Day 6 - Napa & Day 7 - San Francisco

Yesterday was a complete wine country day! We started our morning very early at the Ferry Building, and found a really great breakfast place there before we left on our wine tour. I was unsure of how the tour would be, but it turned out great! We had the best tour guide, Glen. He drove us around the city before heading to Napa, and we saw some of the famous sites around town. We passed by Jessica McClintock's house, the Party of Five house, and the Mrs. Doubtfire house. I was very excited to see those!

Glen knew tons of other things about the city and filled us in on all kinds of info on our way to Napa. Some of it, I wish we had known four our first day here! He had some really great advice on how to see the city, where to go, etc.

We drove through Sonoma and all around Napa on our tour. Our first winery was one called V. Sattui. It was our favorite. The winery was very old and they had a really great deli and picnic area. We also loved all of the wine we tasted there and even bought some to bring home. The picture at the top is from that winery. There were three other wineries on the tour. They were really nice, but we especially loved the first one.

At the end of the day, we took about a one hour ferry ride from Vallejo back to San Francisco. There were great views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

Since our day started at 6 a.m. we decided to try a local mexican restaurant around the corner for dinner. It wasn't like Monterrey's by any means, but we still enjoyed eating there. After dinner we came back to the hotel, packed up, and went to bed early. I was sad it was our last night here, but I think Graham and I both ready to go home. I miss Lexie and Graham misses his truck - haha. I know Lexie will be so glad to leave the kennel! I bet she'll sleep for days!

Today we slept in and piddled around the hotel until we had to checkout. Then, we went down to Union Square. Wow at the shopping! We should have gone there our first day here when we still had money to spend!

After Union Square, we went to Golden Gate Park and also walked through Haight Ashbury. It was freezing down there, and Haight Ashbury was very interesting. I'm not sure we fit in there, but I think Graham enjoyed walking through that area anyway!

Now, we are a bit homeless. We've checked out of our hotel room and are just sitting in the lobby. Luckily the hotel will hold our luggage until we are ready to leave....at 11:00 tonight!

Graham and I both have really loved our trip! We have had a wonderful time, and have seen and done a ton! I'm also really happy that I was talked into doing the blog (thanks SK!). It is already helping me remember everything we've done! I also like to blog...maybe I'll keep it up. Could be fun!

We are headed to dinner and the airport. Home here we come!

Day 5 - San Francisco

We have been so busy since we got to San Francisco, but we love it here! We started out yesterday by going down to the Cliff House for breakfast. It was so delish, and the views were great! We also had a really wonderful waiter. We sat at a table right by the window so we could see the ocean and the waves crashing on the cliffs. There were also lots of surfers, and that was fun to watch.

After breakfast, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. The bridge was packed with cars and people, but it was cool to be able to drive across. Luckily, we were later in the morning going over, there was little fog, and we could actually see the bridge! Sausalito was such a great little town. It was very low key, but nice. We enjoyed walking along the water, in the shops, and looking across the bay at San Francisco. The weather was much warmer and the skies were sunny and blue there. I still can't get over how cold it is in San Fran - and the weather man keeps saying it's a heat wave! Ha. He obviously hasn't been to South Carolina lately, because 62, no humidity, and wind is NOT a heat wave.


Before we returned our rental car, we drove through Pacific Heights and to Alamo Sqaure. Pacific Heights was gorgeous! We actually just accidentally drove through there, but were very glad we did. Driving these hills (aka, black diamond ski slopes) is very interesting. You get to the top of the hill and can't see over the front of the car to tell how far down you are about to go! Alamo Square was our next stop. That's where I am in the picture above with the houses. One of the houses in the backgroud was the Full House, house. Never could figure out which one. All I could do was sing the Full House theme song and was even tempted to run across the park with a picnic basket. Haha.

We also made our way down Lombard Street and to the REI store before turning in the car. I was driving on Lombard and was so nervous to go down! It was really pretty though, and we both enjoyed going down. Graham really wanted to go to REI, and it was close to our drop off spot, so we walked through the store, and after much hunting, finally found where to turn in our car.

