Before Mason came along, Kyle and I traveled alot...on our 7 hr flight to California we realized that there are only 6 states that haven't been visited between the two of us. California was one of those states, so we were so excited to go out west for a change! You could call it an anniversary/need a break from the toddler/need some husband and wife time vacation. Boy is California different from Nashville, TN! For example, is it perfectly legal and not uncommon to walk around naked there (this would save me a lot of time and money... maybe TN should adopt this law as well). I would have taken pictures but Kyle told me that would be inappropriate... I think it would make this blog much more interesting. Anyways, hang on tight and enjoy the pictures.. I took lots of them!
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| View from our balcony |
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| Another view from the balcony |
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| Im not sure that you can tell what this says (Nordstroms). Kyle would tempt me by putting me walking distance from the Champs Elysees of California. Im saying Prada, Barney's, Burberry, Coach, Saks, Armani..the list goes on and on. It was a small slice of heaven for me! |
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| I took this picture because there is a quote that everybody kept saying from Mark Twain.. "The coldest winter I ever spent was a day in San Fransisco". I can tell why.. although the 60 degree weather was a wonderful escape from the 110 it's been in TN. |
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| Alcatraz Island |
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| you could actually rent these and cruise around town..how awesome! BTW this is not Kyle and I in the car.. I was just being super stalker and taking photos of them |
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| Cable cars! To be honest, we did not ride one. The line was forever long and there were only 3 routes it took. But cool to look at! |
Day 1 we intended on taking a tour to Muir Woods, but somehow got placed on the wrong bus and ended us taking a bus tour of San Fransisco...which was actually pretty cool and quite informative. These are pictures from the tour (they are very "touristy").
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| This is the football field that Joe DiMaggio played at. OJ Simpson also played here, and it was actually called OJ Simpson field for a while.. until he got a bad rap. |
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| Russian Hill. This town has more hills than anything I have ever seen in my life. In my bucket list of things to do before I die, I added bicycling the hills of San Fran (of course, that would require me learning to ride a bike, which is also on my bucket list) |
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| Golden Gate Park. |
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| Another form of transportation... they actually have classes on how to ride these things and like 13 year olds were on them. INSANE! |
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| The view from Twin Peaks (second highest point in the city) |
The next two pictures are taken of my favorite spot in San Fransisco...the Painted Ladies. Out of the 3 places Kyle and I were deciding to go, I picked San Fran for this reason. See if these look familiar to you (espeically if you grew up in the late 80's or early 90's)...
They were used in the sitcom Full House, which my brother and I watched every single day of our life when we were young. My heart skipped a couple beats when I saw them. Maybe a little weird but I was SO excited! I actually took like 15 pictures but they all look exactly the same. Moving on...
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| The homes there were beautiful.. Queen Victorian from like the 30's. Just so happens that the average home in San Fran is $800,000. Guess you pay a price for beauty. |
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| Coit Tower |
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| Lombard street- it has a 27 % grade and 8 turns. The speed limit is 5 MPH. |
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| more hills... |
Golden Gate Bridge-
I took a bazillion pictrures of this bridge so I thought it needed it's own headline. It was stunning- seriously like what you see in pictures. I know you don't care to know all the details of this bridge, but I'm going to give you some anyways!
~The color is called International Orange. It is actually just the color they used to prime it, but liked the color so much they kept it. It was supposed to be either black or gold.
~10 people died in the making of this bridge. A net was finally put up to catch people who may fell while working on it's construction
~The bridge was completed in 1937 and cost lots of millions of dollars to complete. It is not owned by the government, rather a private company.
I love learning fun facts about stuff, but to spare time I will leave it at that. Here are some pics:
One of the best parts about the trip was our dinner cruise/firework show. Kyle is SO amazing with finding things that he knows I will love. I love boats, elegant dinners, and dancing= all of which we had. And to top it off we got to watch the fireworks from the water which was amazing!
Muir Woods-
With Kyle's background, we couldn't go to San Fran without making a stop at Muir Woods. This is one of those places that you just have to see to get it's full beauty. When the sun hit the trees at just the right time... it was one of those moments that you could just stand and glory in forever. Truly God's work of art. Muir woods is a redwood forest that was developed by, well Mr. Muir. It has some beautiful, and some very different, trees located inside it. It ended up being one of our favorite moments of the trip!
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| These are roots of the redwood trees.. kinda neat to see |
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| This is cancer on a tree |
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| The Afro Tree |
Fun facts about San Fransisco:
~its size is 7mi X7mi...obviously making it only 49 square feet. It has 801,000 people located in those borders- making it the second largest populated town for its size (followed by New York)
~lots of movies were filmed there, including Milk (not surprising), The Pursuit of Happiness, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Star Trek (picture below)
~Celebrities like Robin Williams, Carlos Santana, Tracy Chapman, Sean Penn, George Lucas, Danny Glover, Benjamin Bratt and lots of others
~Smoking marijuana is not a crime
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| This is where parts of Star Trek were filmed |
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| Closer look at Alcatraz |
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| The largest Chinatown in the nation |
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| Ghiradelli chocolate is made right here in San Fransisco. Couldn't leave without checking it out...and probably gaining 5 lbs after leaving. |
That pretty much brings the trip to an end. I would definately recommend visiting this town.. the food is awesome, the shopping rivals New York City, and there is lots to do and see!
Updates on Mason coming soon!
