Amyblog

SIGHTS OF SF

Besides Muir Woods and a quick stop at Sausalito, we spent some time in San Francisco. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and drove down Lombard Street. I think driving up Russian Hill to get to Lombard Street was just as "thrilling!" I don't know how the locals drive it regularly, the hill is practically vertical...some cars even pulled of parallel parking on Russian Hill!! We also took the ferry to Alcatraz, we walked through Fisherman's Warf, ate lunch at the Ferry Building, and had dinner at Soto Mare in North Beach (it was a essentric little local place and we loved it). We even visited a fortune cookie factory (a recommendation from a friend) and wrote our own fortunes! The best part of all this was that we did all this by taking the metro buses! Public transportation was awesome, we bought a day pass for $5 each and the kids actually get to ride free. With the help of Google Maps, we were able to navigate which buses to take and where the bus stops were.

This was actually my first time ever to Alcatraz. Mr. BAW even made us all watch Escape from Alcatraz before our trip. The tour itself was kind of creepy, seeing how small the cells actually were. The kids were kind of scared...and to see the actual cell where the inmates escaped, that was creepy too! The craziest part of the whole tour was that we decided at the end of our audio tour to try to make the next boat out. We realized that we only had five minutes to get out of the building and hike back down to the ship, the building itself was built at the very top of the island! So we all ran as fast as we could down to the docks. I felt like we were really trying to escape from Alcatraz! I was, of course the last one running but Buzz kept stopping to help me! He didn't want me stranded on Alcatraz, haha, what a sweetie! The next day I was very sore from successfully escaping from Alcatraz.

Last time we were in SF, we decided to take the kids to The Presidio and The Exploratorium. This time, we took them to Golden Gate Park and the Academy of Sciences. Before we got in, I had told the kids that there might be a giant white alligator inside the museum. I had seen him at least 15 years ago and wasn't sure if he was still there. I was very happy to learn that he was still at the science museum. But I was worried that the kids would be scared of him since he's pretty big, over 9 feet long! Turns out, the kids LOVED Claude and thought he was adorable! The kids stared at him for a long time and caught him blinking. When we later returned to The Swamp, he had flipped one of his hind legs from facing up to facing down. We all thought that was an amazing feat! Turns out that Claude is 25 years old and captive alligators can live up to 75 years! So we hope to visit Claude again in the future. For now...see you later alligator! Enjoy some sights around SF!

Posted on April 13, 2022

MUIR WOODS

It has been over a decade since we were last at Muir Woods, we took Buzz but he doesn't remember a thing and Ahgoo has never been. We took a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped off in Sausalito for lunch. Sausalito, as I recall (I haven't been in at least 15 years), is a lovely little seaside town with tons of charm. But sadly, there are now many empty storefronts. I wonder if COVID killed Sausalito! But there were still a few quiet shops and some restaurants were busy with patrons, locals mostly. Granted we did go on a Tuesday and not a weekend. We ended up having lunch at The Seafood Pedler where we had the best clam chowder ever!

Although Muir Woods isn't as big as Sequoia, it was still quite beautiful to hike. I still took tons of pictures. Enjoy!

Posted on April 5, 2022

CARMEL BY THE SEA

I started thinking about Spring Break 2022 a few years ago. Since our trip to Copenhagen, I've been itching to take another international trip with the kids and the grandparents! We had settled on Vancouver since it's an easy flight, same timezone, and a city I've always wanted to see. However, as COVID rages on and the border opening and closing, we decided to stay in the US. Then, we thought about spending the week in Portland Oregon since we've always wanted to check it out. I started looking into Portland a couple of months ago, when the flights were still pretty affordable. Then the war in Ukraine broke out and the prices of airfare skyrocketed. So we abandoned air travel for a while. Since we had sooooo much fun in San Francisco last Fall, we decided to take a longer roadtrip up the coast and see other parts of SF we didn't get to do last time. Since we were going on a longer trip, Kepler didn't get to come along this time. But he was happy to go to a doggie resort to hang out with other dogs.

With more time, we decided to spend a night in Carmel By the Sea. This charming resort town has much to offer; lovely shops, art galleries, amazing restaurants, and a beautiful beach. We had a wonderful dinner at La Bicyclette and a lovely brunch at The Tuck Box. We walked down to the beach for a nice stroll. I even found my dream vacation home right by the beach (see last picture below) and made the kids pose in front of it! Even though we only spent one night in Carmel (and didn't have a swimming pool at the inn), even the kids had a wonderful time.