Trip to San Francisco Part 1-

In the middle of May last month our family went to San Francisco to stay for the week. My company has an apartment on the 16th floor of the Buckelew House overlooking the Embarcadero and San Francisco Bay. We had a wonderful time and I got an opportunity to sketch a few things from our trip. As much as we love San Francisco..... this town is not a family town. We got a lot of looks and stares from a lot of people (especially in the apartment tower) because of our three children. I'm so used to the fact that little children create a lot of activity and energy that many San Franciscans (at least in the areas we visited) are a little uncomfortable with small active children; I guess the demographics in San Francisco favor more pets than children whereas in Utah... well, do I need to explain. Don't misunderstand me, we did get some sincere comments from many San Franciscans about our kids but it was a definite feeling of "...can't you control them better." Anyway, I shouldn't rant and rave too much- this city is definitely beautiful- we've been here before and we love it here.

We decided to make this trip by car- after taking much preparation to insure the comfort and pleasure of the kids (to insure our comfort) - DVD's, activities and snacks- we made our way to Reno for our first nights stay. The sketch below was a comfort stop in Winnemucca to fuel up and stretch our legs- This was an extremely quick sketch (about 10 minutes)- the quality isn't the best but again it is surprising how much you can get down and communicate even in the shortest amount of time. Much of my sketching tries to make best the amount of time I have or don't have but it fulfills my strong desire to sketch- even if my sketches aren't the best. I hope I'm comfortable enough to show all my sketches even the bad ones. (Most of these sketches were erroneously labeled march instead of May)





Here is my breakfast the next morning at a Fairfield Inn in Reno, Nevada. From Reno- we went through Virginia City, Carson City, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento and then finally later that evening San Francisco.





We finally made it.- I stayed up that night and sketched the ferry building. This sketch doesn't do justice on the beauty of the view but....

The next day we walked all over San Francisco- later in the afternoon we finally stopped off at a local library- the kids read some books and relaxed for awhile and then we played at the playground next door. The sketch of Coit Tower was from this playground. I made the best out of this sketch but it was rushed as well as I was infringing on pushing the kids in the swing. So while they played on the play tower I quickly sketched the Coit Tower.