Sometimes my sense of adventure overcomes my fear of going out with young children. The child inside me says, "Enough! Enough sitting around! Enough going to the same old places all the time!"
And then I go!
Well, after hours of preparation.
Well, after hours of preparation.
The great thing about living in the age of the Internet is that I can research any major destination before going. The fewer unknowns there are before we leave the house, the better I feel.
The trip we took yesterday was to San Francisco to celebrate my sister's birthday. She wanted to visit the Comic Art Museum to see art work from the films 'Song of the Sea' and 'The Secret of Kells'. Since I don't like driving and parking in the city, and the last time our family took the BART train it cost us more than the admission fee into the museum, I planned for us to take the ferry!
On weekends, the San Francisco Ferry leaves from Oakland and Alameda and drops you off at the Ferry Building (near Pier 1) or Pier 41. Tickets are purchased after boarding the ferry (buy your tickets for the trip home too to save you time later) and collected as you leave. Inside the ferry, there are booths and tables, a snack bar, and a central place to park strollers and bikes (so helpful!). And there are three decks to choose from. My children of course chose the top deck. The ride from Alameda to the Ferry Building was a short 20 minutes. I chose that route in case we needed to hustle on home with cranky children. But the kids had such a good time, next time, we can take a longer ride! (Click here to learn more about the San Francisco Ferry.)
(Note for people with motion sickness: it was a beautiful, sunny day when we sailed. The ferry hardly rocked at all and none of us got sea sick. I hope that the waters are always so calm, but it would be more realistic to say that on windier or stormier days, the bay would be more rough and choppy.)
After the Cartoon Art Museum, we picnicked at the Yerba Buena Gardens. Now, here's great news for those of you who would love to visit more places but are afraid that you cannot afford it. Our library offers free passes to select museums! Both the Cartoon Art Museum and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts are on the list, along with the Lawrence Hall of Science and the Oakland Museum of California (which I wrote about last year in this blog post: Time for a Field Trip!) To find out if your library offers these passes, go to this site: Discover and Go Museum Passes. Be sure to read the fine print carefully; every museum offers its own discounts. And you are limited to two passes a year. Between my husband and I, that allows us four trips!
We made one more stop during our time in the city. As ou group meandered back towards the piers, my sister caught sight of balloons. We turned towards them, and stumbled across the San Francisco Railway Museum! The small museum and gift shop is admission-free. My children had an opportunity to "drive" a street car! Ding-ding-ding!
We made one more stop during our time in the city. As ou group meandered back towards the piers, my sister caught sight of balloons. We turned towards them, and stumbled across the San Francisco Railway Museum! The small museum and gift shop is admission-free. My children had an opportunity to "drive" a street car! Ding-ding-ding!
All in all, it was a great day. And I didn't even talk about our trip to the San Francisco Zoo on Friday! My legs are a little sore, but my children are still talking about our shared memories. And the child in me is already looking forward to our next adventure.
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