Last Minute Cali

So on a Tuesday afternoon Sam calls me and says... let's fly out to California tomorrow morning and hang out for a couple days. I about had a heart attack. I quick made hotel reservations with the help of my wonderful sister who works at Marriott and the next morning at 7:30 am we were on a plane to Oakland.

The whole trip was actually for SwimKids where Sam works. A large dehumidifier needed to be driven back to Utah by, you guessed it, us.

For a couple days we worked in the morning and then had some fun in the afternoon exploring. We hiked in the Redwood Regional Park where there were plenty of signs that said "mountain lion territory," so comforting. The trees were majestic and dusk made the forest seem to close in around us.

We drove to Oakland and crossed the toll bridge ($4) through some crazy fog. All that seemed to exist was the road, the bridge, and us; the rest of the world was white. Saw an amazing sunset, drove our rockin' PT Cruiser (terrible car) and visited Preservation Park. In the heart of Oakland was an entire block dedicated to preserving homes from the late 1800's, sadly we didn't get to see the houses in their daylight glory, but they were still amazing and gave us lots of inspiration for our own little house.

On Friday we had the whole day to play around in San Francisco. First Stop—Fisherman's Wharf. The sounds of the sea, people milling about and sea lions barking. We picked up some tasty chocolate to savor while strolling through the shops. Soon we were super hungry and ate at a restaurant with a lovely view of the sea. There were plenty of street performers to watch, antique shops with dirt cheap prices, and even a security guard who couldn't help himself and was dancing to the music.

After leaving the hustle and bustle of the wharf we headed to the iconic San Francisco bridge. We parked our little hunk of PT Cruiser junk and walked along the coast to Fort Point, a masonry masterpiece built during the Civil War and tucked under the Southern end of the bridge. We ventured through all the corridors, walked up amazing granite circular staircases and gazed up at the massive bridge from the Fort's roof. This unplanned site seeing was my favorite part of the trip.

The next day we woke up super early, returned the rental car at the airport then had to walk 2 miles to pick up the huge Budget Rental truck. Luckily there was a sidewalk on at least one side of the road the entire time. Sadly we passed a dead seagull and a very smelly dead raccoon. Once we got the truck we rushed off to Fresno and picked up the cargo. From that point on we drove, and drove, and drove.

We did get to stop in Las Vegas for the night at my sister's house. Got to surprise the niece and nephews, pretty good reactions of shock from all three. Had a great time hanging out with the fam and then woke up the next morning and drove home to our little house.

Here is one last "postcard" from Cali, Sam enjoys taking texture pictures and we found plenty of great surfaces wherever we went.