No more car = walk. AHHH. I was more prepared this time and had on tennis shoes. (Thanks, Cindy, for your offer on the SAS senior shoes, but I made it!) However, these black diamond level ski slopes they have for hills, aint no joke! Here we are walking up Mason Street to our hotel...

We taxied our way down to the Wharf and walked around for a while. It was very entertaining but packed! There were tons of street entertainers. My favorite was one crazy homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with a large branch of greenery in front of him. He was very well hidden behind this branch and as people walked by he would jump out and scare them. I probably wound't have found it so amusing if he had jumped out at us, but it was funny. We eventually made our way to an Irish Coffee place called Buena Vista. My dad recommended it, and we ended up loving it! We split lunch and had a few drinks. It was nice to sit inside and people watch. As we were about to leave, a man and his son came in and asked if they could sit with us because seating was pretty limited. The guy was great! He lived in the city and gave us some tips on things to do, etc. He also bought us each an Irish Coffee! I don't love coffee, and this was so good! Graham and I both really enjoyed it and couldn't believe he treated us. Very nice!

After lunch, we decided we'd walk to China town. On our way though, we thought it would be better to continue our happy hour at the hotel. After many failed attempts at getting a taxi, we ended up walking back to the hotel. For happy hour, we went to the Tonga bar at the hotel. It is set up like a rainforest and even has indoor thunderstorms, complete with thunder, lightening and rain. Very different - one of our taxi drivers compared it to a ride at Disney World.

First full day in San Fran was great! Next up...Napa.

Day 4 - Carmel to San Francisco

The trip from Carmel to San Francisco went very well! We had a wonderful breakfast at the Sea View Inn in Carmel before walking around at Carmel-by-the-Sea. I cannot tell you enough how much we enjoyed our stay there! We also really liked the town of Carmel. Everything about it was so nice! I loved walking in all of the shops. Most of them were very unique and upscale. I saw tons of things that I wanted, and even Graham seemed to enjoy browsing around in all of the shops.

When we left Carmel, we headed for 17 Mile Drive & Pebble Beach. I didn't realize how close it was to Carmel. We drove through and looked at the beautiful houses and the views. The waves in this area were much bigger than what we've seen so far along the trip. We also saw quite a few deer standing in the middle of the fairway at one of the golf courses there. People were just playing around them and tons of people were standing on the road taking their picture. I thought that was funny. Graham especially loved the Pebble Beach Golf Course area. I did too! It was gorgeous and we had the best time walking around in all of the shops, Pro-Shop, bar, and restaurants. We spent some time looking out over the 18th green and fairway and at the first tee box. The picture at the top is from the golf course, right outside the Pro-Shop and putting green. And, I know I've said this before, but I want to know who lives there and what they do. The houses were HUGE and so pretty!

We left Pebble Beach and stayed on Hwy 1. This part of the drive was much different than Morro Bay to Carmel. We didn't feel like we were going to fall of the side, there were more beaches, and the waves were huge. It was also a much prettier day. It was blue sky and very sunny. We stopped and got out on one of the beaches. It was so cold by the water, and the water was freezing. There was a sign on the beach that said "Warning: Sharks, Rip Currents, Large Waves," but there were people surfing and all in the water! I just barely stuck my toe in! It was so rough - you can tell in the pictures - but very pretty. We could not get over how clear/blue-green the water was!

We hit San Francisco right a rush hour. There was so much traffic! We were so glad to fianlly make it to our hotel, The Fairmont. And oh my goodness, the hotel!!! It is fabulous! I completely felt like "country comes to town" when we pulled up. The valet took care of our car, unloaded our bags, wrote us a ticket, and said they would have the bags sent to our room...we weren't sure what to do! Haha. The lobby is gorgeous, and everything is beautiful. We checked in with a really nice guy who offered us an upgrade to a king room with a city view for an extra $50/night. We definitely didn't want to spend the money, and told him no thank you. Well, he went to hand us our keys and said that he went ahead and upgraded us to the king room anyway. Woot woot! The room is great, bathroom is huge, and the bed is super comfy! I love it here!

