing time, and it's pretty much what we need for commuting into the city...just wish we'd booked this one earlier!
We're hanging out in the city 2 more days, and then heading up to another campground that's up north (where I think we have wi fi) on Thursday.