June 16, 2017 - Day 5

Today was our last day at a campground, so our goal this morning was to eat all the food and pack up. I'm pretty proud of my meal-planning skills. We finished off the sausage, eggs, cheese, bagels, cream cheese, and peanut butter this morning. The only things we had to throw out were four hot dogs, two brats, vegetable oil, half a tiny jar of jelly, and a few dry baby carrots. (You're welcome, future self, for so carefully documenting every last thing we ate for a few random days in June '17.)

Our drive, thankfully, was uneventful. We had to stop at a dump station to empty our wastewater, which took a bit longer than expected. But along the drive, there wasn't any terrible construction or extreme slowdowns. And the wipers didn't turn on unexpectedly even once.

The campsite with the dump station had a petting zoo! But we didn't see it until we were ready to go, so only stopped for a moment. Boo.

We stopped for lunch at a fast food place called Loco Pollo. Andrew, Milo, and I thought it was very tasty (have you found the theme yet, of which one of us doesn't like food?).

We arrived back at Jucy to return the van about 1:30, just 30 minutes later than planned. I call that a success. From there, we took an Uber to our hotel in San Francisco. As it turned out, there wasn't a huge price difference in taking an Uber vs. all four of us getting BART tickets. And the car was much easier than dragging our children and bags through the public transit system.

We checked in to the Grant Hotel at 2:50. Technically 10 minutes before their check-in time of 3pm, but I was mentally high-fiving us for our great timing. Once in our room, first things first--SHOWERS FOR EVERYONE! I was extremely disappointed to find weird-smelling-bleh-in-a-wall-mounted-dispenser shampoo and wash. (And I think the shampoo, shower wash, and hand soap by the sink were all filled with the same stuff.) Not great products, but still! Clean! And hot water!

The next step was to get our clothes organized, set aside what we wanted to wear for the next few days and figure out what we needed to wash. I gathered all our laundry and set off down the block to a laundromat. It took just over an hour to wash and semi-dry my load. In that time, Andrew took the kids and got our 3-day visitor transit passes and bought some better shampoo and body wash.

With all that business taken care of, we took the cable car to Chinatown and wandered around. We ate dinner at Cathay House. The kids didn't love it, though both enjoyed the hot tea. Milo actually ate lots of chicken and even some of the potstickers. Olive chewed holes in her mu shu pancake and made a mask out of it.

Pinkies up!

Next we went to St. Mary's Square, which we saw across the street so the kids (and Andrew) could run and play for a bit. Then, just for fun, we rode the cable car to the end of the line and back up again. It wasn't busy at all this time of day.

Okay, okay, you caught me. I played, too.

When we got back to the hotel, we put our clothes in drawers and stuffed the rest in our rather large closet. Everything smells like a campfire. Bedtime for kids, and shortly after, grown-ups. I'm beat. After just a few blocks of those San Francisco hills, my knees are killing me. Stupid osteoarthritis. Sigh.