Last week was spent Spring Breakin' in San Francisco. I'm still enjoying the fact that we both have a Spring Break this...ahhh the cush lives we lead as a school district employee and graduate student. Tate didn't know it when we planned this trip, but he is supposed to work in the research lab over the breaks...oopsie. Might as well live it up since this will most likely be our only shared Spring Break. And that we did.
It was a great trip! We saw new sights, ate great food, never set our alarms, met up with old friends, and got rained on...a lot. However, that didn't slow us down a bit!
The first, and most important stop for this environmental scientist was The Muir Woods. We saw the GINORMOUS redwood trees. Magical. This place was absolutely breathtaking! Also breathtaking {and budget taking} was the $9 pair of bear socks I bought in the gift shop to appease my soaking wet feet. Oh well, at least I will always have something to remember those redwoods by. I need socks, but Tate will forever hold those precious tree memories in his heart. He really loved it. Really.
Next up- wine tasting in Sonoma. I know, we are classy people, so don't be surprised. We thought we knew very little about wine, then we went on this wine tour, and we realized we knew nothing. The best part of the tour was watching the "wooly weeders" {a.k.a. sheep} eating the grass in the vineyards. They bring in sheep because it is cheaper than lawn mowers. The sheep eat and the ground is fertilized, so everyone wins!
We ended the night having dinner with Allison and Chris. Allison and I were neighbors growing up and now she is livin' the life in SF. We caught up over fried chicken and deviled eggs at Wayfare Tavern. It was so good to see y'all! Come to Texas sometime and we can take you to a local, little dive called
Chick-fil-a.
We had to stop by Boudin's Sourdough Bread Factory for their famous clam chowder in a bread bowl. It hit the spot on this particular rainy, drab day. The interesting thing about Boudin is one side of the building is a bakery and the other is a store. The bakery is constantly pumping out hot, fresh, perfect sourdough rolls, then piling them in baskets and sending them over to the store on a little ceiling conveyer belt contraption. So, my bread bowl was potentially made like 5 minutes before I ate it. So fresh!
We visited the sea lions a few times at Pier 39. They were pretty awesome, and knew it. I wouldn't let Tate go to the aquarium so this was as close as he got to the wildlife. Soak it up.
Nothing tops off a visit with the sea lions like a little afternoon delight at Ghirardelli Square. Get your head out of the gutter, I'm talking about ice cream here. We split a GIANT cookie sundae while dark chocolate was being made right there in the store.
Woah, here we are up close and personal at Alcatraz. I did my research and heard good things about the Alcatraz night tour. So, we took a chance and booked it...scarrrrrry or so I thought. But actually, it was just a little eerie and a lotta interesting. We highly recommend the night tour. It was awesome! It got dark by the time we entered the prison and we saw a spectacular view of SF at night all lit up. This was my favorite stop on the trip.
We stopped by Lombard St., the curviest street in the world {I think}. We just stopped here literally long enough to snap this picture. It was cold. The street is really curvy. That is all you need to know about that.
Oh, hello sun! The shy guy finally came out on our last day of vacation. It was nice to walk along the bay in the sun and finally get a clear shot of the Golden Gate Bridge before we headed back home. It was a FRANtastic {see what I did there} way to spend our last day in San Fran!
