Goodbye, Blog!

This is officially my last post.

I had intended for this to be a Cost of Marathoning post but, when we actually started to add up the costs (fundraising mailing costs, clothes, sneakers, race entry fees, doctor appointment costs, medical devices, GU, Gatorade, Sport Beans, travel costs to San Francisco for all of us, etc.) it quickly became too depressing to want to itemize.

So instead, I just want to say thank you to all the people who donated (or wanted to donate but couldn't) through me to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Thanks to your generosity, I raised $4740!

Thank you to the people who read my blog and took the time to send me comments. It was nice to know that other people were sharing in my experience.

And a very special thank you to Braman and Larsson and Nora who dramatically altered their schedules, picked up a lot of slack at home, and spent many boring hours on the sides of various race courses while I trained for the marathon. I simply could not have done it without their wholehearted support.

I plan to continue to run on a casual basis but won't be documenting it on a blog anymore.

Thanks for donating! Thanks for reading! Goodbye!

The Marathon! (Part 3)

Miles 11 through 16 were in Golden Gate Park. It was a loop so I could see people on the other side on their way out as I was running in. I hadn't paid enough attention to the course because, in my mind, I thought we were finished with hills but it turned out that much of the course in the park was gradually uphill.

I plugged along, though, and took advantage of the line-free port-a-potties near mile 13. Right before I got there, I passed the "pedi-care station" where people were being treated for blisters and other foot ailments. Thankfully I felt fine, because I could not imagine voluntarily taking my shoes off at that point since it seemed like it would be infinitely worse to have to put them back on after a break.

The park was interesting and I appreciated seeing trees, such as the very fragrant eucalyptus, and other plants that we don't have in New York State. I saw some huge pinecones along the route and hoped that Larsson might have an opportunity to pick one up. (Braman and the kids were scheduled to take a 9am shuttle from Union Square to the finish line. Since the finish line happened to be near mile 11 and mile 16, they were hoping to be able to see me at one of these points on the course as well and then spend time exploring the park while they waited for me to finish.)

It's all a blur now but Harland caught up with me somewhere between miles 14 and 15. He called Braman on his cell phone, found out where he was, told Braman where we were and thus we arranged to see each other near mile 15. (Braman missed me at mile 11 because the bus was delayed.)

Larsson and Nora were bored waiting for me to show up:


Here I come in my yellow hat:


Harland and I smiling for the camera:


Larsson and Nora posing afterwards for Braman:


I really appreciated their efforts to come out and cheer me on and it was great to have a little personal support. I stopped to give the kids a hug and talk for a few seconds and then I was off again.

After leaving the park I parted ways with Harland again and started down the Great Highway, which parallels the Pacific Ocean. Although this was at mile 16, it felt like the beginning of the end since, if I had looked behind me at that point on the other side of the road, I could have seen the finish line. I was running south (slightly uphill again!) and I knew that all the people I was watching running north on the other side of the road were almost finished. Honestly, this was a little discouraging since a lot of those people (I thought) didn't look much sportier than me but obviously were a lot faster. I tried not to dwell on it and just kept forging ahead since I had ten more miles to go.

I won't lie to you--I started walking a lot at this point. I was tired, disheartened by the steadily annoying uphill and the streams of people almost done. So I would walk for a while, see the next mile marker off in the distance, start running until I reached it and then walk a little again. This stretch of highway had a lot of traffic lights and intersections so when I couldn't see a mile marker, I would run to an intersection, walk for a while, run to the next intersection, etc. I was hoping to be running more consistently at this point but it turned out this was what I could manage. I think not running for three weeks previously set me back a bit in terms of attitude and fitness.

One thing that I haven't mentioned yet but which continually put the whole marathon experience in perspective was seeing the amazing number of shirts decorated with the names and/or photos of people the runners were running in honor or in memory of. Every name or photo represented someone who suffered from or was suffering from cancer. There were pictures of young and old, family and friends. And as some other shirts read, if you think running a marathon is hard, try chemotherapy.

Although I hadn't decorated my own shirt, I thought of all the people I was running for--people who had shared their own experiences with cancer with me and people who had told me about friends or family members who had cancer--and it really made the temporary discomfort I was experiencing seem trivial. Again and again I was inspired by all these people and felt true gratitude to have the good health to be able to be out running.

