It has been one thousand one hundred ninety six days since Shea and I spent a weekend together without a child. Not that we were counting! Just amazing how much time has gone by and how much we really haven't wanted to be away from him. In fact, we are pretty bad at taking time away for just the two of us. So, to celebrate my turning 40 we escaped away for a weekend in the city! We've been to San Francisco more times than we can count, Shea even lived there for a while post college, but this time was different. Just the two of us. No showing friends around or crazy New Year's Eve celebrations. We decided we wanted an adventure, only doing things we hadn't done before, and spending the entire weekend without a car.
My mom arrived in town on Friday to spend the weekend with Ian. He was so excited to spend time with her, so much so that when Shea and I walked out the front door he ran the other way saying he wanted to watch a movie. So no goodbye kiss or hug or drama. So that was good!!
We walked 3 blocks to the bus stop and our adventure began! We opted to take Amtrak with a connecting bus. Thus the blurry first views coming into town.
We arrived and with a bit longer walk than we expected found our hotel. It was a bit surreal to be without Ian. It was quiet. Really quiet. And, funny enough, having arrived in amazing city by 8PM on a Friday night we called it a night. Yep, how old are we? We just stayed in and watched dumb TV (I'd forgotten just how dumb it is. )
Out bright and early the next morning to maneuver our way to Coit Tower. Probably the only touristy thing in SF that we'd never done. After a few miss calculations, a unneeded trek up a steep hill we made it there. Great views and a perfect overcast day...blocking our view of the Golden Gate. I'm missing so many great details like Shea's complete JOY that he got to ride hanging from the side of a Cable Car to get part of the way to Coit Tower. I'll cover those details in a layout or two later :)
From there we spent a little time at The Buena Vista. Yep, we've been there before but it was the first time since before Ian was born. There is much more of a story to Buena Vista, but no room for that here!!
Then we jumped on another bus and made our way to the Mission District. A few blocks of walking we found a small spot I'd read about and wanted to try out! Cha-Ya...all vegan suschi! EVERYTHING on the menu, something I could eat!!! UNBELIEVABLE! The food was great and the lighting spectacular! (that matters for good pictures you know!) Shea even suggested a table in the center of the room because it had the best lighting! Yep, a true birthday gift!!
Miso with no fish juice!!
radish, cucumber, mushroom, and avocado rolls! mmmmmmm
Then a little more walking and a much needed nap.
I had three requests for my birthday weekend. 1. Take the train 2. Take photos 3. Eat at
Millennium. Okay #3 was really my #1. I made reservations there over a month ago. I REALLY wanted to go. I didn't care what else we did. It was AMAZING. The idea of having choice for dinner is unbelievable. My typical dinner out means I get either a green salad, maybe beans and rice, or sauteed veggies. I thought I was going to cry just looking at a menu that was filled with options I could eat. EVERYTHING. I could look for what sounded good, not simply what I could eat. I was torn between the tortellini with black truffle oil or the squash curry with rice. The curry won out after hearing it described as having "punch."
We started with roasted beets because, well, I love them!
And our entrees.
Not only did it taste incredible it was pretty! I love a well presented plate!!
And for dessert, again, amazed to have a choice! How they created such amazing desserts with absolutely NO dairy or eggs baffles me. I know it can be done, I've done it, just never this well! I had the Gingerbread Pumpkin Tartlet. and well...Yummmm! Smooth, just enough spice to it. Lovely.
Such a great dinner! Truly the best meal I've EVER had!! Cannot wait to create a reason to go back again.
Sunday we walked a little bit and then headed to our bus pick up point on Market. Funny how much shorter the walk was in the day time when we actually knew where to go! We waited for a little bit and then heard the Veteran's Day Parade down the street. We looked and could see lights and a band.
And then...
I realized there were NO CARS on the street. NONE. ZERO. And then we realized the parade was passing right in front of us. Right down the same spot as our bus was going to pick us up. Not sure what to do, a little bit panicked, we ran down the stairs to BART and tried to figure out how to get to either Richmond (where Amtrak meets up with BART) or to the Ferry Building (where an Amtrak bus stops). We opted for the Ferry Building and got off just 10 minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive! The rest of the trip was uneventful.
We walked into our house Sunday afternoon to find Ian sleeping and mom sweeping. When Ian did wake up I gave him the cheesy SF Snow Globe I'd looked everywhere for! He loved it and kept asking if it was his!
A perfect weekend!
And you can find it 
Shea was in line with a woman tonight who was worried about the no cell phones sign in the polling place. He said she had that nervous chatter of someone who hadn't voted before. He assured her that it meant you couldn't talk on them, it was okay for it to be in your pocket. She said, "I just want my vote to count. They'll do anything so that it doesn't." He was pretty certain it was her first vote. And he was pretty certain she was about 50 years old. And she so wanted her vote to count this time.
And it did. It really really did.
And, because I take my camera everywhere. Here is the vote that I cast while holding Ian because I wanted him to witness history first hand. I wanted to be able to say, little man I held you in my left arm while I marked this with my right.