riding segways

As the boys get older, we continue to look for ways to spend time together as a family. It's a continually changing gig, always dependent on their ages and interests; but day trips are usually a good bet. Seems everyone likes to go and see something new.

Last year I purchased what I thought would be a fun way to get us out of town: a Living Social deal for a Segway tour of San Francisco. Busy weekends and bad weather prevented us from booking it until last Friday, a day that was forecast first for rain, then for clouds—but which turned out to be as clear and lovely as any day in the city can be.

Learning to ride is surprisingly easy. It's the most intuitive machine I've ever been on. Lean forward, and you roll. Lean back, and you stop. Keep leaning back, and your machine goes backwards. The Segway almost feels like an extension of your body after awhile.

But let's face it: there's no way to ride these things and not look like a big dork, as the writers of Arrested Development well know.

Still, it was great fun. We rode around the north end of the city: Municipal Pier, Cow Hollow, the Marina District, the Palace of Fine Arts.

Near the St. Francis Yacht Club we had a beautiful, fogless view of the Golden Gate Bridge:

Along the way, as with any good tour, we saw and learned things that were new to all of us: The Heritage, a retirement home designed by Julia Morgan; the origin of the term "sugar daddy" in Alma Spreckels' pet name for her much older sugar heir husband; and many stories about the San Francisco World's Fair of 1915, for which much of the land in the Marina was reclaimed. (Side note: it was at the Hawaii Pavilion at this fair where the ukulele was introduced to Americans at large, setting off the first great ukulele craze.)

After the 3-hour tour (cue theme to Gilligan's Island), we turned around to get C to his band's gig that evening. But we all agreed that we would try to take another segway tour as soon as possible.

Do you have any favorite day trips?