I knew that at about mile 18.5, near the San Francisco Zoo, people would be handing out animal crackers. I was really looking forward to this as a way to break the monotony and, possibly, have a decent snack but, sadly, the crackers were yucky generic ones out of a big bag and you couldn't see any of the Zoo from the road. Next time they should spring for Barnum's Animal Crackers.

The next time I run a marathon (!), I am going to carry a map of the course with me so I can see where I am as I go along and what still lies ahead. I say this because, like the continuing hills that kept taking me by surprise, I had another rude awakening when I was confronted with running a 4.5-mile section of the course I had conveniently forgotten about.

Watching all those people on the other side of the highway cruise downhill toward the finish obviously made me want to be one of them and I imagined that, after I reached a certain point on the highway, I would turn around and start heading back like them. Oops. It turned out that, instead of turning around and heading back, I first had to run around Lake Merced for more than 4 miles, from shortly before mile 19 to shortly after mile 23.

I was starting to feel really sore and stopped a few times to stretch my back and my legs. At mile 19 I saw someone strapped to a gurney, vomiting and about to be taken away in an ambulance so it could have been a lot worse. I kept up my combination of walking and running and was really looking forward to the finish which I now believed I would reach, although not soon.

Mile 22.7 was designated the Ghirardelli chocolate mile and there were people with trays of individual chocolate squares. I was told that I could take as many as I wanted but there weren't any plain ones, only chocolate espresso and chocolate with caramel, so I took one with caramel and was happy to eat it.

Somewhere around mile 23, after the chocolate but before getting back on the Great Highway, Harland found me again. Surprisingly I was able to make normal conversation and it helped to pass the last 3 miles until the end. With about a mile to go, we met up with Linda who had started walking the marathon at 5:30am. She was tired but steady and we talked for a few minutes before running again to the end.

Harland called Braman on his cell phone to tell him that we were almost there and to see what side of the road he was on. Braman is tall and was wearing a red hat so he was easy to spot on the left as we approached.

Braman took this picture of us as we neared the finish line.


Harland slowed down so I could finish by myself. Here I am happy to be almost done.(The picture is blurry because I was moving so fast)


Once I could see the finish line in sight, I checked my watch and saw that I had a chance to finish in less than 6 hours.


When I had started out, my vague finishing goal had been 5 1/2 hours but after running the whole way, 6 hours still seemed pretty good. I managed to pull it together and finished in 5 hours, 56 minutes and 25 seconds.

I had been so focused on just finishing that I forgot that I got rewards at the end. As I crossed the line, I was met by a group of tuxedoed men holding trays of blue Tiffany boxes tied with white ribbons. The finisher necklace! And then I had to select my Nike Dri-Fit Finisher t-shirt that announced I finished the Nike Women's Marathon and that I Ran Like A Girl.

Here's a picture of me finishing. You can see the tuxedoed men (and lots of fog) in the background. The clock started when the elite women started which is why it doesn't reflect my actual finishing time.


I was also handed a blue Tiffany bag for my loot, a mylar blanket to wrap around myself to help retain body heat and a Jamba Juice peach smoothie (which I drank but later regretted.)

Here I am sitting in the first chair I could find in the Team In Training Tent.

I looked happy but I was starting to feel sick (which I attribute to the three packets of GU I ingested on the course.)

The kids were glad to see me again.


And, of course, Larsson wanted to try out the mylar blanket.


I was very sore and uncomfortable but we managed to hobble to the Team In Training buses which took us back to Union Square.

Before I ran the marathon I thought that we might do some sightseeing in the afternoon after the race but it turned out that all I wanted to do was lie in bed and try to feel better. I did eventually manage to take a shower and go out to eat (although I didn't actually eat anything) but the rest of the day was mostly a write-off.

And that's pretty much it. By the time we went home on Tuesday I felt much better, although my left foot was still a little numb. The marathon was fun, I'm glad I did it and I'm even thinking about maybe doing another one next fall.

The Marathon! (Part 2)

When she found out that we ran at about the same pace, Alicia wanted to try to stay together for the marathon. And we did, for the first few minutes. But I hadn't run in three weeks and had no idea how I was going to feel so I started off really slow (probably the most common marathon advice I've read), slower even than I would normally run. So Alicia soon left me in the dust and I took my iPod out of my pocket and started listening to music.