After we got settled and unpacked, we got ready and decided we'd catch a trolley to Cannery Row for dinner. What an experience that was! We had no idea what we were doing, which car to get on, how to pay, etc. Haha. I bet we looked really funny. Anyway, we finally figured out what line we needed to take, and crammed ourselves on a trolley. I really enjoyed it, but I think Graham would rather have walked. We did have some great views of the Bay Bridge, Golden Gate, and Alcatraz. Plus the sun was setting and it was a really pretty (but cold!) afternoon. We made it to the Wharf area and tried to take our picture of the sun setting with the Golden Gate in the back ground. There was also a group of crazies swimming laps in that freezing cold water behind us in the picture.

We decided to hold off on Fisherman's Wharf and Cannery Row, and explored Ghiradelli Square instead. We at dinner at a litte pub there, watched the sunset, and the ate desert at the Ghiradelli Chocolate and Ice Cream Shop. YUMMY! We split an Original Hot Fudge Sunday.

I had to put Graham's jacket on, because it was so cold!

After our over indulgence on desert, we decided to walk up Hyde Street towards Lombard. It was only about 4 blocks, and we thought we'd look at Lombard and then try to get a taxi. Remind me never to try that again! The mountain that is Hyde Street is insane. I thought I might die before we made it to Lombard, but was glad we were walking up and not down. Looking down was a little scary, and I probably would have made it about two steps before falling and rolling all the way to the bottom (especially in the poor choice of shoes I decided to wear for dinner)! It was a very pretty walk, though and the sights along the way (Alcatraz lit up, the bridge) were really worth it. Don't tell Graham that...I did some major whining and complaining along the way! Finally, we managed to get a taxi. Could have been the most unfriendly taxi person ever, but he did get us back to the hotel safely, and it was pretty cheap!

San Francisco was a little overwhelming at first, but now that we have a map and an idea of what we want to do and where we want to go, I feel much better!

Today, (Wednesday) we are headed to The Cliff House for breakfast, over to Sausalito, and then Fisherman's Wharf. We are also going to Alamo Square where Full House was filmed! Feel free to leave some suggestions of things to do/places to eat!

Day 3 - Morro Bay to Carmel

Yesterday was nice because we weren't in a hurry to leave Morro Bay. It was only about 150 miles, so we didn't expect a long driving day. We had breakfast at our hotel, which was also very nice because we didn't have to eat out, and left around 9:00.

Most of our trip has been cloudy/foggy/hazy and about 6oish degrees. The sun did come out in L.A. and Malibu, but other than that it we hadn't really had sunny weather until yesterday. It started out nasty and chilly, but by the time we got to Carmel it was very nice. We both really enjoyed the sunny/cool weather.

Anyway, we headed north on Hwy 1 yesterday morning...Yesterday was by far our most scenic and beautiful day. We were absolutely not expecting to see the views we did, and even Graham said that he "loved this day." I did too! It was definitely a "go God" kind of day, and we really enjoyed taking it all in.

Our first stop, just outside of Morro Bay, was Hearst Castle. We didn't plan to tour it, but just wanted to stop and see it. Unfortunately we couldn't see it from the bottom of the mountain where we had to park. I'm not sure if it was just too foggy, or if the castle was on the other side of the mountain.

After Heast Castle, we stopped at Elephant Seal Vista Point. On this particular beach, there were tons of Elephant Seals. They are huge!! And, they make strange noises! We really enjoyed watching them, and taking in the sights. I could not believe how big the things were, and I loved seeing them swimming in the water and coming on and off the beach. They also played with each other, and it was funny to watch them.

We headed on our way after that, but stopped a million times at different look out points just to take in the view and to take some pictures. We were both surprised at how beautiful the Pacific Ocean is. It is so clear and very pretty blue/green color. I think we both expected it to look more like the Atlantic. We both said so many times that we felt like we were going to fall of the edge of the Earth. It's funny that it doesn't feel that way on the East Coast. We were also surprised to be in the mountains, but on the water. The road twisted and turned like the mountains, and there were huge mountains on the eastern side, but we were still right on the coast.

