The Museum of Ice Cream and Under 24 Hours in San Francisco

Hey guys!

Since the San Francisco location of the Museum of Ice Cream was just announced as its first permanent location, I thought it would be fun to do a post with my visitor tips and experience. My blogger pal, Ayron and I recently did a quick whirlwind trip of San Francisco and our big stop was the Museum of Ice Cream! Read along for our experience!

Go on a weekday if you can. If you would like to avoid as many screaming, sugar high children as possible, this is vital. There will still be lots of kids but not as many.

Make sure you bought your tickets ahead and received them via text. It sounds so dumb but so many people were coming up to the staff and asking if they could buy from them. The answer was no.

Buy into a time slot that has lots of tickets available. The Museum of Ice Cream organizes admission by entry times that are spaced fifteen minutes apart. If you buy a certain time slot, you really are expected to be there in that time slot. Late arrivals are not admitted and there really isn’t much point in getting there early. If you buy a time that has lots of availability, you are definitely more likely to have time to wander in a less crowded space.

Don’t expect that empty sprinkle pool shot. Do expect to get hit in the head with a beach ball at least once. Also expect sprinkles to be everywhere.

Take advantage of the selfie stations as you line up for the sprinkle pool. These are kind of the only spots you are guaranteed to not have other people in your photos. The “carousel” is another good spot if it’s not too crowded as well as the unicorns and the mirror room.

All in all, keep your expectations for photos a little lower and just have fun. Eat the ice cream. Bring a buddy! The Museum of Ice Cream is a lot of fun but also kind of exhausting. You will likely only be here the hour so plan accordingly!

So you’re probably wondering- did they just fly in for MOIC and leave? No. We did not.

We started the morning by taking the BART to Embarcadero and grabbing breakfast at the Ferry Building. I love grabbing something portable and sitting up on the lookout where the ferries come in. It’s got the best view of the Bay Bridge and a pretty awesome view of the Port of San Francisco! The Ferry Building has so many great vendors- including a completely gluten-free bakery for Ayron!

After breakfast, we wandered around Union Square for a bit. Unfortunately, it was under construction. Still, that didn’t stop us from wandering into some fun shops and admiring the window displays of the designer stores.

We did our time slot at MOIC after this and really did clock it in at under an hour- even with crowds!

From here we headed to the Powell cable car stop. We saved time since we bought tickets in advance on the SF MUNI app but there was still a pretty long line. To be honest, this was the biggest time suck of the whole day. For us, it made the most sense since Ayron had never been on the cable cars and our destination was literally at the end of the line (by Ghirardelli).

We grabbed lunch over at the Blue Mermaid inside the  Argonaut Hotel. I’ll be honest- we picked it for the name and the listing of gluten free chowder. The food was okay and the service was confused. I probably wouldn’t go back! We got dessert at Ghirardelli and it was delightful. Going there goes against my major travel rule of not eating anywhere on a trip that I could eat at back home; however, the ambiance at the real Ghirardelli cannot be duplicated.

One of our main goals for the trip was to check out all the pretty houses we always see on our IG feeds. Since it was still summer, we knew a lot of flowers would still be in bloom and we were not disappointed! We headed towards Hayes Valley to try the macarons at Chantal Guillon (all gluten-free for Ayron) and then wander the streets in search of pretty homes until we got to the Painted Ladies at Alamo Square.

Our last stop for the day was in the Mission District. If you follow any bloggers from San Francisco, I’m sure you’ve seen the cute photos of Media Noche! Let me tell you- the food was awesome and reasonably priced and the service was great as well. The whole restaurant is super IG worthy and the mural outside was stunning (it's no longer the flamingos but it’s just as pretty). The area also consists of a ton of candy-colored homes!

From there, we headed back to SFO where we almost were late for our flight and then sat on the tarmac for an hour. By then we were so exhausted it just meant more time to nap!

Throwback Thursdays

Good morning!

This time of year, I usually make a trip up to Zion. It's been kind of a tradition the last couple years to head up on a weekday for one night shortly before Thanksgiving. It's really the only place to see some beautiful fall leaves since we don't get that change here in Vegas. 

Zion is a really quick easy drive from here and it's easy to do on the cheap but also fun to do if you have a little extra cash. There are plenty of inexpensive places to stay within 30 minutes of the park and some really cute places right by the south entrance. Of course, there's always the option of camping! Usually when it's cold, I do love to have a nice warm bed to crawl into at the end of the day (especially after hiking) and a nice steak. :-)

Here are some of my recommendations for a trip to Zion:

Zion Pioneer Lodge

Comfortable rustic (and fairly inexpensive if you book at the right time) hotel right outside the entrance. There's a cute little breakfast spot attached to the hotel and a coffeeshop in the lobby. There's also a really great gift shop next door that sells really delicious huckleberry ice cream. 

Spotted Dog Cafe

A kind of expensive spot but the food is really good.

Wildcat Willies

Great place for a steak and a drink after hiking!

