Biophilliac Mommy: San Francisco

Early Friday morning, we finished packing up all of our stuff, said goodbye to our hotel room, and caught a taxi to head towards Alamo Square to our friend Paul's apartment. We were spending one last night in San Francisco so that we could have one non-conference day all together. Paul only moved to San Francisco a couple months ago, so he was pretty lacking in furniture. He was really kind though and spent the night at his Becka's house so we would have a free place to sleep. After Paul gave us the run-down of his apartment before he had to head into work and we said hi to Hookah (she used to be my brothers cat so I've known her since she was a kitten), Robbie and I took a walk to a place Paul recommended for a much needed breakfast.

Meo does not like being woken up early

Hookah wasn't thrilled about the three of us barging into her house

Waiting for breakfast

Right after breakfast we caught a bus to begin our last day together exploring San Francisco. First we headed to the Palace of Fine Arts. The Palace of Fine Arts was originally constructed in 1915 to house pieces of art in an exhibition and remains an icon and popular attraction in San Francisco today. It has a nice pond next to it that has attracted a lot of beautiful birds. Mattimeo particularly enjoyed following the birds around. Oh and here I have to add a silly story. Some big dude was sitting on the Palace of Fine Arts have a conversation with two other people. Robbie and I just stood there waiting so I could take a picture of the sign, but after five minutes it became apparent that they weren't leaving anytime soon. I told Robbie to ask them to move, but he wouldn't. So I said I would, and Robbie didn't like that idea either. I asked the guy and he had no problem getting up, and he even agreed to take our picture. But when we looked around for Robbie, he was nowhere to be seen. Finally, I spotted him a couple hundred feet away...he ran away because he was embarrassed! But he can back with his tail between his legs and we got our picture (see below).

Robinson family at the Palace of Fine Arts

Robbie and Meo at the Palace of Fine Arts

Hummingbird

Hummingbird in flight

Hummingbird

Chasing gulls and pigeons

Robbie pointing at the birds

View of San Francisco from the Palace of Fine Arts

Meo and I at the Palace of Fine Arts

Robbie looking up in the Palace

The ceiling of the Palace

On the floor

Next, we hopped on another bus to head over to see the Golden Gate Bridge up close. It turned out that we actually chose a pretty awesome day to do this; the skies for clear and blue giving us an excellent view, the Blue Angels were doing stunts in the bay, and we got to see a fisherman accidentally catch a massive sting ray (and release it). The Golden Gate Bridge itself is huge and impressive; seeing it made me have the Full House theme song in my head for the rest of the day.

Robinson's at the Golden Gate Bridge

We decided to take a walk down a path to see Crissy Field and to go on the pier to get another view of the bridge. That was fun because we got to see a sea lion, a pelican, the blue angels doing stunts (we had to cover Meo's ears becasue it was so loud!), and a sting ray.

Crissy Field

Golden Gate Bridge

Pier

View from the pier

Sea lion

Meo and I on the pier

Pelican landing

Pelican

Pelican flying away

Fort Point

Pulling in the sting ray

Big ray!

Blue Angels

Me and my Meosaur

After hanging out by the bridge for a while, we decided to head over to Golden Gate Park and check out the free Bluegrass Festival being held there. We were really excited because we were going to make it in time to see Ben Kweller, which is an artist Robbie and I have liked for a long time but had never seen live. This was also Meo's first concert, and we were anxious to see how he would enjoy it. He surprised us by being completely fearless in the large, loud crowd and running around trying to take peoples' beers. He also made lots of friends, including a little boy next to us who kept trying to give Meo a high five, but Meo wasn't really into it.

Cool houses on our way down to the park

Silly walking man

Ben Kweller!

Ben Kweller at the Bluegrass Festival

Meo at his first music festival (13 months)

Eating some lunch

Meo and I at his first music festival (13 months)

making friends

Meo and I at his first music festival (13 months)

Mommy is working hard keeping tabs on this little adventurer

Meo at his first music festival (13 months)

Meo and I at his first music festival (13 months)

This little boy was trying to give Meo a high five

Daddy trying to encourage Meo

Another band at the bluegrass festival

In the crowd

Random street performance we enjoyed

Westie

So many bicycles!

