A slow start to San Francisco, but a fun end to the day

Whew! What an early start to the day (yesterday) and a late finish!  We departed Lexington at 5:00 AM East Coast time (2:00 AM West Coast) and finished our day at 11:00 PM (2:00 AM in Lexington).  I think we may have avoided jet lag, though.  Our flight into SF actually landed thirty minutes early.  Unfortunately, it would be over 4 more hours until our hotel rooms were ready, thus cramping our plans to get a start on our day.  We tried to make the best of the down time (as they continued to promise the rooms would be ready "really soon" for several hours) with lunch at The Grove and a quick visit to the Yerba Buena Gardens.  In my best Cliff Clavin voice, "It is a little known fact that, uh, Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco." Luckily my family doesn't usually complain about my guidebook factoids.  I read that there was a cool playground in the gardens, but we never found it.  Here is a pic of the kids in the gardens.  I can foresee that the theme of this trip's pictures is probably going to be "Jack Makes Funny Faces and Poses".

After an ice cream outing (green tea ice cream was not nearly as good as I remembered it in Japan 25 years ago), we were finally able to check in and rest a bit to get rid of our grumpiness.  

As our first real SF experience, we decided to ride the cable cars to Fisherman's Wharf.  The line for the cars was long, so I took a waiting picture and a picture of Lyndon's excitement of the arrival of our cable car.

Fisherman's Wharf was interesting.  We were able to view Alcatraz, which was exciting.  Unfortunately, I did not plan well enough in advance to get tickets to actually tour Alcatraz on this trip.  Tickets sell out about a month in advance, so this is probably as close as we will get.  

We also viewed a few crazy street performers, including a duo of Michael Jackson impersonators.  They left their clothing changes on the street, unattended.  I really contemplating running away with one of their red MJ jackets like the one Dan frequently laments about his Mom throwing out.  We had dinner at Boudin Bakery, which is the famous sourdough bread manufacturer.  We ate upstairs with a bonus view of Alcatraz out of the windows.  The bread factory has baskets that run across the ceiling carrying bread from the manufacturing side to the bakery sales side.  The kids thought that was really cool.  Note the wire baskets suspended from the ceiling above Dan's head.  

Our return trip to the hotel was a little chaotic.  Apparently, the San Francisco marathon was held yesterday morning, so public transportation was more crowded than usual.  Let's just say that a crowded bus and a tired Jack don't mix very well.  We made it, though, and we all had a good night's sleep from exhaustion.  On to another day...