Meme's Cafe

Awesome breakfast spot. Really good crepes!!!

Whether you splurge a little or go cheap, the fall colors are more than worth the trip up!

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What's Up Wednesdays

Picking up where we left off in Portland!

We woke up at like 3AM. It was horrible. Our navigation sucked because Siri would tell us to turn down one road and it would be the correct road but the name would be different. Craziness. Once we had gotten to the end of the freeway, the road was tree-lined and gorgeous but also misty and seemingly filled with animals waiting to jump and and kill us all. The fog was really thick and we were kind of terrified. 

Cannon Beach is just the cutest little seaside town; super picturesque and adorable. If we could have stayed for a long weekend, it would have been perfect but all we had was the morning. We walked down to the beach and it was freezing and windy and there was so much sand in my hiking boots.

Such a gorgeous morning.

Haystack Rock. 

After this we headed up north towards Astoria and stopped first at the Peter Iredale Shipwreck. 

And then swung by Astoria.

Signs that don't make sense.

What's Up Wednesdays

Good morning!

Not too much going on here in my world. I did get a fantastic new job! Really enjoying the work and my new managers and coworkers. It's earlier hours than I'm used to so I haven't been out and about as much as I usually would be. I am so glad that the summer worked out perfectly in terms of the trips I took between jobs and the amount of time I got to really get things together. The timing was amazing! God is awesome. 

Today I'm recapping another portion of my big summer road trip with Corey. After Crater Lake, we spent a night in Madras after a pit stop in Bend. We tried out a couple of really cool beer flights at The Growler Guys which was perfectly complemented with a greasy pizza and great service (even though I did tease Corey for not realizing that the server was totally hitting on him lol). 

After a rough night (I stepped on a thorn in the hotel room which caused a really bizarre bout of arthritis in that leg which lasted the whole trip), we headed towards Portland. We stopped at Burgerville in a town with a really interesting bridge of bras and had some of the best raspberry lemonade, breakfast burgers, and breakfast bagelwiches ever (seriously, I still dream about that breakfast bagel and wish we'd had time to make a second stop). 

It was a Saturday so everything we did in Portland was pretty crowded. Our first stop was the Multnomah Falls which meant a long search for parking. The sun was pretty high so photos were rough but we also visited the really pretty Horsetail Falls right down the way (which was much less crowded and a lot shadier). 

We grabbed lunch at Alameda Brewing (a Groupon find) where we had some delicious whiskey crab bisque and a lobster and crab mac and cheese. The food was really really good and they had some great specials on growlers which we had never heard of until the night before since we don't have them in Nevada. If we hadn't been heading through Canada, we would have gotten a few to bring home since we saw some really awesome beers in Oregon!

Our next stop was definitely a difficult one. We really wanted to check out the Witch's Castle in Forest Park. I'd researched all over online on how to get here and I have to say, it was still pretty confusing since we were unfamiliar with the area. If you've never been, find your way on the map to NW Cornell and park along the street, then follow the really windy trail down. It wasn't a difficult hike (well, it wouldn't be for someone who isn't asthmatic) but with the brand new arthritis and a left leg that would barely bend, it was really rough. Definitely a cool spot to see though!

After that hike, we wanted ice cream. No, we needed/deserved ice cream. I'd seen on a ton of lists that Salt and Straw was the place to go and has the best ice cream in Portland. There was a long line but it was definitely worth it. I had honey lavender (because I love anything lavender) and it was amazing. I can't remember what Corey had because it was gone super fast. 

We checked into our Air BnB after this and took a little nap after the long few days we'd had. We had a nice private room at a house outside the city and it was the perfect spot for us to spend a short night since we had a really early morning. If we'd been staying longer, I probably would have picked something closer to the downtown area but this worked out really well and the price was great.

This was our first Air BnB ever and I'd only picked either entire households or private rooms with separate entrances (I don't like disturbing people or making small talk). Our host had left us very specific instructions that were spot on and we found the front door easily. Everything was super clean and comfortable and outside the door was the most adorable backyard with an amazing view. I think there was someone staying in the room next to us so there was more noise than there probably usually is but we were so tired we didn't even notice. I linked the room below in case anyone needs an easy and inexpensive option for a stop in Portland!

We grabbed a really delicious dinner at Pacific Pie Company. Really great meat pies (and even more awesome regular pies) and ginger lemonade. The service was pretty awesome too!

Before heading back to the room, we made the obligatory stop at Voodoo Doughnuts. So glad we did because otherwise, we would have been starving the next morning since we needed to leave Portland at about 4AM. The prices are higher than a lot of donut places we go to but they're pretty big (especially the cock and balls that needed a layer of its own and almost needed its own box). 

So yummy!

Where We Stayed:

Private Entry/Big View/Sunlit SEPDX

Portland, OR, United States

VIEW! Funky, fabulous private unit has lower level patio entrance, faces S/SW toward a wide, beautiful view and lots of light. Tucked away in deep SE Woodstock, this is a perfect combo of urban & r...