As described on the Nike Women's Marathon website, the race began in Union Square, headed through the Financial District, past the famous TransAmerica building, along San Francisco Bay's Fisherman's Wharf, Aquatic Park, Ghirardelli Square, Fort Mason and Marina Green while exposing breathtaking views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. The course then went through the Presidio and Sea Cliff District, out to the Great Highway, through Golden Gate Park and South around Lake Merced, and finished north of the Great Highway along the Pacific Ocean.

If you want to see a map of the course you can go to the Nike Women's Marathon site, click on The Race and then click on The Course. You can then click on View Marathon Course which will open a pdf file of the course or you can click on View Virtual Tour which will show you a movie from the perspective of someone driving on the course.

It really was an interesting and beautiful course but I don't have any pictures (until Braman showed up) because I, unlike a surprising number of other people, did not carry a camera with me while I was running.

Ten minutes into the race, while people were still running quite close together in a big mass, a crazy man with a cup of coffee tried to sprint from one side of the street to the other. There was no way he could have made it without bumping into someone and that someone turned out to be me. He spilled part of his coffee on my right sleeve but, while it was hot, it didn't burn me but I was left with a lingering smell of coffee and a stain on my shirt.

Thanks to my timely use of normal bathrooms, I was able to avoid the very long lines at the port-a-potties on the course. I was amazed at the lines even at the first "rest area", about 2 miles from the start. The people at the end of the lines had to wait at least 10 minutes and probably more. I knew I wasn't going to win the race but I also didn't want to take all day to finish and I was glad to not waste precious clock time waiting to use the bathroom.

After successfully running several miles, I felt incredible relief and gratitude that my knee didn't bother me (at all!) and that I hadn't done any lasting damage to my foot from all the walking we'd done on our quest for paper. I really enjoyed being out there on that beautiful day, in California, in the sunshine, making my way toward the finish line.

I obviously remember Union Square since that is where the race started but I don't remember much about the Financial District (which I hadn't been in before) except that it looked like a typical urban place. Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square were fine and flat and I could see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge as promised. Then we ran along Fort Mason and Marina Green which is near where Larsson got himself soaked the day before.

Which brings me to mile six and the beginning of the first hill. While this hill didn't seem as steep or as long as the hill in the Bridge of Flowers 10K I ran in August, it turned out I still didn't want to try to run up the whole thing. (It was about a mile long and went from a little above sea level to 295 feet above sea level.) I started to shuffle up it, made it maybe halfway, then remembered that I still had 20 more miles to go so I started walking.

It seemed a little sad to start walking so early on in the race but I didn't want to use up energy that I might need more at the end. I made it to the top (passed the "oxygen bar" where people were taking hits of oxygen to refresh themselves) and saw Maura from Team In Training who cheered me on and told me that Harland was behind me and would catch up with me soon. (He had started walking with Ellen that morning but I think, as a coach, he tries to connect with everyone on the team during the race.)

A little after mile 8, Harland did find me and we ran together until mile 11. We ran through the posh (and hilly) Sea Cliff district where everyone had beautiful, colorful landscaping as well as (I'm guessing) great views of the Pacific Ocean from their homes. Harland thought we passed by Robin Williams' house, which had a metal dinosaur frame peeking up over the tall hedge. (I think it was supposed to be a topiary but the plant hadn't grown up to the top yet.) We ran up a hill and then down a really long, steep hill which bothered my numb feet.

Mile 11 was near the finish line and Harland and I parted at that point and he went, I think, to check on how the other runners and walkers were doing. I started up my iPod again and continued on the course as it looped through Golden Gate Park.

The Marathon! (Part 1)

I was pretty nervous the morning of the marathon so I didn't have any trouble waking up in time. In fact, I woke up before the alarm was scheduled to go off at 4:45.

Our hotel was right on Union Square and you could see the start line, and the Expotique tents, from our room window. Most people were going to start at 7:00am but walkers who expected to take more than 7 hours to finish were in the early start at 5:30am so I could already hear the noise of people milling around and some talking on a loudspeaker.

Because I had to turn the light on to get ready, Braman woke up and then Larsson. They were both excited about my big race. Nora, at least, kept on sleeping. I got dressed, got all my gear together, and headed over to the next street to the Lori's Diner that was open 24 hours to get some breakfast.

