If You're Going to San Francisco...

After four relaxing days in California wine country, Chris and I loaded up the rental car and headed for San Francisco.  On the recommendation of Uncle Darrel, we made a stop at Muir Wood, just outside of San Francisco for another beautiful walk through the redwoods.

After returning our rental car to the airport, we ventured into San Francisco to check into our hotel and start our exploration of the city.  We picked up a three-day transit pass (if you want to ride a cable car even once, this pass pays for itself) and headed to the Castro District aboard an historic street car.

The Castro District was full of interesting characters and beautiful architecture.  We thoroughly enjoyed the people-watching, but I could have done without seeing two guys in nothing but matching thongs... some things you just can't un-see.

Our next stop on the tour was Lombard street via historic cable car.  This is the first trip we've taken since moving back to the US, so we had some fun laughing at ourselves over how easy it was to just walk up to the driver of the bus or cable car and ask, in English, if it was going to take us where we wanted to go.  I can't even explain how much mental effort we didn't have to exert on this trip.  It was almost like a vacation!

Lombard street was a little crazy, even to walk down.  I can't imagine how difficult it would be to drive down, or bike down.

We attempted to catch another cable car down to the Fisherman's Wharf, but every one that came to the stop was full.  So, we walked (downhill thankfully) instead, finding a fun little Italian/seafood restaurant to eat at along the way.

The next morning we enjoyed breakfast at my friend Lindsey's favorite coffee shop, Blue Danube Coffee House, before making our way to Alamo Square to see the famous "Painted Ladies".

Our next stop was the Palace of Fine Arts, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition.

We spent the rest of our afternoon at the Exploritorium (originally housed in the Palace of Fine Arts, but recently relocated to Pier 15) acting like kids!

Having explored to our hearts' content, we made a stop at Pier 39 to see the shops and sea lions.  This is one part of our trip that I definitely remember from my family's trip here when I was younger.

To round out a wonderful day, Chris and I met up with my friend Amy at a local restaurant.  I hadn't seen Amy since the summer after we left California... in 1996!  My incredibly patient husband spent the night listening to Amy and I catch each other up on the last 17 years of our lives.  What an amazing opportunity... brought to you by the power of Facebook. :)

On our last morning in San Francisco, Chris and I made an early-morning trek up a very long, very steep hill to Coit Tower for a bird's eye view of the city.  We were blessed with a beautiful, clear morning and were able to really enjoy the views.

For our grand finale, we wondered through the Port of San Francisco exploring food booths and artists' shops and enjoying a lunch of noodle soup with a view.

Then, we packed up our hotel room and headed for the airport, back to real life.

Check out more pictures in the Pictures tab.

California, Here We Come!

In celebration of our sixth wedding anniversary, my birthday, Chris finishing his first semester of grad school, and because we generally get antsy if we don't get to travel on a regular basis, Chris and I took a week-long vacation to California during the first week of May.

We flew in to San Francisco on a bright, sunny Friday morning, picked up our rental car and headed north.  We stopped at the Golden Gate bridge on our way out of town to take advantage of the sunshine.

Our next top on the journey north was lunch with my Uncle Darrel.

From there, we drove up the Pacific Coast highway stopping along the way to enjoy more sunshine at one of the many beaches.  While it was warm and sunny on the sand, the water was freezing!  No swimming for us.

The northern-most point of our drive was a stop at Fort Ross, a Russian settlement dating back to the 1800s.  We got there right as the park was closing, but managed to sneak a quick peak inside the walls before the park rangers kicked us out.

As we made our way back down the coast, we stopped frequently to enjoy the breathtaking views.

Eventually, we made our way inland to the town of Guernville.  The next morning, we rented a pair of kayaks from a local sporting goods store and spent a leisurely day floating down the Russian River among towering trees.

We finished our day with a walk through the Armstrong Redwood State Natural Reserve.  The trees were every bit a impressive as my 10-year-old brain remembered.

Not satisfied with the short, easy hike most tourists make, Chris and I ventured farther into the woods and were rewarded with even more beautiful scenery - no sharing with anyone else required.

Since we were in wine country, we decided the next day would be wine-tasting day!  We made the hour drive to Sonoma, rented a pair of bicycles and got to tasting.  We stopped a three wineries, with our first stop, the Homewood winery, being our favorite.

At dinner time, we returned our bikes, found a place for supper,and explored the town of Sonoma before returning to our cabin in Guernville for the nightly camp fire and s'mores.

Monday morning, our last in full day in wine country, we decided to check out a few state parks in Sonoma Valley.  On the way, we stopped at the Ledson Winery.  Chris had seen their beautiful building on our way back from Sonoma the day before, but we were to late to make a stop.

