San Francisco - Day 3 (Saturday)

Well, we started Day 3 out with a ride on the cable car.  For those of you who plan on going to San Francisco and want to ride on the "historic cable cars" (which I'd suggest because they are very fun and very San Franciscoish), ride them early in the day!  The lines get longer as the day gets later.  Yesterday, we waited in line for over an hour during late afternoon!  We rode a cable car and then a street car to get to the farmers market at the Ferry Market Building.  We had some delicious pastries while looking at what the vendors had to offer.  By the way, one of you girls at home who are married should have a child because they had the cutest knitted animal hats for babies and small children.  I really wanted to buy one!  They were adorable!

After the farmers market, we headed to Union Square to get some lunch.  We didn't stop into too many stores, but if you want to shop, this is the place to go!  We ate at the Cheesecake Factory... Mom, I know what you're thinking. "Why would you go to the Cheesecake Factory in San Francisco?"  Well, let me tell you... I didn't even get cheesecake!  The restaurant is on top of the Macy's building with outdoor seating.  We waited to sit out there and got some great views of Union Square.

After lunch, we did the last activity on our Wharf Pass.  We rented bikes for two hours down by Fisherman's Wharf and biked to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was a GORGEOUS day in San Francisco (a little chilly but very sunny)!  That was probably my favorite activity while we've been here (well, besides eating)!  Afterwards, we got some ice cream at Ghirardelli. Note: If you are here during the week, get ice cream at Ghirardelli then because we waited in line for an hour to get our icecream!  It was very chocalatey and delicious!  That ended our time in San Francisco.  We are staying at our campground right outside of the city until Monday because we are going to the Six Flags near here tomorrow!

Patrick, on the cable car!

Farmers Market... look at all those people!

Union Square from the top of the Macy's building

Our table at the Cheesecake Factory

Biking to the Golden Gate Bridge

Patrick, in front of the Golden Gate Bridge

On the Golden Gate Bridge

Mmm... we LOVE chocolate!

Sitting by the bay, eating our ice cream

San Francisco - Day 2 (Friday)

On Friday, we did many of the activities on our Wharf Pass.  As we drove into the city, we decided to do a drive by of the famous "Full House" house... not creepy at all (as we stuck our camera out the window as we drove by to get some pictures. Hehe.)  After parking, we walked to the Pampanito submarine near Fisherman's Wharf.  We toured the Navy submarine, which was really neat and interesting.  I don't know how those men stayed in the submarine for so long in such small quarters.  An older gentleman, who served on a similar submarine during WWII, enlightened us on some of his experiences.  It was very interesting to listen to him!  Right next door to the submarine was the Jeremiah O'Brien, a Navy ship used in WWII.  There is a museum inside that is very cool, and the ship has been fully restored!  We toured the ship as well.  The engine room was incredible, and the film, "Titanic," was shot in that engine room!

For lunch, we decided to walk up to North Beach (the Italian section of the city).  We got Tony's Pizza by the slice, and it was delicious!!  They have a larger sit-down restaurant, but it was much more expensive and a bit of a wait.  After lunch, we headed back to Pier 39 for a Blue and Gold Fleet tour of the bay.  We rode under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz Island.  The tour was narrated and was interesting (basic knowledge about the bay was included)! We're glad we had our jackets because it's cold on the boat.

We decided to ride the cable car towards where we parked our car.  We waited for a long time, but we eventually got on and rode it to Lombard Hill.  We got off there to take some pictures of the extremely windy hill and then headed to our car (it had to be out of the lot by 5pm).  We were going to head back to our campground to make dinner, but the GPS told us that it was an incredibly long drive home because of the traffic.  So, we decided to head to Pier 39 to have dinner (restaurants validate your parking so that you don't have to pay for up to two hours). We ate at Fog Harbor Fish House and got the famous clam chowder in bread bowls for dinner. Yum!

"Full House" house!

Patrick, in front of the USS Pampanito

Me, inside the submarine

The men slept three high on tiny beds!

Look at those torpedoes

The gun on the front of the submarine

The "Jeremiah O'Brien"

Patrick, taking aim at that sea gull

Steering the ship

The engine room... very impressive and much bigger than you can imagine!

The Blue and Gold Fleet ship we took for our tour

On the ship, about to go under the Golden Gate Bridge

Alcatraz Island

The buildings on the island. The long one at the top is where the prisoners were held.

The Oakland Bay Bridge

Cable car ride

Lombard Hill

Pier 39 from the harbor cruise

San Francisco, CA (Thursday)

San Francisco!  I think of "Wake Up San Francisco" from Full House when I think of the city.  It's sad that our kids will have no idea what I'm talking about someday when it comes to that show... am I growing up? Haha.
We decided to buy a Wharf Pass for our days here.  It is like the CityPass that we purchased in Seattle (which they actually have here in San Francisco too, but we thought the activities corresponding with the Wharf Pass sounded more fun).  We started our day a little later due to some much needed laundry-doing.  We parked and found our way down to Pier 39 where we bought our passes and then got lunch at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co. (ya know, from Forrest Gump?)!  It was so cool because our table was next to some huge windows overlooking the bay.  Alcatraz was in our direct view, and we could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance!  After lunch, we stopped on the pier to look at the sea lions basking in the sunshine on some docks.  There were a lot of them, and they were pretty close.

