A BART Adventure

BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit

In California the 4th Graders are required to do a report and project on a California Mission. Quentin was assigned Mission San Francisco de Asis a.k.a. Mission Dolores. The teachers ask that the students visit the mission they are studying if at all possible. Well, since San Francisco is only a couple hours away I decided to take Quentin to visit the mission. One of the things we learned is that the mission is the oldest intact building in San Francisco. It survived the earthquake of 1906 (I think that's the right year), but the basilica next to it did not and it had to be rebuilt.

I'm not too fond of driving in San Francisco. It was hard enough in the little car, but now that I've got the truck I really wasn't looking forward to it. After reading some information on the web about the mission I learned that there is a BART station just three blocks from Mission San Francisco. I thought, "Wow! Problem solved. I don't have to drive in San Francisco and we'll get to go on an urban adventure on the high speed train!"

This is Quentin when the train first started to move. He was so excited.

And then...

Talk about an urban adventure. On the way over a herd of teenage boys with bicycles sat right next to us on the train. They were so loud and unruly even Quentin was annoyed with them (see picture below). Then an Asian lady sat next to us that kept karate chopping herself. Seriously! And on the way back the train was so full we had to stand up for part of the ride. Quentin enjoyed that part. It was a little rough on my back though.

The mission was beautiful and very interesting. It was not in a nice part of the city though. I thought we'd eat lunch there, but I didn't want to even walk on the sidewalk much less eat at one of the restaurants! Oh, and that BART station that was just "three blocks" away was really more like six or seven blocks away! It's a good thing the weather was really nice.