We talked with our server, Amanda, about our plans for the day.  She told us we were crazy if we thought we were going to hike to the top of the nearby "mountain".  Apparently, it was a little more of an off-road adventure than the park website described.  Our real goal was to get a good view of the valley, so she recommended two other wineries that offered beautiful views without all the effort.  Best tip of the trip!!

The other wineries were in the Napa and Russian River valleys and offered views every bit as wonderful as Amanda had promised.

Our last stop of the day was a winery at the foot of the Lake Sonoma dam.  Our server there recommended a detour to the lookout point at the top of the dam.  Not ones to turn down good, local information, we made the trip into the park.  Again, we were not disappointed.

We wrapped up our last night with more wine and s'mores around the campfire.  The perfect ending to a relaxing few days.

Check out more pictures in the Pictures tab.

Pickles

Cucumbers have been plentiful in the garden this year.

When Chris is home, we slice them very, very thinly and douse them in Italian dressing.  I like them prepared that way, but you can only eat cucumber salad so many days in a row.  I decided to try something new... refrigerator pickles!

I found a recipe on Pinterest and got to work slicing...

Seasoning (turmeric will turn everything it touches yellow - you've been warned)..

and, the next day, eating!

Delicious!!

In The Garden - Week 17

Gardening in a new place always comes with new challenges.  Challenges like planting in February.  Challenges like squash bugs.

Much to my dismay, all of my squash (zucchini, acorn, and butternut) are being eaten with these little worms.  They don't hurt the fruit, so I may be able to get a few more zucchini before the plant dies.  In all my research, there's not much to be done about them that doesn't involve nasty chemicals.  Mental note for next year; no squash.

That just means more room for melons.  The melons I put a trellis up for two weeks ago needed an extension in the form of rope tied to the fence.  They are still growing.  Not sure what's I'm going to do about them after they reach the fence.

The cucamelon are hanging out under the peach mango melon.  The cucamlon have actually set fruit.  Check out these tiny little guys.

I'm really excited to see how they taste when they are ready to pick!  The rest of the garden continues to grow.  The tomatoes have hit their stride, and I get a regular tomato and several cherry tomatoes every day.  If I go a few days between picking, I get something like this.

And finally, the baby birds on our patio have flown the nest.  Mom and Dad bird are busy building another nest in the other hanging plant on our patio.  I guess they don't believe in recycling.

If you want to see what the garden looked like two weeks ago, read In The Garden - Week 15.

Italy–Milan

When we last left this long, drawn-out saga of our trip to Italy, we were on the train from Nice to Milan…

We arrived in Milan just after lunch, grabbed some pizza at the train station, then headed to our hotel to get checked in for the night.  We planned this stop-over in Milan as a way to make sure we made it to the airport without any problems the next day, so there was really only one thing on our list of things to see – the Duomo.  Milans’s Duomo is the fourth largest church in Europe (we've seen the other three also) and is constructed entirely of marble.

We walked through the interior of the cathedral admiring the soaring ceilings, stained glass windows, and beautiful inlaid marble floors.

However, the highlight of the tour was our trip to the roof of the Duomo.  Unlike most cathedrals where you walk up a scary little stair-case only to be crammed into a crowded dome at the top, the entire room of the Duomo is open for exploration.  It was quite a treat to walk among the spires while admiring sweeping views of downtown Milan.  One thing we learned for certain on this trip – Italy sure knows how to build beautiful cathedrals.

Located on the square next to the Duomo is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.

This glass-domed shopping center is home to high end designers like Louis Vuitton and Prada and, up until very recently, a nice, affordable coffee shop known as McDonald's (I guess Louis didn't like having his store next to McDonald's, so they were kicked out not long after our visit).  We grabbed a couple of cappuccinos and sat on the patio to enjoy some people watching.

Refueled by our caffeine stop, we went on a walking tour of downtown Milan.  Along the way we stopped at a statue of Leonardo da Vinci, the La Scala Opera House (the most prestigious in the world), lots of pretty fountains, more high-end stores, and, most importantly, several gelato stands.  As night fell, we worked our way back the our hotel, stopping for a nice pasta dinner along the way.

The next morning, we got up early, packed our bags, and headed out for some breakfast at a nearby bakery.  I’m convinced that nothing beats a chocolate croissant and a cappuccino for breakfast.

Our hotel was located just a few short blocks from the Sforza Castle, so we decided to spend our last few hours in Milan touring the 14th century castle and surrounding park.

By noon, we were on our way to the airport for our flight back to the island.

Don't forget to check out all the pictures from Milan in the Pictures tab.