10-9, SanFran Day 3

This was a strange day- definitely not the most successful one of the trip.  Good intentions rapidly fizzled.  We purchased tickets for the Big Bus tour of the city.  It sounded like a great way to see the city-- hop on, hop off.  Well, the hopping off part was easy, but the hopping on part not nearly so as the buses that passed us by were either full or the waiting line too long.  We made it only one stop before abandoning this method of transportation for the day.  We learned an important lesson the hard way:  vacation is too short to be spent waiting around wasting it!  As soon as we had this realization, we salvaged our day and the rest of our vacation (the passes were to be for 3 days...oh, heck no....).  Here is the little we saw that day on our Big Bus tour (I highly recommend you don't do it for your next vacation-- I do believe they are worldwide.)

A happy beginning (that smile didn't last long into the tour).

They had us fooled that we would get to see the Full House neighborhood, but in reality it was a 30 minute walk from the bus stop.  We made it as far as the Painted Houses.  On the plus side, we spent time in this tranquil park with a view and Emalie got a chance to play.  And, how many pics do I have of me with Nik (and wearing Em's hat, lol....)?

The Capitol

Oh, words to describe this portion of the ride.... hmmm..... cold, cold, cold!!  The SanFran fog I had been hoping to see found us as we approached the bridge on the top deck of the bus.  It is crazy how flippin' cold it was up there between the fog and the wind.  We made it over the bridge (we didn't dare get off and lose our seats on the bus) and back across.  It took hours to thaw out!

We made the bus tour one full lap around the city--  2.5 hours of bus time.  Ugh.  No more bus for us.  Back to our feet and Uber for getting around the city.  Look at how red Em's cheeks are!  But, that didn't stop her for another "Take a picture of me" opportunity.

The beautiful, warm weather we had the day before for our Alacatraz tour was gone like the wind.  It was damp and cold.  Look at how eerie Alcatraz looks in this light!