Getting to San Francisco

Weather and holidays - what a mixture for travel....We headed out on December 21st never thinking it would be such a horrible day to travel....but with snowstorms on the east and west coasts and in Chicago, it was a very busy day at the airports. Luckily we had no real trouble getting to San Francisco although there were many people stranded both in Mpls/St Paul and in San Francisco trying to get home to Portland or Seattle for Christmas. Katie had more trouble - after her car wouldn't start (and had to be off the street or be towed while she was gone), huge accident on the LA freeways, got to the airport where there were LONG lines for security and they would only let people go ahead of the line if their flight was 10 minutes from departure. (dumb because by then all seats had been given away to people trying to get north to Portland and Seattle) so when she got to her gate before the time the flight would leave, they would not let her on..... told her to get in the customer service line which did not move for 1/2 hour. So she called and booked a new flight rather than try to be reassigned with her old ticket and then that flight was 2 hours late but finally did get to San Francisco.... We had to just be patient and be very thankful we all arrived when so many did not get where they were going by Christmas.

After that things went better.... and we were very lucky to have better weather than predicted....

We stayed on the bay at the Embassy Suites Burlingame where we could watch the airplanes come in over the water.

Backing up a little.... when we decided to go to San Francisco, Colleen told us she had never been there and we reminded her of a trip when she was about 2..... but as we talked about where we were staying (on the Bay), she said "wait, is San Francisco the 'Bay Area'?"..... turns out she had been there and stayed "somewhere on the bay" when the USC band was up at the USC-Cal Berkeley football games. Then we pulled up to the hotel, and she said "hey, this is where we stayed". Then we walked across the street to a restaurant for lunch and heard "I've eaten here before!"..... Later, downtown, she recognized that they had indeed gone into San Francisco and gone to Fisherman's Wharf, Ghiradelli square, etc... but more about those later... and I'll bet you would not have guessed what was the first famous sight we went to in San Francisco....unless you see my posts on facebook....