Road Trip 2012, Day 8: San Francisco and Avenue of the Giants

Oh what a beautiful bright and early morning! So far we have totally lucked out on the weather. We needed to buy more dry ice so we used Skyvie (our snazzy new Android app) to track some down. Along the way we went back to Lombard Street so we could get better photos of the curviest street on the planet (?). The photos totally do NOT do it justice, though, and there’s probably not a more entertaining way to go down it than by GoCar. We didn’t try it with the Sequoia!

There’s Alcatraz off in the bay. These streets really were nuts!

We also went to Golden Gate Park (which, by the way, isn’t actually that near the Golden Gate Bridge) and took a photo op outside the conservancy.

We walked around the park a bit and went over to the California Academy of Sciences Museum. I think this will be one of my very few regrets on this trip. We didn’t have time to really see the museum, so we just visited the gift store. It was also expensive at $100 for the family, so I’d like to get back to San Francisco to spend a full day and truly get to enjoy it.

Sadly, we got back in the truck and started to head out of the city. We went to Presidio Park, which is actually where the Golden Gate Bridge is, and wandered around for a few minutes. The photo opportunities were awesome, and the gift store was nice (I like park and museum gift stores more than any other stores out there!).

So now it was bye-bye San Francisco and on to the Avenue of the Giants, which is a 35 mile trek through some of the country’s tallest trees.

We did stop at a small winery, Saracina, but me being the huge wine-snob that I am, I was bummed they didn’t have any moscato (lol! love the stuff). Despite my depression, we purchased some olive oil made from their 130 year old trees, seen below.

The redwoods were totally and absolutely unbelievable. There is nothing I can write that will do them justice, but to say that you absolutely need to see them for yourselves. The campground, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Burlington area, was quiet, peaceful and packed (but you wouldn’t know that!). I wish we had planned for a couple of days there instead of one night.

In short, every American citizen needs to visit the California redwoods – but be sure to plan a couple days.

Road Trip 2012, Day 7: Big Sur, Monterey & San Fran

One thing we had discovered on the way to our campground at Arroyo Seco was that we were going to completely miss “Big Sur,” which is supposed to be the consummate Pacific coast drive. We decided we couldn’t be out here and miss that. So, being us, we decided to drive west. No, we didn’t have any clear idea of what road to take or anything, we just knew we needed to be on the other side of the mountain. We took something that seemed to be heading the right direction and happened upon an Army training camp, Fort Liggett. Fortunately, the guy at the gate told us to keep going across the little bridge and on through the mountains. Unfortunately, the MP’s didn’t like our 20 MPH over the 10 MPH bridge and we got pulled over in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, their radio service was crap and they couldn’t check out our registration and they just gave up, giving us a verbal warning.

The drive was pretty unbelievable: huge drops, scenic vistas and crazy curves. Eventually we made it to the Pacific Ocean.

The drive from there to Monterey was pretty awesome, but I’d be lying if I said it was the most incredible thing I’d seen. Now maybe the hype kind of made it not too jaw-dropping, but I kind of saw it as “west Texas rolling mountains meet the Pacific.” If you’ve never seen west Texas mountains, then maybe it would be more of an OMG kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, it was worth seeing, it’s just that other things in my life have wowed me more. Neither Brad nor I regret the several crazy hours it took to get us there, but I’m not booking our next vacation along that section of coast.

We finally made it to Monterey. The town was cute, but the breeze was terribly chilly. Even Brad bought a jacket. We decided to forgo the Monterey Aquarium. At first I had been really, really excited about going there, but the more I thought about it the more I remembered all the other aquariums I’ve been to and the diving and snorkeling, too.  Besides, we totally did NOT have the time to spend there…

…We needed to get to our GoCar tour!!!

Thanks to one of those group deal coupon websites, we got a twilight tour of San Francisco for like $30 per car. The cute little car has GPS built in so as long as you’re following its directions it will tell you all about the area, like how Telegraph Hill has a population of wild conures and how the merchants at Point Park would watch to see what types of cargo were coming in. They were a blast to drive and we got lots of laughs and stares, especially as we drove down the curviest street, Lombard.

After our tour we raced back to our hotel to meet my brother, Brandon and his significant other (fiance? girlfriend? Need clarification!), Ayuri. Brandon and I had never met before; he’s one of my two half-brothers who both grew up in California.

We met excitedly and trotted off to find some good grub, ending up at a pizza place called “Patxi’s Chicago Pizza.” We ate way too much, talked tons and really enjoyed each other’s company. The girls were surprisingly well behaved and I think we had a great night. I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with Brandon & Ayuri.

Our hotel, the Capri Motel, was a great deal – perfect location near the marina district, free parking and free wifi. The only issue was that it only had mini-blinds and no curtains. Since it was east-facing this was kind of a huge deal because at sunrise we were utterly blinded. Well, at least that got us up and moving pretty early so we could enjoy some more of San Fran before we had to drive out to see the redwoods.