During training, I felt like I had had fairly successful long runs when I first ate a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. Since the advice I'd read and heard most often was not to try anything new on marathon day, I ordered a bowl of oatmeal (and some toast since I had a ten dollar bill, wasn't planning on carrying the change with me for the race and thought I'd get the most for my money.)

Lori's Diner was one of only two diners in that area (that I knew of) open 24 hours. There were an anticipated 15,000 runners in the race and I was worried that enough of them would have the same idea to get breakfast at Lori's that I might have to wait and not be able to get my breakfast in time. But I was pleased that there were only a few other groups of people in there when I came in.

Since I wasn't planning on lingering, I didn't bring a book with me so I passed the time while I sat at the counter waiting for my meal by looking at the other people in the diner. There were two groups of women sitting in booths, all suited up and numbered for the race. They all seemed happy with hearty appetites but I don't know exactly what they were talking about since I tried not to be a completely obvious eavesdropper.

Once my oatmeal came I was able to eat about half of it along with a few bites of toast. Another solitary runner came in and sat at the counter and ordered just toast. I drank half my cup of water, paid the bill, left the rest of the change for the tip, used the bathroom there so as to hopefully avoid any contact with port-a-potties, and left.

The whole diner process hadn't taken as long as I thought so I still had 15 minutes before I was supposed to meet my group from Team In Training at 6:15. I had to walk near our hotel on my way to meet them anyway so I decided to check in with Braman and the kids again.

There were so many people all over the place, many of them in purple shirts representing Team In Training, and I was starting to feel excited and hoped that Braman might be able to take a few pictures before the race. But Braman and the kids, naturally, were still in their pajamas so there are no pictures documenting the pre-race activities. I used the bathroom again (who in their right mind wants to use a port-a-potty?), hugged and kissed them all and left to go wait for the start of the race.

I met Liz and Alicia on the corner of the Square near their hotel. I'd trained with Liz in Ithaca. She had planned to run the full marathon but had hurt her leg during training and had decided to cut back to the half-marathon. Alicia I had just met the day before at the Pasta Party and we were both doing the full marathon, all 26.2 miles of it. I had also met Ellen and Linda the day before but both were walkers and Linda had started at 5:30 to walk the full marathon and Ellen was starting at 7:00 to walk the half-marathon.

Everyone was supposed to line up in groups according to their pace. After the elite runners, there were 5 pace groups based on your estimated minutes per mile: 6:30:8:59, 9:00-9:59, 10:00-11:59, 12:00 - 14:59 and 15:00 plus. We all joined the 10:00 - 11:59 minutes per mile group on the south side of Union Square on Geary Street right in front of Macy's department store. Each pace group was a block long.

We stood there and made small talk, listened to the local radio personality attempt to work us up into a frenzy, and waited for the race countdown. At 6:40, the elite runners started. Then, 20 long minutes later, the starting gun finally went off. We shuffled forward slowly until we reached the start line and, at about 7:10, I landed on the pad which activated my Champion Chip and my marathon officially began.

I didn't know it at the time but Braman was leaning out our hotel window trying to take a picture of the start of the race. It was still dark out and he had a hard time keeping his hand steady but you get a sense of the number of people moving forward on their way to the start. I'm probably in this group somewhere. Macy's, in front of which we waited for the race to start, is the big building in the background.

San Francisco Trip Recap, Saturday 10/21/2006, Part 2

Here we are in front of Niketown. You can see a crowd of people gathered there on the sidewalk. On the wall of Niketown, all the names of the marathon participants were listed and people were posing in front and having other people take pictures of them pointing to their name. It was a little crazy.


Here's another picture of us from a different angle so you can see the big billboard that Nike put up on the top of the store:


Here's a picture of us in front of Niketown from later in the day when it was less hectic:


And here's a picture of my name on the wall. (Look in the middle.)


Inside, Niketown was just as loud and crazy as the day before but it was easier to navigate without children. I bought a marathon shirt and discovered that the heat press station was a place where you could think up a phrase (15 characters or less) and the Nike people would print it on your shirt for free. That sounded like fun but I couldn't think of anything so I took my purchase and went back to the hotel room to drop it off.

