San Francisco - 2018 - Day 1

I’ve been traveling WAY too much lately. After a brief trip to Jacksonville, the boys and I went into the mountains last weekend, then I boarded a plane to Chicago on Monday only to return on Tuesday in anticipation of an early Wednesday departure to San Francisco. I’m happy I’m not sick!!! Can’t say the same for Quinton, however. Jenny called me on Monday evening to inform me that Quinton had been throwing up all day and into the evening. Should be fun!

When I got back from Chicago late Tuesday night (I got home around 11:30), Quinton’s vomiting had abated, but he still felt sick. I managed a couple hours of sleep on the plane, and fell asleep briefly on Tuesday night only to wake up at 3:45 the next morning for our 7:00 AM flight!

All of us were able to catch a nap on the plane, which was good because we didn’t have much time to acclimate to the locale. Ethan had a college visit scheduled at 1:00 at Santa Clara University. So we took the train to the rental plaza and collected our 2018 Chevy Impala, loaded all our stuff into it and headed south!

When we got down there, we stopped at a Starbucks to feed the addiction, then found a Bar-B-Que place near the campus, Asadero, where we officially started the vacation with our traditional first beer! Oh, and we also ate, though Quinton really didn’t feel like it because he had the Stomach Flu, an anthem he would repeat often for the next couple of days!

The college visit was very cool, and the campus was amazing! You could feel the wind coming out of Ethan as they were going over the enrollment standards for the school. 1400 SAT, 31 ACT, and a 3.8 unweighted GPA. I tried to explain to him that those were averages and that they had to have people under all of those in order for them to be average, but he didn’t care. He decided it wasn’t for him. I don’t think he will apply. Nonetheless, we did meet some people that went to Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha, so that was amusing…

Around 3:30 we headed back north to checkin to our hotel which we booked about 20 miles north of San Francisco in San Rafael. Due to Bay Area traffic and the sheer distance, it took us almost 2 hours to get to our hotel, the San Rafael Embassy Suites. Jenny and I wasted no time and took quick advantage of the Manager’s Reception.

Shortly after checkin, we ventured south in search of food. We had targeted a good looking Puerto Rican restaurant, but Quinton really wanted chicken nuggets, and since he had the stomach flu, we acquiesced and searched for another option. We settled on the Iron Springs Brew Pub.

After dinner, we were pretty well spent, having been up since 2:45 AM local time, so we crashed - hard. Tomorrow will bring yet another college visit and some San Francisco touring.