In case you missed this trip’s posts from before:
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 & 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
On this day, we were staying in San Fran. First order of business was catch a cable car to get closer to Cafe Isabella.
Cable Car Museum – We stopped in for a few minutes. It’s free!
Next stop was China Town
We just happened upon a little food festival, which was actually a fundraiser for the Community Youth Center. You pay a fee and then you get to try 4 different food items (1 from each category). So we both got one so we could try 8 things to share. It was a great way to try new things.
I’ve always wanted to try Macha. Pretty good. Rob even tried it and didn’t hate it.
These guys danced down the street, which was really interesting.
After that we wanted to take the cable cars, but they were all very croweded and hte main one we needed to take had just shut down for maintenance. We ended up taking a self-driving car called a Waymo. These are available in Phoenix, San Fran, L.A., and Austin.
Riding in the Waymo car was an adventure! After we got in and its driving us up a very steep street, I started to question this choice we had made. Haha! I will say our car struggled because the way it wanted to go there was a cable car stopped where we needed to cross. The car finally figured it out, but you can call for support where a Waymo employee can see what you see and drive the car properly if need be.
We rode it to the bottom of Lombard Street. We wanted to walk up Lombard and back down since we’ve only ever driven it back in 2016.
From there we walked around some more checking out Ghiradelli, the pier, watching the Seals, and great people watching.
Then, we decided we’d finish off the day with a whale watching tour. It was going to be chili, so we stopped in one of the shops along Jefferson Street for a couple $10 sweatshirts.
We picked up a couple convenient store roller foods to get something in our stomach and raced over to the pier to get on the boat.
If you love the dropping feeling you get on a roller coaster as you plunge down an incline drop, you would have loved this boat ride. The choppy waters of the Pacific made for a very wet and adventurous ride that had me feeling like I wasn’t going to stay in the boat. That dropping feeling you get in your belly also was just so very unsettling. Once we got out further past the Golden Gate Bridge, it got a little smoother.
So I think we were gone an hour and half or two hours and sadly we endured those rough seas and didn’t see a single whale! We were pleasantly surprised and said they can book another whale watching cruise with them another time. No expiration! So we plan to try it again next time were in San Fran, which will be Fall 2025.
Tired, cold, a little wet, and very hungry, we ended up having dinner at Wipe Out Bar and Grill.
More photos from this day>>>Day 8 – San Fran
My next post about this trip will cover our last day in California, so stay tuned!
Other than the boat ride that all sounds like such a fun day of exploring. My middle son love matcha and even has a whole set to make it at home… and yet I’m not sure I’ve ever tried it! I don’t think I would have been brave enough to try a self-driving car.