I then met Maura (the Team In Training Campaign Director from Syracuse), Harland (our coach), Linda, Ellen and Alicia (three participants from the Syracuse area that I hadn't met before) and we all walked to the Moscone Center for the Pasta Party. The Pasta Party is a Team In Training pre-raceday event where you gather with hundreds (thousands?) of other participants to share a meal (of pasta plus more), listen to some encouraging words, and hear the story of someone who has suffered from a blood cancer.

Our sitting (there were two more after ours) was at 12:15. Lunch was good--dark green salad, three different kinds of pasta, whole-wheat rolls, and fruit--and our group was seated near the front of the huge room so we had a good view of the speakers. Someone from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society spoke first, then Joan Benoit Samuelson (the Nike Women's Marathon began as a way to honor Joan Benoit Samuelson, the first American women to win an Olympic medal in the marathon), and then a man from Texas and his two children.

What started out as an encouraging story--the man's wife was diagnosed with cancer, was aggressively treated, he joined Team In Training, she went into remission, they planned their family trip to San Francisco--took an incredibly sad turn when he went on to say that his wife, at only 28 years old, had had a relapse and had died just six weeks earlier.

To see the struggles his wife had endured and to see him stand up there with his two young children, after all he had been through and was still going through, and have a sense of humor and encourage the rest of us to have a good race the next day was really an inspiration. It definitely put the whole race in perspective and made the idea of running 26.2 miles much less daunting than it had been a few hours before.

After the pasta party, I met Braman and the kids in Yerba Buena Gardens. By then, Nora was asleep in the stroller so we walked around a little more, had tea and treats at Citizen Cupcake (I had a delicious lemon cupcake filled with lemon curd, topped with lemon frosting and decorated with a meringue straw), then checked out another store on my paper list, Stacey's. I bought a few more cards (including one with cherry tomatoes, Nora's favorite) and Larsson picked out two new books.

Since Friday had taken such a toll on my feet, I had planned to spend as much of Saturday sitting down as I could. But San Francisco is such a fun city and we weren't there for very long so it was just too tempting to walk around and see as much as we could. My left foot was really sore, though, and numb after the day's activities so I iced it a few times that night after we got back to the hotel room and made sure to take Naproxen and Tylenol.

I was starting to get worried about the marathon so I did as much preparing before bed as I could. I set the alarm clock for 4:45am, pinned my number on my shirt, folded my shirt, shorts, and socks and put them in a pile with my hat, iPod, BodyGlide, GU, the transportation wristband I'd need for the shuttle from the finish line back to Union Square, and the Naproxen and Tylenol I would need for the next day.

I knew I'd need to eat breakfast, hopefully oatmeal, the next day so we confirmed that the Lori's Diner on Mason Street was open 24 hours and served oatmeal. I felt like there wasn't anything left to do so I tried to relax and get some sleep before the big day.

San Francisco Trip Recap, Saturday 10/21/2006, Part 1

Saturday morning we all got up early and had breakfast at Lori's Diner. This is a 50s-style diner with three locations in Union Square. The food was good (I had french toast-yum!) but pricey as are most things in San Francisco. We forgot Larsson didn't like freshly-squeezed orange juice and had to order him cran juice again.

Then we headed over to the Nike Expotique in the actual square part of Union Square. Big races like these usually have Expos, held in big places like convention centers, with lots of different vendors and free stuff.

Nike set up a series of tents in Union Square with different slogans like Feel Like a Girl (free manicures, etc.), Run Like Girl (gait analysis on a treadmill, pace calculators, free bottles of water, free postcards, sneaker testing, free Luna bars and Luna lip balm) and Shop Like a Girl (you can guess what was in there.) My foot hurt so I didn't want gait analysis, but I did get some free water and a postcard that I mailed to myself as a memento of the race. I didn't think the Expotique was terrible but it wasn't very exciting either. I guess I'll have to do another race to get the real Expo experience.

After the Expotique, Braman and the kids and I parted company. I needed to meet my group from Team In Training at 11:15 at their hotel so that we could all walk over to the Pasta Party together and Braman and Larsson and Nora were eager to start doing something fun.

Since it was only about 10:15, I went into Niketown by myself to check things out and the family headed over to the California Academy of Sciences to see fish and dinosaurs and other fun things.

Before they left, though, I made Braman take some pictures for the blog.

