California
San Francisco Trip 2010
Our trip started on Monday May 3, 2010 with the unpleasant prospect of a 6 hour flight with a 1 year old. Surprisingly, the trip went very well. Daniel played for the first hour, slept for the next three (although he did wake up 3 times), ate for an hour and the last hour was what you would expect for a 6 hour flight. We drove to Vacaville to stay with Karl's uncle. He lives in a beautiful house on a plum orchard in the Vacaville suburbs. It seems like the perfect place to retire and it was a very relaxing place to stay. Karl's parents drove from Utah to be there the same time we were there.
On Tuesday we went to Nut Tree Park. Then we drove to a train museum only to find that it was closed on weekdays. We then went to Explore It Science Museum. Daniel had fun watching objects being thrown on a spinning disk. Daniel got to pet a snake. We spent the evening in the pool and spent time with family.
On Wednesday we drove around San Francisco to see where Karen's dad grew up and went to school. In the afternoon we saw Wicked at the Orpheum Theatre. Karen's grandmother came with us while Karl's parent's watched Daniel.
Thursday we headed over to the Oakland Temple. Karen's first cousin once removed is in the temple presidency there. We did an endowment session and then briefly chatted with her cousin.
Karl's parents went home on Friday and we headed over to Karen's aunt Elaine's. We dropped our things off at her house and then headed to Muir beach. Daniel seemed to be having fun but we were cold. We only spent an hour there before heading over to Muir woods. Muir woods was much smaller than we were expecting but the tall redwoods were beautiful to look at and we had a nice walk in the forest.
Saturday we drove Karen's Grandma Andrew to Willits, CA where she grew up. We visited her parents and brother's grave sites. We saw the house she grew up in and saw the schools she went to. Grandmother Andrew was telling us a story about a horse and showed us the farm as we drove by. The story sounded familiar and Karl asked if it was Sea Biscuit. It was. Grandma Andrew remembers when she was younger and worked at a magazine stand the jockey would come into town. He married a nurse Karen's grandmother knew. She had no idea such a big story would come from a country town. Saturday afternoon we went to Karen's grandfather's burial plot. Saturday evening we went to Karen's cousin David's house.
Sunday was Mother's Day. We went to church with Karen's grandmother. After church we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. Daniel slept in the stroller. That evening we had dinner at Karen's Grandmother's house. Karen's Aunt Elaine and Uncle Bob prepared the dinner and Grandmother Andrew made her famous blackberry pie. The table was set very nicely. Karen's cousin Jason also came. Daniel kept playing with Grandmother's canes.
Monday we went to Pier 39. It was raining. We rode a cable car through town. When we got off it was pouring so we rushed into Burger King. We ate lunch and waited for the rain to subside. We hopped on the next cable car. We arrived back at our car and were about to continue walking around but it started pouring again. We ran to the aquarium in the rain, which was further than Karl's estimate. We stopped to buy a cheap umbrella at a store along the way and we were only moderately wet when we arrived at the aquarium. Daniel had more fun looking at the exit signs then the fish. We went back to Elaine's for dinner and had pizza with Bob and Elaine for our last night.
Tuesday we stopped by and said good bye to Karen's grandmother. We wanted to get to the airport plenty early because it took us 2 hours to get through security in DC. It was a good thing we did because it gave Daniel a chance to run around before getting on the plane. It was almost the perfect trip. Our trip ended a little sad. We brought two cameras on our trip. We had our smaller one out on the airplane. Karen is almost positive we had it when we got off the airplane but we did not have it when we got home. We had lots of pictures that are lost. Luckily we still had pictures from our other camera.
We look forward to our next trip. Hopefully Hawaii...
