California Dreamin
Every year Jordan goes on a fabulous trip to wine country with his company. As someone who's never been to California, and who obviously loves wine, I've always been extremely jealous. This year, we were lucky enough to find wonderful friends to watch our kids, while we headed out to California a weekend early. Unfortunately, it just wasn't possible to get away for more than a couple days, so we decided to limit our trip to the San Francisco area, and fit as much as possible into a short weekend. I already know we will definitely be back. I'm thinking a couples trip to Napa Valley should be in all of our futures!
We headed out bright and early on Friday, and arrived in San Francisco at 11 in the morning. Our plan was to first head to Muir Woods, which is about 20 minutes outside of the city center. We made good time, despite some mild traffic, and very precarious roads on the trip into the woods.
This was seriously an amazing site to see, and one of the prettiest stops on our trip, which is why it breaks my heart that most of the pictures from our hike were corrupted on my memory card, and I was unable to recover them.
Luckily, we took a lot of video with the GoPro as well, so our memories are not the only thing we will have to rely on to remember this place.
After a quick hike through the woods, we headed over to see the Golden Gate up close. It was literally exactly like I imagine San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge to look like, with the top totally covered and obstructed by the fog.
After a busy day, it was time to head over to the hotel, check-in, and freshen up. We were able to upgrade to a room with a view, which turned out to be a huge suite. It was the perfect way to enjoy our kid-free weekend.
Our friend Cheng who Jordan knows from WAAAAAAAY back in the day - like elementary school, was coming into town for the weekend as well, and we were super excited to see him. He was scheduled to get in right after dinner, so we headed out for some sushi, and drinks. Later that night we headed out to the Mission neighborhood, and then finished the night back by our hotel at Fishermans Wharf. I didn't want to take my big camera out with me, but of course we all had our phones, and I've got plenty of photos to share at the end of this post.
We had put a curfew on ourselves knowing that we had an early tour to Alcatraz booked the next morning. However, despite staying out later than our self-imposed curfew, we felt pretty refreshed the next morning. I think the time change was definitely working in our favor.
Jordan and I had a quick breakfast and took our coffee and tea to-go for our quick walk over to the Pier that the tour was set to take off from.
The most interesting thing about Alcatraz, to me, was the fact that the staff's families lived on the island with the prisoners. They were taken by ferry over to the mainland for school everyday, and they all described it as an idyllic life.
After the tour, we headed back to our hotel to meet up with Cheng for lunch, and a bike ride through the city.
First stop was Chinatown.
Next we took our bikes over to the beach underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. We had to pedal up one hill on the way, but overall, it was not bad. I highly recommend touring San Francisco by bike. You are able to see so much more, and the city is very bike friendly.
We headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening, and then made our way over to Pier 39 for a couple drinks. Later that night we met up with another one of Jordan's friends from High School who happens to live in California. It was fun catching up with Orion and his wife, Christin.
We finished the trip with a visit to the Painted Ladies. Some of you may recognize these from the Full House intro.
It was a wonderful trip, and we are so thankful to Ed and Lindsey Keys for watching our kids. As nice as it was to get away, there is no greater feeling than coming home to them.