San Francisco Trip Recap, Friday 10/20/2006, Part 3

Before we left for our trip, I made a short list of paper stores I was hoping to visit, complete with addresses, phone numbers and store hours. In our room, the hotel provided an 8 1/2 x 11" map of San Francisco and Braman and I used the addresses from my list to mark the locations on the map. There were five stores that were in fairly close proximity to the Exploratorium.

We started out walking and visited Books, Inc. and Paper Source on Chestnut Street and Union Street Papery on Union Street.

I bought one card in Books, Inc. plus some postcards to send, nothing in Paper Source (this was mostly a curiousity stop to see if this store was much like the ones in Boston and Cambridge and it was), and a bunch of cards in Union Store Papery. I might have gotten more but it is a small store and Braman was trying to entertain Nora outside while I shopped and she got sick of this quickly and came tottering in by herself. Once I was holding her my shopping time was pretty limited.

Larsson had fallen asleep shortly after Books, Inc., and we were pushing him in the stroller while we carried Nora or let her walk. We were all tired after this walking and the next two stores were near each other but about 9 blocks away from where we were in a neighborhood called Russian Hill. They are not kidding about the hill so we took the bus there to visit Russian Hill Bookstore and Polk A Dot Stationers.

On our last trip to San Francisco, we had visited both of these stores and had great success at each so I was looking forward to going to them again. The stop at Russian Hill Bookstore did not disappoint and I found a bunch of great cards, including pirate cards for Larsson's next birthday and several cards with violins on them should we ever need to send personal correspondence to Larsson's violin teacher.

Sadly, although I thought I had all the information I needed, I should have called ahead to verify my facts since we discovered, after walking uphill to find it, that Polk A Dot Stationers had gone out of business. This was especially sad since the last time we were there I had found some interesting cards that I haven't seen anywhere else and they were cheap, too, for letterpress cards.

But I didn't mind quite as much as I could have since by then my left foot was really bothering me and quite numb from all the walking around. We gratefully got back on the bus which left us off quite close to our hotel.

With all my blathering about our day, you might have forgotten the purpose of our trip so I will now say that we arrived back in Union Square in time for me to pick up my race packet at Niketown.

Nike, naturally, is the host of the Nike Women's Marathon, and Niketown, a 7-story store on the corner of Post and Stockton streets in Union Square was making a big deal about the race. We were almost instantly deafened by the dj music as we entered the store. They had redone the store directory for the weekend so I could tell that packet pick-up was on the 4th floor, the Espresso Cart and Runner's General Store (stocked with things like GU and BodyGlide) were on the 5th floor and Marathon merchandise and the Heat Press station were on the 3rd floor.

Since we had the stroller, we took the elevator to the 4th floor. I picked up my bag and my number (but not my t-shirt which you only get when you finish), had my chip activated and we left. There were hordes of women in that store intent on purchasing a lot of Nike stuff and it was too crowded and loud, and we were too tired, to look around. But it was exciting to finally have my number and official race stuff in hand and I felt like I was actually going to run a marathon in two days.

We walked back down the hill later to have dinner again at Westfield Centre and then took the cable car back up to our hotel. Thank goodness it was a short ride because it turned out that Nora hated cable cars. I thought she would enjoy looking out at where we were going but instead she screammed, "No! No!" as we jerkily climbed our way up the hill. Larsson had a good time, though, but we didn't try cable cars again on our trip.

I iced my foot and my knee that night and hoped that neither of them would be a problem on race day.

San Francisco Trip Recap, Friday 10/20/2006, Part 2

After the Exploratorium, we walked over to Crissy Field where we walked on the beach and enjoyed a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

(I should mention here that the temperatures in SF while we were there were very warm, in the 70s and 80s. We hadn't expected those highs and so hadn't packed shorts for the kids, though it turns out they would have been appropriate, but thankfully had a few short-sleeved shirts. That afternoon there were lots of people walking around and even quite a few people lying on the beach in bathing suits.)

The sun was bright and the kids didn't feel like posing for the camera. They did their best but they mostly just wanted to poke around in the sand.






I don't know what came over me but I asked the kids if they wanted to walk a little bit in the water. So we took off our shoes, rolled up our pants and dipped our feet in San Francisco Bay. Nora, who is sensitive to cold, cried right away and wanted to get out.