There were very few places to stop for food/gas/bathroom, so when we came to this place called Rugged Point, we decided to stop. It was a great little place. There was a nice lodge there, gift shops, and places to eat. They also had a trail that walked around the edge of the cliff and showed the views. There was even a separate trail that actually walked down the cliff to the water. Graham decided to walk a little ways down that Death Trail, as I called it, and luckily made it back up safely! (He's on the Death Trail in this picture.) There were signs everywhere that said you walked at your own risk, etc. I decided that something like that was definitely not for me. Graham really enjoyed walking the little bit of it that he did though! We ate lunch outside there, walked through the shops, and then continued on our way. So far the day was turning out to take much longer than we expected, but it was well worth it!

After Rugged Point, we came up on what we thought was Bixby Bridge. It is the arched bridge that is used in advertisements, movies, etc. We got out and took lots of pictures, but it turned out we were just at some random bridge, haha. That was okay because it was a great spot anyway! And, we did end up seeing the real Bixby Bridge later.

Our next stop was a place where there was actually some beach you could walk out on to. I was so excited to stop there because I really wanted to say I had actually put my feet in the Pacific Ocean. It was gorgeous there, and the water was beautiful! It was a little too rocky and slippery for me to put my feet in, but I did sit and put my hands in. It was sooo cold! Graham loved this beach area, too. He enjoyed walking around on the rocks over the water, and picking up a bunch of these tiny, smooth, colorful rocks. They look like rocks you would buy at a store, or that would be in my Rock Kit at school. This is a picture of me standing on the cliff above the beach before we walked down. That was really our last stopping place. We mainly took in the views from the car, and really enjoyed trying to spot some of the random houses that were sitting on the side of the cliffs over the ocean and up in the mountains. I want to know who lives in those, where they go to the grocery store, and why in the world they aren't worried their house isn't going to just fall off the side!

Just before we got to Carmel, we drove through the town of Big Sir. We both really liked it there. I think Graham would enjoy spending time there and making use of the camping areas and hiking trails.

When we finally got to Carmel (it took 7 hours to go the short 150 miles), we checked in to our bed and breakfast, The Sea View Inn. It is such a cute house and from our attic room you can see the ocean. We can also hear it from here! We have to keep the windows open because there is no air conditioning. How nice not to need AC?! The weather is perfect here. It's in the 60's and sunny with no humidity. The inn served wine from 5 to 7, so before we went to dinner we had a couple of glasses and sat out on the porch and looked over menus of restaurants to decide where we wanted to eat.

We ended up walking to dinner. The "short" 10 blocks that it was were straight up hill, which was not great considering the 5 inch heels I decided to wear. Oops. Anyway, dinner was wonderful, and we really love the town here. I could definitely move here!

Today we are spending time in Carmel-by-the-Sea. We are going to go in all of the shops and then head on to San Francisco.

Day 2 - L.A. to Morro Bay

Yesterday was mostly a driving day, but we had the best time! We left San Diego at about 7:30 and headed for L.A. In an attempt to save some money, we stopped at a Carl's Jr. It looks just like a Hardees, but with a different name. However, it doesn't serve biscuits! Who knew?! I was very disappointed, but we did find some sort of croissant thing that was pretty good. After our breakfast, we headed on to L.A. Our first stop was going to be the Hollywood sign, but it was very cloudy and hazy, so we decided to do the walk of stars on Hollywood Blvd first.

We made it to Hollywood! It wasn't near as glamorous as it looks on tv, but we did enjoy walking the stars and seeing the Kodak Theater, Chinese Theater and where Jimmy Kimmel Live is filmed. We saw a Michael Jackson look-alike walking around there too. He looked JUST like him! After walking a few blocks, we decided we'd seen enough. The area was packed (mostly with Oriental people very excited to see the Bruce Lee star, haha they were funny), sort of dirty, and it was cloudy and really cold!

After quite a bit of searching and Nuvi leading us in the wrong direction, we finally found the Hollywood sign! We found out later that you could see it from Sunset Blvd where we drove to Beverly Hills. Oh well. It was so foggy/hazy, that we almost missed it. We drove up through Griffith Park to an observatory and parked on the side of the mountain to search for the sign. We decided it wasn't worth going all the way to the observatory because we thought the visibility was too limited for us to be able to see anything. Luckily, when we turned around to walk back down to our car, I spotted it! After seeing the sign, we decided to drive through the Hollywood Hills. Before we left, I went online and found addresses that are supposedly of the stars. We plugged in an address for Brad Pitt, and we were within 2 miles from it, so we decided to just drive there! While it probably was his house, you couldn't see a thing for the massive gate around it. We really enoyed driving around though because the houses we could see, which was most of them, were absolutely huge and gorgeous!

