In March, we had the extremely good fortune to get a visit from some of our oldest and dearest friends, Joe and Erica Shidle, along with their two daughters, who are among Julia and Joe’s oldest friends as well. On the occasion of their visit, we took a rare trip up to the city (via Oakland, since we picked up the Shidles at their hotel in Milpitas) to give the kids a chance to experience some of the popular tourist spots. Naturally, there are pictures.

We started out at Fisherman’s Wharf, as one does, and then made our way on foot to Ghirardelli Square. From there, we decided to hop on a cable car, as neither the kids nor Julie had even been on one, and visit the San Francisco Cable Car Museum. This was especially exciting for our Joe, as he had long been a fan of the excellent book Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton (personally, I prefer Katy and the Big Snow by the same author, but The Little House is also great if you’re sentimental like me).

After the museum, things took a bit of a turn: a blackout hit the block where the museum sits, which would have been fine—we had just left, after all—but for the fact that the museum doubles as the powerhouse for the line that ran back in the direction of our car, leaving us more or less stranded. Situations like this one might go a long way toward explaining the enthusiasm for phasing out the cable cars back in the ’40s.

Luckily for us, there was a bus route vaguely in the vicinity, so after a pretty good hike—you can imagine how the kids felt about traipsing uphill in San Francisco—we were able to get a ride back to the car, grab a quick dinner, and visit the Golden Gate Bridge, which the older Joe once characterized as the site of the nastiest bathroom in the world, around dusk.

Despite the forced march, the kids had a great time and were thoroughly pooped when we arrived home. Hopefully the Shidles will come back for another visit someday, seeing as this one took place way back in 2011, and I’m only getting around to posting the pictures now.

Gallery: Shidles in San Francisco.