A Day of Play

At the Pacific Ocean on Ocean Beach, California

You may have heard the expression, "when in Rome do as the Romans do." Our variation on that expression today was, "When in San Francisco, do as the tourists do." So we did.

Earlier in the week, I invited our YWAM leader, Daniel Clift, to go with us on our free day. He is from Concord, just across San Francisco Bay and spent the summer in the Tenderloin where we were staying. He agreed and after sleeping in, getting a shower, we headed off to the mass transit station.

Daniel told us at the end of this very long day he's never heard of anyone doing all we did in a single day. The following is a list of all we did. Keep in mind we were riding busses and trains to get to these places which were often far apart. Our last leg of the trip was a long walk just to get to a bus stop. We were tired, but had a great day.

• Played at Ocean Beach. We out our feet or whole body (Trevor) into the Pacific Ocean.
• Saw a street riot over the Middle East fighting.  
• Had lunch at Super Duper, a gourmet burger place
• Rode a cable car. A San Francisco must.  
• Walked down Lombard Street, the curviest road in the world
• Viewed Alcatraz, "the Rock," a former prison on an island
• Walked Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39
• Met an 2012 London gold medal Olympic runner Demetrius Pinder and his family. 
• Had dinner at California's famous In & Out burgers (that's where we met the Pinder family)
• Went to Ghiradelli Square. "Show of hands...who wants ice cream?" Two hands went up. The rest were too cold for ice cream. 
• Saw the Golden Gate Bridge at night. 

This was a great way to end the trip. All of us, especially the youth, had a trip whose memories will last a lifetime.

On the famous curvy Lombard Street