My parents, Chad and I spent Saturday in San Francisco. We walked down to the waterfront and saw Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39. The old mercantile museum was really interesting. They had all sorts of old games. I liked the arm wrestling guy and honky tonk pianos. A bit more creepy were the execution exhibits and the giant laughing clown lady. Shudder. I liked seeing the sea lions sunbathing on the docks. We saw Golden Gate bridge and took the famous trolleys. Then we scrambled to get back to the car in time to get my parents to the airport for their flight. I started to get pretty nervous when the trolley dropped us off a good two miles away from where we started and over not just one insanely steep hill. It was really like a roller coaster. We managed to skip the crazy line by getting on at one of the intermediate stops (good time saving tip!) unfortunately we waited there for quite some time because apparently the cable car up the hill from us had gotten off its cable and was stuck. As the minutes ticked on, Chad decided to get our money back and hail a cab. The man we bought the tickets from was pretty adamant that we were not getting our money back even though we hadn’t moved two inches since boarding the car. I want to be like Chad when I grow up, because he stood his ground. The guy ended up threatening, “the only way you are getting your money back is if you take it from me.” Can you believe it?! Chad convinced him to call on the radio to a superior to get permission. And the man on the radio answered saying it would only be a minute before they were up and running. You should have seen the people on the trolley when the man wouldn’t cooperate though. It was like a run on a bank, or trolley cashier in this case. When he said we would have to take the money from him, I did check his vest to see which pocket might have the money, and how easily I could get it from him. It was definitely because we had seen the new Die Hard movie the night before and Chad was still pumped with all that “Super masculine, I’m a tough guy, don’t mess with me” adrenalin. The cable car finally got going, we raced back to the car and were able to get my parents to the airport with plenty of time.

• Photos of San Francisco