In December of 2018, I took Nala, the oldest, on a 24 hour trip to Paris, and she was now 7, and I’d promised her a trip with just me when she was 6.  Because of this, Linley, the middle girl, started asking about a “special trip” of her own.  I had a few ideas on what this could be, and while I made plans a few times, they kept falling through.  However, I was able to find a weekend in February where the flights to and weather in San Francisco looked perfect.  While all three girls had been to San Francisco a year before, they all talk about it often, and when asking Linley if she’d want to go again, she was all for it, especially if it was a solo trip with me.  We took advantage of a free meal at the Yankee Pier restaurant at the airport, courtesy of Priority Pass, so started the day on full stomachs.  I enjoyed a crab omelet, while Linley had her favorite breakfast foods, bacon and eggs. After eating, we made our way to the airport BART station to take the subway up to Powell Street, but she was pretty sleepy, and laid her head on my lap and snoozed a bit on the quiet subway ride.

One of my favorite parts of trips to San Francisco is emerging from the Powell Street BART station, going up the escalator, and seeing the unique architecture, and seeing and hearing the bustling of the city, Market Street, cable cars, and more.  The first stop was to get a Muni day pass for the busses, street cars, and cable cars.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that because of her age, Linley was free.  I’d booked a room on Hotwire that morning at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, a couple blocks west of Union Square.  After a few minutes of settling in at the hotel, we set out to have some fun.

When we left the hotel to head back to Market Street, a light rain had started, though it was also fairly sunny, which I was hoping was a good sign.  While there was a chance of rain throughout the day, we lucked out to have a cool, breezy, mostly sunny, typical San Francisco day.  We took a quick 20 minute bus ride from Powell and Market over to Alamo Square, home to the famous views of the Painted Ladies (Victorian houses) and the skyline in the background.  On our previous trip here, the girls spent a long time playing on the playground there, and that’s what Linley remembered best, and wanted to return to.  After a few obligatory photos in front of the Painted Ladies, Linley played on the mostly empty playground for half an hour before setting off for the next activity.

Another favorite part of our previous trip there was seeing the sea lions at Pier 39.  It took almost an hour to take two busses from Alamo Square to Pier 39, but Linley was again pretty patient.  She loved seeing the sea lions push each other off the dock and swim in the water, and make their “barking” noise.  By this point, we were ready to eat again, and had plans to meet up with my buddy Nicholas Morales, a local who I met through an online beer group, and had hung out with on previous trips to the city.  He recommended grabbing slices from Tony’s Coal Fired Pizza, across the street from the park, so we did just that and sat on a park bench to enjoy our delicious slices. After a few minutes, Nicholas and his girlfriend met up with us for a bit to chat, and of course he was kind enough to bring a couple of beers to sample while we visited.

Linley got a bit tired of us visiting, so we meandered to the other side of the park where there was another playground for her to run around and enjoy herself while we hung out with her and chatted.  One she got her fill, Nick was kind enough to drive us up to the top of Telegraph Hill, which has awesome views of the city.  It was a bit chilly up there, and a tad cloudy, so our stay was short.  Linley loved the playground so much that we ended up back there, only a few blocks away, for another half an hour.

On Linley’s first visit to the city, our cable car experience was a bit lackluster, as it was at night and we were packed into the inside compartment in the back, so couldn’t get the full experience.  This time, we were able to hop on at an intersection and got a bit better of a view because it was still daylight.  We rode to the end of the line at Powell Street, where I made a quick trek into Urban Outfitters to pick up some jeans I’d been eyeing. Linley was pretty tired and over it at this point, so we headed to a grocery store to pick up a few snacks for a light dinner and headed back to the hotel.  It was only 5:30pm local, but 8 at home, and we’d done a lot for one day.  We hung out a bit and watching some TV while I had a beer that Nicholas had given me.  We were both fast asleep pretty early.

The next morning, we slept in and took our time getting up and going.  I spent quite a while trying to figure out how we were going to get home, as the nonstop home we’d planned on taking had suddenly filled up, and nothing out of San Francisco all day looked very good.  Luckily, we have the ability to purchase standby seats on Southwest, which has a nonstop to Indy from Oakland.  We had plenty of time, so we headed to a small bahn mi shop in the Tenderloin for some lunch and took the BART over to Oakland, and then the train line that connects the Oakland Coliseum stop with the airport.  We checked in without an issue, headed to the gate, and were able to board halfway through boarding, allowing us plenty of opportunity to find two seats together.  After a 4 hour flight home, we were both hungry, so made a stop for dinner at Black Swan Brewpub near the airport, where we had dinner and drew pictures from our trip of cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge on their white paper “table cloths.”

I was extremely proud of my little 5 year old for how well she did on this trip. I think it makes a huge difference when the other siblings aren’t there and they get one on one time.  We had an awesome time and talk about it often.  She looks forward to other one on one trips in the future.