Then, we went to Beverly Hills. We drove down all of the "famous" streets, like Sunset, Melrose, Robertson and Wilshire. Beverly Hills was much nicer and cleaner than Hollywood. We like it there much better, and when we finally hit Rodeo Drive, I was so excited! Graham probably would have been just fine to drive on through and head on up the road, but we ended up having a great time walking down Rodeo. I loooved it! We went into a few of the stores, none were anything we could afford, and just looked around. My favorite was Harry Winston! I have never seen any diamonds like what they had, and the sales people and security gaurds were so nice to us! Once we got to the end, we went into the Beverly Wilshire hotel. It looks nothing like what I thought it would based on Pretty Woman. It was beautiful, but not like in the movie. We walked it to check the score of the World Cup and to use the bathroom. Funny, but Graham loooved these bathrooms. He said he could have "set up shop" in one of the stalls. Once we finished walking through Beverly Hills, we drove through some of the neighborhoods there. I really enjoyed looking at all of the houses.



From Beverly Hills, we went through Bel Air and Brentwood to Malibu. Malibu was such a nice beach town! We enjoyed the views there from the Pacific Coast Hwy and stopped at a place called Duke's Barefoot Bar for lunch. It was right on the beach, and the food was delicious! After lunch, we drove and drove. And drove some more. We ended up staying on the main highway (mostly by accident) but it turned out to be okay, because it took forever to get to Morro Bay. We did hit Hwy 1 for a while though, and it was so pretty, but mainly mountains. We had no idea we were going to be driving through mountains, pastures, and farm land. Here we are on the top of one of the mountains that Nuvi took us up and over. (Graham has gotten very good at taking our pictures!)

We finally got to Morro Bay around 8:00 last night. Our hotel was very nice, and the room was much bigger than the one in San Diego! We were both very happy about that. We had planned to go eat a nice dinner, but we ended up going to this shack of a pizza joint around the corner from our hotel. It turned out to be sooo good, and we really enjoyed it. Morro Bay was a cute little, very laid back town. Graham really liked how relaxed it was. We drove around (the 3 blocks that were there) and looked out at the water. The main attraction in Morro Bay is Morro Rock. It is a huge, and I mean huge, rock that sits just out in the bay. We left Morro Bay this morning for Carmel. Graham did a wonderful job driving us here, and the drive was gorgeous! We are in Carmel safe and sound...more to come later!

Day 1 - San Diego

Our teeniny hotel room...you walk in to the bathroom!

Graham walking to the bay area.

Standing on the cliffs in La Jolla



So excited to see seals on the beach!

After dinner in Little Italy

Today was a great day! We started out this morning just touring the city. We went to Little Italy first and happened upon the Mercanto. It is very similar to the Spartanburg Farmer's Market but much bigger and with more crafts. We had a wonderful time walking around and looking at all of the different vendors. We bought a few Christmas gifts and a few things for ourselves!

Then, we headed towards the bay area. There wasn't much there except for big boats and lots of joggers and tourists. It was very pretty though, and we enjoyed walking around. Once we got through the bay, we walked through the Gaslamp District. We shopped some and had lunch at a really great restaurant called Yard House that Gil recommended.

After we walked all around the city, we got our car and headed over the Bay Bridge to Coronado. We didn't stop anywhere, but the town was really cute and we enjoyed seeing the Hotel Del Coronado. From there, we went to La Jolla. I really loved it there. I even found a great retirement facility on the beach! Haha. The cliffs and the beach were really interesting. We walked out on the cliffs and took lots of pictures. I can't believe how different the beaches are here! There are even these really strange squirrel type creatures that come very close to you. I did not love those. I did love the seals, though! We watched them forever. They were so cute!

Tonight for dinner, we went back to Little Italy and ate at a restaurant called Buon Appetito. We ended up sitting outside under a heater (thank goodness, because it has been sort of cold all day)! Everything about the place was wonderful, and we would definitely go there again if we were staying longer.