After enjoying just walking around the Pier 39 area, we made our way to our tour bus.  We took an open "trolley bus" tour around San Francisco.  It was neat to see the city from that point of view and to learn new things!  We stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge for a few minutes, but we didn't get to stay long. We plan to go back tomorrow or Saturday!  Before heading back to our car, we stopped at Boudin Bakery to tour the museum and watch them make their famous sourdough bread!
Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to go on an Alcatraz Island tour.  They are booked until mid-August.  It is so disappointing! NOTE: If you plan on going to San Francisco, book tickets for Alcatraz Island well in advance!  We will be doing a harbor tour though, that goes around the island and underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

Our introduction to the city... the Golden Gate Bridge

HILLY!

Why hello, Forrest Gump

Our view at lunch.  That's Alcatraz Island in the background.

Look at those sea lions fight!

Pier 39

Some neat houses





Mary (Phelan) Horner, this one's for you!

7 Painted Ladies

The Golden Gate Bridge!

At the bakery

Benziger Winery Tour (Wednesday)

Today we drove from Redwood National Park down towards San Francisco.  We stopped in Sonoma County (wine country) on our way.  We went to Benziger Winery and did a winery tour.  It was a cool experience!  We have been looking for winery tours for awhile now.  We didn't know if we'd do one in Oregon or California.  We didn't quite find what we were looking for in Oregon, so we decided on California.  We are most definitely not experienced wine drinkers and were a little bit intimidated by the wine tasting scene (should we just swirl the wine around, smell it, and pretend that we know what's good?)… we wanted to go on a winery tour to see how the wine is made and the processes it goes through to get to the bottle.

Benziger Winery is a biodynamic farm (if you want to know the actual definition, look it up).  Basically, it's "better" than organic.  They are a self-sustaining farm.  Out of 80 acres of land, only 30 of it grows grapes.  The rest of the acres are used to create a natural environment to be able to grow their grapes without any pesticides or outside influence.  The remaining acres house animals and insects.  They have created BEAUTIFUL habitats for the natural "good animals" to thrive!  It was a very interesting tour and the barrel cave was impressive with 3,000 barrels of wine in it.  It seemed enormous!

After the tour, we got to taste some of their wine.  Let's just say it was much better than what we're used to. (We usually go for the semi-cheap wine).  The lady that was talking to us about each wine was really nice and did not make us feel "dumb" for not knowing much about wine tasting.  Overall, it was a great experience, and we are coming back to MN with some Benziger wine!

Just arriving at the winery

Many rows of grape vines

Beautiful vineyard

Our tour guide in front of the barrel cave

Barrels

Look at how far that hallway goes down there!

In front of some of the grape vines

Awesome experience!

Redwood National Park - Day 2 (Tuesday)

Before we start day two of Redwood National Park, I have a story for you all!  You may be wondering, what do Patrick and I do with all of our time in the car driving?  Well, we've written lots of thank you notes, listened to a book on CD, of course we listen to music, go a little crazy, and (dun, dun, dun… are you ready for the big announcement?) PATRICK SANG THE ENTIRE SONG OF NINETY NINE BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL! Yep, that's right folks, he sang the whole song!  I am so proud of my dear husband!

On to day 2!  We woke up and sped down the road to Kuchel Visitor Center in the Park to arrive by 9am (ok, we didn't actually speed down there), but we wanted to be there bright and early to get a permit to Tall Trees Access Road.  It's free, but they only give out 50 permits a day to check out the tallest Redwood trees in the Park.  We got our permit and then walked out to the beach behind the visitors' center.  It was beautiful, with the waves crashing against the foggy beach!  After spending a little while wandering the beach area, we drove to Bald Hills Road and did a short hike slightly off the road before heading further up to the Tall Trees Access Road.  Once we got to the end of the road, we ate some lunch.  Then, we set off on our 4 mile hike.  It was a neat trail with some extremely tall trees (although, they didn't seem as large around).  We stopped off at the creek towards the end of the trail and rested, skipping some rocks and hanging out. 

After hiking back to our car, we drove to Fern Canyon, which was a bit of a rough drive, and Gold Bluffs Beach.  I've never seen anything like Fern Canyon.  The pictures can explain it better than I can.  We  stopped on a section of Gold Bluffs beach that was deserted by anyone but us.  It was such a cool experience.  We took a lot of pictures and just enjoyed the waves.  Both of these are technically in a state park and require a small fee to enter the park, but if you have an annual national park pass, it is free.  We ended the day with one final scenic tour (where we stopped and took a picture at "Big Tree") before heading back to our campground for the night.  Big Tree is 304 feet tall and 68 feet in circumference.  That's BIG!

Alright, I have one more story for you.  My husband is forcing me to post it.  When we were at the lighthouse on our first day at Redwood, we were walking back across some rocks towards our car.  I saw a small group of people taking pictures of something. Immediately I thought it was something of interest, so I asked Patrick what they were looking at.  Then I said, "Oh my gosh, I think it's a seal. Oh wait, I think it's a bird. Uh, actually… it's a rock."  He thinks this is a mighty funny story that must be shared.  He says that this sums up my "geniusness."  Well, I did make it through grad school… it's just that my common sense is sometimes lacking. Haha!

Walking through the ocean waves

Elk!

Look how huge that hole is!

They carved through the tree on this trail

TALL trees!



A neat picture that Patrick took

He's climbing the tree!

Hiking the Tall Trees Trail

Fern Canyon

He is way up there

At Fern Canyon

Our lone footprints on the beach



Love

My partner in life



Big Tree