We visited Rachel and Ryan three years ago in San Francisco, and we decided it was time to go again. Rachel invited us to stay at her house, which served as a good home base to see lots of sights in Northern California.
We started out with Big Basin State Park, which had some of the amazing redwoods. And then we visited the boardwalk at Santa Cruz, but we didn't fork out any money for rides.
Friday we went to Monterrey where we saw the awesome aquarium and cannery row. We went on the 17-Mile drive by accident (our GPS took us that way), which was quite scenic, and we enjoyed walking through the sand of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Lastly, we hurried back north to catch a baseball game in Oakland: Oakland Athletics vs. San Francisco Giants. They are rivals and so I found myself watching the fans more than I should have.
Saturday we went water skiing in a delta, bought belly-flops from the Jelly Belly Factory, drove through Napa Valley, and had a delicious BBQ with Rachel's family.
Sunday after church we got to visit some of my cousins, most of whom I hadn't seen in over 5 years, so it was good to see them. Later in the evening we got to ride around in Ryan's bug and walk through the golden hills of California.
Monday, our last full day, we spent in San Francisco. I love this city! We always manage to bring good weather with us. We'd already seen a lot of San Francisco three years ago, so this time we decided to try something new: biking along the coast, around the Palace of Fine Arts, and across the Golden Gate Bridge. We were really glad we did. But we couldn't leave the city without also doing the usual driving down Lombard Street, eating clam chowder from sour dough bread bowls on Fisherman's Warf, putting quarters in old arcades at the Mechanical Museum, eating free chocolate samples from Ghiradeli Square, and driving through China town. One other new thing we did was visit the Cable Car Museum. In this museum you could see the cables being turned under the street.
A visit to Rachel and Ryan is not complete without Chinese Hot Pot, and they did not disappoint.
Tuesday morning we visited Google campus. The campus itself is not that exciting-- just a bunch of buildings. The only interesting thing is the Google bikes. They are scattered throughout the campus so employees can jump on them to get to other buildings quicker than walking. We took a short ride around on them.
Thanks Grandmas for watching Jason! And thank you Rachel & Ryan for letting us crash at your place for the week!
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