Graham has been very surprised at the number of big, lifted trucks in San Diego. He was expecting to see nothing but smart cars, mini coops, and hybrids. We were both surprised at the number of "big ol' trucks," as Graham calls them.

We love San Diego, especially Little Italy. It is very laid back and relaxed here. We are leaving for L.A. first thing in the morning. I cannot wait! Hopefully I will sleep later than 4:45...

We're Here!!

We're here, we're here! Page and Pam picked us up yesterday morning and dropped us at the airport in Charlotte. We checked our bags ($25 each!!) and went through a really long security line, but it wasn't too bad. We had just enough time to eat an early lunch and get on our plane to Dallas. Luckily, it left on time and we even got to Dallas early. Our flight from Dallas to San Diego was delayed about an hour so we had to wait a while at the airport, but we finally made it to San Deigo at about 6:00 their time.

Graham and I were both a little worried about our bags not making it here with us, but luckily enough, when we were waiting to get off the plane in San Diego we saw our bags come out from under the plane and be thrown onto one of those carts! I was super excited!

The first thing we noticed was how cool it is here! What a nice change from the 100 degree heat and humidity! I'm sure we looked a little funny in my sun dress and Graham's t-shirt and shorts. The car rental shuttle picked us up from the airport and took us to get our car. I bet we hadn't said ten words to the driver and he said, "So what part of the south are you guys from?" Haha. Apparently he asked me a question and I said, "Do what?" which probably sounded like "duuuu whuuut?" Immediately my attempt at not talking southern was not working. Oh well. We got our car pretty quickly. It is something similar to a Subaru Outback, but the Dodge version.

We were both really happy about our hotel. It's very clean and the rooms are nice - very tiny, but nice. It is also in a really great location! We are within walking distance to most everything. I was really happy about that - you never know what something is going to be like just by looking online. Anyway, we ended up going to this restaurant called Lucha Libre that Graham had seen featured on the tv show, Man vs. Food. It was exactly what you would call a "hole in the wall." I think it was actually right next door to a Seven Eleven. Haha. The place was packed though, and the food was good. Page told Graham to enjoy eating there because it was the only plan he knew of for our whole trip. : )

After dinner we drove down by the bay and through the city just to see where we were and where we might want to go today. We drove down by the bay, through the Gaslamp area, which has lots of shopping, restaurants and bars, and around the city. When we got back to the hotel, we tried to make a plan for what all we could get done today. There is tons to do!

This 3 hour difference has messed up my sleeping a little. I think we went to bed too early last night, and now I have been awake since 4:45 San Diego time. We will have to stay up late tonight to help get our clocks right. After sitting in the lobby a while this morning (and it's still only 6:30!), I've noticed that everyone outside has on big coats! It feels strange for people to be wearing a ski coat in July and when it's only in the 50's. I guess it doesn't really ever get cold, cold here.

Sorry, no pictures yet, but lots to come today!

Packing = No Fun

I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to pack for this trip! The weather is in the 60's/50's basically all week, and I just haven't been sure of what I want to take. I also don't know what I think 60's feel like. Is that pants and long sleeves, or what? No clue. I wanted to wear cute dresses at night for dinner, but 50's is definitely cold, so that really messed me up on the packing.

Originally I thought I would try to pack in a bag that I didn't have to check on the plane. I would hate for our luggage to get lost and not to have anything to wear! Especially since we are not staying in one place all week. Anyway, the small non-checkable bag did NOT work, and I ended up in a regular size suit case. Even that was almost too small!

I started out with tons of clothes that I thought would be good to take all over the guest bedroom and a list of outfits I thought I might want to wear. My list was pretty good, but all of the stuff I wanted to take was way too much! After an entire week of attempting to pack, I finally narrowed it down to everything that I could possibly fit in the suitcase I'm taking. I already know I'm taking too much, but I can't get rid of anything in my suitcase, including shoes. Ughhh - and the shoes take up soo much room! I even had to put 2 pair in my carry-on bag. I also packed 3 outfits in my carry-on just in case our luggage gets lost. Haha.

Graham packed in 30 minutes...not fair.

I'm getting so excited about going! Can't believe we leave in one day! I also decided that if I don't have everything I need, they have great stores in California.... : )