West Coast Vacation - Day 1
I'm back and I'm here to journal our trip. Since it was a long trip with lots of awesome pictures, I'm going to post one day at a time. Enjoy the ride. :-)
On Wednesday, May 14, we were up and ready to head to the airport at 9am. We chose a flight that left from Dulles because it was a direct flight to San Francisco. I am here to say, direct flights are where it's at. Wow, so simple, so quick, and usually much cheaper. We used Super Shuttle as a taxi service to bring us to the airport.
The driver, bless him, was early so we loaded up and headed out on a misty, warm morning. I got the front seat, thanks to my motion sickness, and we were caught in about 20 minutes of traffic, which didn't put us too far off our schedule, thanks to some heavy padding - I knew DC traffic wouldn't be lovely.
At Dulles, we walked right up (no lines) to the United counter, checked our bags, and headed to security. We took the train thing:
which wasn't too crowded, and were ushered to the "speedy check in" line where we didn't have to take our shoes off, take our laptops out, or take our liquids out. I told Kara, "this is how it used to be - you never used to have to take your shoes off." To which she said, "yeah, that was before shoes." lol!
We were nice and early, so we all took turns guarding ALL the carry on bags while we each went to get food, drinks, etc.
We got on the plane, where we had assigned seats (I prefer that) and got settled with Kara in the middle of Christina and I, and my mom across the aisle. It is so nice sitting next to a 7 year old! I am a full figured woman who appreciates the few extra inches of space!
We were all happy to see the Lego Movie was showing - all of us enjoyed that! Including the nice man sitting next to my mom who looked like a marine, but laughed just as hard as we did at the cartoon movie. :-)
Then, Christina and I watched a movie together on my tablet:
United offered movies, tv shows, drinks, meals to purchase, and snacks to purchase. It was a great flight with views that looked like this:
Love those Rocky Mountains!
When we landed in San Francisco, we headed down to get our bags. They were having record breaking heat over 100 degrees, but of course there was no humidity. It felt like about 73 degrees to us East Coasters. :-)
We got a taxi to the Fisherman's Wharf hotel, which should have been about 30 minutes long, but a Giants baseball game just let out, so we went a different way and spent a FORTUNE on that taxi. *sigh* But, what are you going to do? We were hoping for a $40 taxi, but ended up spending about double.
We checked right into our Holiday Inn Express hotel and got settled. It felt like 8pm, but the clock only said 5pm. So, we ordered pizza and chilled for the night. Kara had a headache from the plane (probably from not drinking enough), Christina had a sore ankle and shoulder, and my mom and I were just plain tired. We were perfectly fine with unpacking a little and getting ready for our big day the next day.
We had a giant family suite (which ended up being bigger and cheaper than two rooms anyway) where my mom and sister each got their own double beds, I slept on the pull out couch (my mom and I took turns sleeping on pull out couches) and Kara had a roll away. All of that, plus tons of luggage, and we still had plenty of space, and a fridge, and a tv, and it was quiet.
Ah, nighty night. Check back in and see our fun day in Fisherman's Wharf!
On Wednesday, May 14, we were up and ready to head to the airport at 9am. We chose a flight that left from Dulles because it was a direct flight to San Francisco. I am here to say, direct flights are where it's at. Wow, so simple, so quick, and usually much cheaper. We used Super Shuttle as a taxi service to bring us to the airport.
The driver, bless him, was early so we loaded up and headed out on a misty, warm morning. I got the front seat, thanks to my motion sickness, and we were caught in about 20 minutes of traffic, which didn't put us too far off our schedule, thanks to some heavy padding - I knew DC traffic wouldn't be lovely.
At Dulles, we walked right up (no lines) to the United counter, checked our bags, and headed to security. We took the train thing:
which wasn't too crowded, and were ushered to the "speedy check in" line where we didn't have to take our shoes off, take our laptops out, or take our liquids out. I told Kara, "this is how it used to be - you never used to have to take your shoes off." To which she said, "yeah, that was before shoes." lol!
We were nice and early, so we all took turns guarding ALL the carry on bags while we each went to get food, drinks, etc.
We got on the plane, where we had assigned seats (I prefer that) and got settled with Kara in the middle of Christina and I, and my mom across the aisle. It is so nice sitting next to a 7 year old! I am a full figured woman who appreciates the few extra inches of space!
We were all happy to see the Lego Movie was showing - all of us enjoyed that! Including the nice man sitting next to my mom who looked like a marine, but laughed just as hard as we did at the cartoon movie. :-)
Then, Christina and I watched a movie together on my tablet:
United offered movies, tv shows, drinks, meals to purchase, and snacks to purchase. It was a great flight with views that looked like this:
Love those Rocky Mountains!
When we landed in San Francisco, we headed down to get our bags. They were having record breaking heat over 100 degrees, but of course there was no humidity. It felt like about 73 degrees to us East Coasters. :-)
We got a taxi to the Fisherman's Wharf hotel, which should have been about 30 minutes long, but a Giants baseball game just let out, so we went a different way and spent a FORTUNE on that taxi. *sigh* But, what are you going to do? We were hoping for a $40 taxi, but ended up spending about double.
We checked right into our Holiday Inn Express hotel and got settled. It felt like 8pm, but the clock only said 5pm. So, we ordered pizza and chilled for the night. Kara had a headache from the plane (probably from not drinking enough), Christina had a sore ankle and shoulder, and my mom and I were just plain tired. We were perfectly fine with unpacking a little and getting ready for our big day the next day.
We had a giant family suite (which ended up being bigger and cheaper than two rooms anyway) where my mom and sister each got their own double beds, I slept on the pull out couch (my mom and I took turns sleeping on pull out couches) and Kara had a roll away. All of that, plus tons of luggage, and we still had plenty of space, and a fridge, and a tv, and it was quiet.
Ah, nighty night. Check back in and see our fun day in Fisherman's Wharf!
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