Pacific Coast Highway

We weren't quite sure if we were willing to brave the Pacific Coast Hwy on the 4th of July. It just seemed like a very big question mark. We already knew it was going to be longer. What we didn't know if it could be end up being much longer due to traffic. But we decided that it wasn't an opportunity that we would get again any time soon and that we should just go for it. We're so glad we did! It was a perfect way to spend the 4th of July! Not much story to tell, just a lot of pictures for you to enjoy.

It was REALLY cold up here.

These are elephant seals. They were so ugly, but so fun to watch!

They come to this beach a few months each year to molt.

They were everywhere, and even though they were horribly ugly and made disgusting sounds - they were terribly fascinating animals! It is such a wonderful thing to observe animals in the wild.

This is a real castle that is in CA that I had no idea existed before yesterday.

San Francisco

Our first view of San Francisco.

On Day 2 of our mini vacation we ventured further north to San Francisco. Neither of us really had any idea what to expect - we had suggestions from multiple people on Facebook about what we should do, but we didn't have the slightest idea what it would entail. We arrived and were immediately in awe of the city - I finally understand now that Minneapolis has a fairly small downtown.

We had a little bit of trouble right off the bat and ended up going across a bridge to Oakland, then our GPS told us it was going to take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half to get back to SF. We were really confused why we wouldn't be able to drive back across the bridge we had just been on. Well it turned out that on the way back across the bridge was a toll-way and we have our GPS set to avoid toll-ways. Thankfully it did not take us much time to make it back across.

The bridge that took us to Oakland. I think it was the Bay Bridge.

Once we managed parking it was about 10am. We wandered down to Fisherman's Warf and just walked around the different Pier's looking at all the different things. We ducked into the Mechanical Museum which is essentially filled with old video games. It was really cool, I had my fortune told to me by an old type writer and I watched it type! Spooky! 

The fourtune telling machine.

For lunch we went to lunch at Boudin Bakery, a sourdough bread place that has been open since 1849 - very tasty! Jason got clam-chowder in a bread bowl, and I kept eating his (I got a turkey sandwich on multigrain bread - mine was good, but not as delicious as his), it was so yummy that I wanted to go back there for dinner. 

After lunch we decided to shell out the cash to get on the double decker tour buses in order to see the whole city. It takes 2 hrs and 15 min to go on their entire tour but there are 22 stops on the tour and you can get off and then just hop onto any bus that comes along after you've explored the area. It also takes you across the Golden Gate bridge - it was so completely worth it!

Us on the Golden Gate Bridge (with our automated tour-guide headphones in)

So for most of our riding time on the buses we stayed inside the bus so we were out of the sun. Though when it came time to go across the Golden Gate Bridge we HAD to go up top. It was so intense. Jason turned to me at one point and said, "Who needs an amusement park when you can do this". We probably weren't actually going all that fast, but it was so windy and so COLD. Things were blowing everywhere, everyone's hair was going insane - it was such a fun experience!

My "this is what my hair looks like after going across the golden gate bridge" look.

Lumbard St.

One of the last things we did was to get off the bus at Lumbard Street so we could check out the crooked road. Honestly the most exciting part about this was not the street itself, but the number of cars lined up to go down the street and the ridiculousness of how steep the street was to get to the top of. I have never had my muscles hurt so badly so quickly after a workout as they did after climbing this street. It's been two days and they're still recovering. It was well worth it though!


We ended our time in San Fran with a stop a Ghirardelli Square. It was time for some ice cream! I got a cookie sunday and it was devine!

San Jose: Google, and Stanford

For the fourth of July weekend we decided we would drive north to check out San Jose and San Francisco. We stayed at a Holiday Inn in San Jose and it was so wonderful! There wasn't actually anything particularly special about the hotel, but we were so excited to sleep on a real bed in a room with furniture and a TV! I'm actually surprised we didn't give up on venturing out and opt to stay in the hotel the whole time.

I wasn't entirely sure what we should do in San Jose but Jason had some places in mind that he wanted to check out. First on the agenda: Google headquarters.

I will admit right off the bat, I was not super excited to go to Googleland. But Jason just finished reading "In the Plex" a book about Google and he loves looking at these sorts of places. Plus he goes with me to do things I want to do, therefore I figure it's my job to do the same for him. Luckily for me, I'm generally pleasantly surprised with his ideas and Google was no exception. It is on a huge beautiful campus and was quite the mini-adventure for us.

I can't remember which building this was, but it was fun!

This is a Google bike - they were all over the google campus and people were riding them all around - pretty fun!

 After Google we went to check out Apple's Headquarters - not nearly as exciting, but now we've seen it.

Thought it was pretty funny that this is their address.

Then we went to Stanford. I was again not super excited about going to some college campus just for the point of going, but Jason wanted to and I had nothing else I wanted to do, so off to Stanford we went. It was so impressive! It was just absolutely beautiful. All of a sudden I wanted to go back in time to when I was 14 and convince myself to try harder in high school just so that I could at least apply to Stanford. I had zero motivation as a teen to go to college and perhaps if I had visited some impressive college campuses it would've given me a little motivation - but who knows? Though I was telling Jason I think that as our kids grow up we should make it a point to visit college campuses just in case :o)

Loved this fountain!

Jason in front of Stanford's Law School