Friday, April 29, 2011

Day 10: San Francisco & Carmel, CA

I can't believe we've been on this trip for 10 days! Sorry had to get that out!

Ok, so last night, I had a migraine (hence the short and probably boring post for day 9). I tend to get migraines a lot, so it wasn't much of a surprise (and no, I don't think it was the wine!). On top of that, ever since we left Anchorage my eye has been bothering me. My tear duct is swollen and hurts and tears pour out of it from time to time. Everyone probably thinks I'm crying! For a couple of days it stopped bothering me, so I figured I wouldn't worry. But after staying in the horrible hotel that smelled like gas and nursing home mixed together, it started acting up again.

It's worse today and we tried to go to an eye doctor, but they didn't have any appointments til 3:30 p.m. so we couldn't wait that long. Hopefully, I'll be able to get in somewhere tomorrow. Therefore, the day was off to a rough start. We did get some really great sleep though! FINALLY!

We embarked on our journey to San Francisco (SF), which was only about a little over an hour. We crossed into SF on the Golden Gate Bridge! That was pretty cool to finally see it! We didn't know you had to pay a $6 toll while traveling south on hwy 101.



Alcatraz is right across from the Golden Gate Bridge. We wished we would have been able to take a tour over to it or by it to get a more 'up close' look at it. Of course, we weren't surprised how many people there were in SF. People were walking, jogging, kiting, sailing and out and about walking all around the city. From our experience, MOST of these people are begging to get hit by cars! They walk and run out in front of cars expecting everyone to stop no matter what. So, that was a bit frustrating. And there were a couple of them that if I were driving, I might have 'accidentally' hit the gas to scare them a bit. Ok, I'm kidding, I'd never do that! But it does cross your mind!

It was so windy outside in San Fran. Both of us wore jackets, and my hair was going nuts. So, these pics aren't really the best!



We'd read about SF having the crookedest street in the world and took a drive down it. It was crazy curvy (5 mph was the speed limit), and of course, it made me nervous! (I didn't take this pic; pulled it from the net so you could see!). I videoed this, but it was sort of long and internet is slow at our hotel, so I'll upload later!



We stopped off at Fishermans Wharf and Pier 39 to walk around and do some shopping.



This is where the most unexpected thing happened. I'd joked earlier, while on the phone with my grandparents, that Klay gets hit on by gay guys a lot (because he has; he's a handsome guy so I don't blame them).

So, Klay and I were walking down the street holding hands, surrounded by people in Fishermans Wharf, when a girl walked passing us. While looking at me she said, "Hey sweetie," and said something else that at first we didn't quite catch. I just kept looking at her when we passed because I didn't really process it all at the moment.  We continued walking and Klay said, "What did she say?" And then it registered in my head (ding! ding! ding!), as I said to him, "She said, 'Hey sweetie... would you like another sweetie?'"

Klay said, "And you thought I would be the one that would get hit on!"

So that was an unexpected part of the day! After that experience, we continued walking and saw a bum (I tried to take a pic) with a sign that said "Why lie? I need a beer." At least he was telling the truth!

After we had both of those encounters in SF, we decided to head to the car. The dogs were in there waiting for us! It was time to go check on them. They seemed to be amused by San Francisco--both of them stared out the window the entire time.

We left SF heading toward Santa Barbara trying to find a place to stay. We ended up being in traffic for about 2 hours (it wasn't that bad because it was moving, but just slowly. So, that set us back. We went through Monterey to Carmel where we are staying tonight.

Santa Barbara is on our list for tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a nice day to wine, dine and spend time at the beach!

Keep reading "From the Road..." every night, new blogs/photos/videos.


Thursday, April 28, 2011

Day 9: Sonoma & Healdsburg, CA

After a horrible night's sleep, I couldn't wait to leave Fort Bragg. We left bright and early and entered wine country. Of course, we couldn't resist another 11 a.m. wine tasting!

We pulled into Saracina Winery in Mendocino County. We walked into a wine tasting cave (I guess that's what you would call it) with another group of people. The cave was pretty big and really cool.

We discovered that they were big winos, and the eight of them were really cool. They plan a trip to wine country every year. They had a spreadsheet with wineries to visit (on each day of their 5-day trip), with the phone numbers and addresses, cost of the wine tastings, etc. And they were nice enough to give Klay and I copies of their spreadsheets and maps for places to stop.



During the tasting, Klay didn't like any of the red wines. I used to not like them, but I thought some of them were pretty tasty (or perhaps after the sixth one). We ended up buying another bottle of wine (which makes three so far) at Saracina.

Then, we headed to Francis Ford Coppola Winery (the guy who directed "The Godfather." Yes, he has his own winery (actually, I think he has two). And this place was huge! He had a restaurant, bar, pool and memorabilia from his movies. They had they desk from "The Godfather" and costumes from "The Dracula."

We ate lunch at the Coppola winery, and it was pretty awesome. Then, we wanted to go to a nice hotel and just relax some more. Yesterday wasn't very relaxing, and I really need some sleep!



Both wineries were pretty neat, we might hit up a couple of more on the way to San Francisco tomorrow.

Hope you like the videos! Keep reading "From the Road..."



Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Day 8: California & Redwood National Park

Today was a sad day for us. Leaving Oregon, was unexpectedly sad and disappointing. I thought originally we'd be excited to get to California, but Oregon was truly amazing. Our little cabin was so awesome, we didn't leave til checkout time at 11 a.m. We tried to relax and soak it all in.

When we got in the car, Klay told me he had a song for me...Can anyone guess what it was? If you thought "On the road again," you were right on the money! I guess he got tired of singing and decided to let Willie Nelson do it for him--or at least thats what he said.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag3w0MS6wv0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]



We decided to stop off at one last beach right before the Oregon/California state line.

We ended up spending an hour just walking along the beach with the dogs and picking up white rocks along the shoreline. It was nice and relaxing, and I knew that when leaving the stunning Oregon coast I'd be sad.



We got to California without a hitch and with Oregon behind us, I figured I'd focus on our excitement for Redwood National Park.

We stopped at a Redwoods visitor center to get some more info and directions on nice paths to take, so we'd know exactly where to go. When we got to our first path, our immediate reaction to the redwoods was: "Whoa." Here's why (see the pics!)...

These trees can get up to 361 feet and 25 feet wide (according to Klay; he's the one that remembers). So they really are giants.



Majority of our day we spent driving through the parks gazing at these gigantic beauties. While driving in through the parks, we passed a ton of wild elk.



So the destination for today's trip was for Fort Bragg, CA to spend the night and it was a horrible idea.

By the time we were almost to Fort Bragg it was pitch black and I was driving.

We turned off to Hwy 1 which took us down the curviest, swerviest, ridiculous road ever. It took an hour just to get 30 miles. We were running low on gas (which I was slightly worried about) and I couldn't see anything. I have a tendency to hit deer, or they like to run it to me (that's the way I like to think), so it was crazy scary for me!



But we made it to Fort Bragg just fine. I'd looked up places to stay in that area and found what I THOUGHT was a nice place (it had a spa). Boy, was I wrong! We still stayed, but had a horrible night sleep. Glad to leave in the AM!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dvqLjV6zYg&w=560&h=349]

Stay tuned for more "From the Road..."

[gallery columns="2"]