San Francisco!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we were able to go into San Francisco to see the sights.  On Saturday we drove in, and stopped first at the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was a beautiful day, and we had wonderful views.  It also meant that everyone else was out!  We lucked out and found someone pulling out of a parking spot that no one else was waiting for.   Great picture, huh?

We had a map that had a 49 mile rout on it, which we followed to some extent.  Unfortunately I wasn't thinking about routing, and had the stops mixed up a bit.  We wound up trying to go to many of the spots in reverse order, which would have been fine, except that there are a lot a one way streets that we were trying to go the wrong way on!  Oh well, we had a nice drive around anyway.

On Sunday we walked to the Larkspur Ferry, about a mile from the campground, and took it in to the city.  it was a great ride, and took about an hour to get there.   It was nice inside, but we were only able to get a table for 4.  Ryan really didn't want his picture taken!

We walked from the Ferry building down to  Pier 39, where all the touristy shops are, to do a bit of shopping.   We also looked at the sea lions, and had some lunch.  It was another beautiful day.

On the walk back from the ferry, the kids had fun waving to the cars.  They even got a few beeps from the drivers.

On Monday I traveled up to Guerneville, about 60 miles northwest of where we were staying, to do some onsite training at two of our properties, West Sonoma Inn, and Applewood Inn.  While I was there Mario had some alone time with the kids, and they played a great game of Monopoly.

Over the following weekend we took a break from the RV and stayed at the Hyatt in Santa Clara.  It was great to not have to go anywhere with all the rain we've been having.  We really lucked out in that it hasn't affected us too much.  The one crimp it did put in our plans is that we had planned to stay this week at New Brighton State Beach, near Santa Cruz.  They had had quite a bit of rain, and there were a lot of trees that had come down, so the campground was closed.  We moved on to another small town, Watsonville, and are now staying at Pinto Lake Park, which is a town park.  It's a pretty park with a lake, playground, and a ball field.  Next weekend we're going to visit Monterey.

The Redwoods

On November 17th we made our way to California's Redwood forest.  On our last cross country trip in 2008 we went to Sequoia National Park, which is home to the largest tree by mass, the General Sherman Tree.  It was enormous, 45 feet across at the base and still growing.  It adds about another large tree in width every year.  The Redwoods are home to the tallest trees, some reaching over 300 feet. We stayed in the park, and had a fabulous campsite with some old growth trees in it. 

 Driving through the groves makes you feel really small!  We had some great photo opportunities, and Ryan found a great use for the panoramic photo option on his new Ipod!  This was Stout Grove, named for an explorer by the name of Stout, but the trees seemed pretty stout to me too!

We found another great spot for photo ops...

I love this one, I think it's going to be our album cover!

Apparently this is where they filmed Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - this was the Ewoks' home.





All the kids had a great time climbing and exploring.  Ryan really liked this action shot
       
 

Our time in the Redwoods was short-lived, though, not long after this photo the rain started and didn't stop for three days.  We wound up leaving the park early to try to escape the rain.  We found ourselves arriving in San Francisco a few days early, but at least we escaped the rain!