After listening to a bit of music at the festival, Meo was still pretty antsy and we felt bad making him hold still so we wouldn't lose him in the crowds. So we decided to venture further into the park to see if we could find a place for Meo to safely play and run around. However, not long after leaving the busy festival, Meo completely passed out in the Ergobaby on me. So instead of searching for a playground, Robbie and I decided to go for a romantic walk around Stow Lake before the sun set and we needed to get back to Paul's house.

There was a lovely path that spiraled up a hill in the middle of stow lake filled with beautiful flowers and lots of wildlife. We enjoyed the quiet evening together away from the hustle of the busy city (everyone else in the park was at the festival), and held hands and took pictures of nature. There was also some great vies of the city as we climbed up; what a great last place to visit. We even fed some squirrels some of Meo's puffs out ouf our hands, and at one point Robbie screamed in a very high pitch because one brushed against his leg. He was too scared to let the squirrels actually touch him, but I loved having them rest their sweet little paws in my hand.

Stellar Jay

Living roof of the Science Academy

Back at Paul's house, Becka joined us and showered us with gifts of food, a pirate hat, and baby chop sticks from Japan town. They bought pizza for all of us and it was really delicious! Meo got really tired by the time I finished eating though, so I had to put him to sleep and was unable to hang out anymore. Honestly I was a little relieved I got to go to bed with Meo; I was completely exhausted and we had to wake up at 4:30 the next morning to get to the airport. Robbie stayed up though and played board games with Paul until they left to go to Becka's house sometime after 11. Thank you so much for your hospitality Paul and Becka! It was so good to see you again Paul, and to meet you Becka!

Sleeping in Paul's bed

Morning came early, and we were thankful that we had packed everything the day before so all we had to do was throw on some clothes and carry our stuff down to the taxi cab waiting for us at the curb. We got to the airport two hours early, and its a good thing I did! At first they had trouble finding my ticket reservation. Then they couldn't for Meo. After an hour of trying to sort things out, they sent us to security with just tickets for Robbie and I saying Meo did not need a ticket since it was a domestic flight. But security wouldn't let us pass. At this point, Meo was fussing and I almost started crying because I hadn't had breakfast yet so I was starving, I was irritated, and I was afraid we were going to miss our flight. Robbie marched up to the front of the line and demanded the women see us next. After a bunch more phone calls, we finally got boarding passes for Meo, and by the time we got through security (thank goodness there is an expedited family line), I barely had time to pee, never mind get breakfast or coffee, before being some of the last people to board the plane. Needless to say, I was not really ready for a six hour flight with a cranky/hungry toddler.

But boy did things turn around once we got on the plane! We had just our two seats together this time so we didn't have to worry about annoying a third person. I had food packed for Meo, and I fed him right away which cheered him up substantially. We discovered that not only could we chose our own movies to watch on this flight, but they were free! And then the flight attendant came by, and without even asking us handed us Meo's first flying wings with a smile (which if you recall we had asked for about five times on our first flight over and never got). Robbie and I were very happy! And it gets better! Not long after take-off, Mattimeo fell asleep for a couple hours! I got to watch an entire movie (Brave)! And then Meo woke up for about an hour and we read him a book, fed him some lunch, looked out the window, and suddenly he was tired again and fell asleep for the rest of the flight! I got to watch ANOTHER MOVIE (Bucket List)! I was ecstatic! Go Meo! He must had been as tired as I was from our vacation! The second flight went just as smoothly...Meo took another nap on the very short flight from Newark to Maine. And boy was it good arriving in Portland to see my parents! It really is wonderful to come home to loving family members! They helped us get our stuff and we got to tell them all about our trip as they took us out for a quick dinner at Panera Bread (Meo and I requested this place because we are big fans of the mac and cheese and you get your food really fast!) and drove us back home. Then at home, it was the best thing ever to see our kitties! Pi and Theta ran straight to us and were purring up a storm and meowing. Meo was so excited to see them that he was squealing and kept running over to them trying to lay on/snuggle them. Ah, home sweet home. Vacation was a lot of fun, and I am so happy I finally got to visit the west coast and see those redwood trees, but boy was it good to be home!