While I was bringing her back to Braman (who had sensibly kept his sneakers on), Larsson ventured further into the water and got the bottom of his pants wet. He looked cute and it was scenic with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background so I went to get the camera to take his picture. Turns out that wasn't such a great idea because, while I was doing that, Larsson went a little further out, and, not being familiar with waves and how how the land can slope down, got soaked up to the top of his thighs and almost lost his balance and fell in.

Here we are before it all went wrong:


Here is Larsson on his way to get soaked:


And here he is all wet and sandy:


Of course, this was the one time we forgot to pack extra outfits for the kids so Braman wrung out Larsson's pants, Larsson put them back on and, at about 3pm, we finally began paper shopping.

San Francisco Trip Recap, Friday 10/20/2006, Part 1

I love to buy notecards (and send the ones I can bear to part with) and San Francisco is a card-buying Mecca. Since we live in the sticks where it is not so easy to buy fancy cards, I was anxious to get out and get shopping.

But I am also a mother of two small children who had just endured a long, tedious plane flight to the other side of the country so that I could run a marathon so I put aside my own consumer urges and we spent Friday morning and part of the afternoon at the Exploratorium, a fantastic kids' science museum with lots of hands-on exhibits.

Actually, we started off the morning by having breakfast at Sears Fine Food, a restaurant well-known for breakfast and conveniently located right next door to our hotel. I must have been really tired because I can't even remember what I had but I remember that Braman and the kids shared pancakes and Larsson discovered that he doesn't like freshly-squeezed orange juice and had to order a second drink of cranberry juice instead.

After going back to the hotel and packing the backpack full of essentials like diapers and wipes, books for the kids, stickers, crayons and other entertainment, we walked down to the corner of Powell and Market so that we could take a Powell-Hyde line cable car towards the Exploratorium. (I say toward instead of to because the cable car routes are limited and we still would have had to take a bus once we got off the cable car near Ghirardelli Square.)

Taking a cable car to go to the museum seemed a little crazy to begin with since it wouldn't actually bring us to our destination but Larsson had seen them going up and down the street in front of our hotel and really wanted to take a ride on one. However, it seemed extra crazy once we got down to the stop and saw how many other tourists were waiting in line so we ended up taking the bus. (Handy Braman had purchased a municipal transit map from the bookstore next to our hotel so we knew which route to get on and where to pick up the bus.)

We finally made it to the Exploratorium, spent a few hours there and had a great time. (What made the visit even better was that we got in FREE as part of our reciprocal membership with our local kids' science museum, the Sciencenter.) The Exploratorium is housed in a huge open, industrial-looking space and the lighting is not great for taking pictures. But here are a few from the baby play area where Braman built a cage for the kids:

It started out innocuously enough where Larsson and Nora were both helping to build.


Then started to become an enclosure for Nora.


Then Larsson wanted to enclose them both completely inside.


But Nora became scared...


...and busted out.

San Francisco Trip Recap, Thursday 10/19/2006

We left the house at 7am on Thursday morning to drive 2 1/2 hours to Buffalo for our 11:30 flight. This was Larsson's third time on an airplane but Nora's first. Here they are on the first leg of the journey, from Buffalo to Philadelphia. Nora was excited to sit in her own seat for a little while and click the buckle:


This is how Larsson interpreted "look excited":


After a brief layover in Philadelphia, we flew on to San Francisco. The flight was long but the kids were good travellers and we finally arrived in SF at about 5:30pm, west coast time.

We had decided not to rent a car so we took the train from the airport to downtown San Francisco. Between the infernally slow airport tram to the train station, waiting for the train, and the train trip itself, it took us about 2 hours to travel what would have been about 30 minutes in a car.

Fortunately, the train stop at Union Square is on Market Street in the bottom of a large shopping complex with a food court. Since you can't eat well on a plane, we were hungry by then and couldn't imagine trying to go out again once we checked into the hotel so, with all our luggage and two tired, hungry kids, we navigated a crowded, fancy (this is upscale shopping) food court to find some dinner. I got Thai food, Braman and the kids shared pizza and then we walked ten minutes uphill on Powell Street to our hotel. Larsson was excited to be out at night, in the dark, and to see all the bright city lights and crowds of people.

We stayed at the Chancellor Hotel. When we went to SF two years ago, we stayed here and found it to be a nice, relatively inexpensive place so we didn't hesitate to make reservations here again. We checked in, went up to our room, and all fell asleep without too much trouble after our long, busy day.