Trip To California

So the week before Christmas we flew to San Francisco, California. (We , as in  my husband, daughter and I. My son stayed home and took care of all the dogs. He works for Amazon and cant get time off during Christmas time). It rained almost the whole time we were there. We had one sunny day, that's when the above picture was taken.

I hate flying It scares me. I understand how the plane works and stays in the air but it is still crazy to me. Plus, I have no control of what happens. Its not even like riding in a car, where you can see what is happening.  I thought I could get through it without taking any medication. But the week we were planning on flying, the news reported two airplane problems. One , where the plane went off the runway. Everyone was ok but it freaked me out anyway. So I called the doctor and got some Xanax.

Flying over the mountains was very cool. Just amazing.

It took most of the day to get there. Our flight left at 7am and we didnt get there until 6pm west coast time (so 9pm our time).  I was beat, especially since I took 2 doses of Xanax, one for each flight.
We stayed a couple of days in San Francisco, at the Zephyr hotel.

I should have taken a picture before we spent a night here. It was  a very artsy hotel. (My husband picked if for Stephanie)

These two pictures are of the court yard of the hotel.  They had fire pits outside and that trailer is for food serving. (These pictures were taken early in the morning. It rained the rest of the time we were there, so we didnt get to enjoy the outdoor stuff).
Here was the carpet in the hallway of the hotel.

I dont know if you can see the wavy effect it gives. It made you feel like you couldnt walk right, even though it was a flat surface. Your eyes played tricks on you.
When we got there the first night, I was just to tired to do anything. I fell asleep,so  Lou and Stephanie went out to find dinner. When they came back and woke me up, I was very confused. I knew I was in a hotel but I told them I forgot to walk the dogs and theyve been in the hotel room a long time without going out. Stephanie was like, "Whats wrong with you?".  LOL.
The next morning we were up and ready to start the day before 7am.  We walked around and found a place, down the street, for breakfast. They didnt open until 7am but they let us come in a little early because it was cold. ( 50 degrees).
 We had a wonderful breakfast.

Dont worry, as I go through our trip, Im sure I will start leaving a lot of things out because I will get tired of writing. So you wont see everything we ate. LOL

We had a bike tour scheduled but not until 10:30am. So we walked to Pier 39.

We had dinner from here 3 nights of our trip. It was very good. Stephanie loved the bread bowl, clam chowder soup.

They make breads. These were in the window and you could watch them make the different breads.

Seals were all over the docks down at the water. I could have watched them all day. Lots o them just slept, but others played and played in and out of the water.

I have tons of seal pictures, but I wont post anymore.  After we left there, we walked over to where our bike tour started.

 This was on the way to our bike shop/tour place. We didnt have to walk up the hill, thank goodness.  They asked if we needed bikes with Motor assist.  I thought, no we are all in pretty good shape.  LOL, if you ever go and arent use to riding up very, very steep hills, get the motor assist.

It was chilly, starting to rain and really windy. Thats why we are dressed  so warm.

Here was the first hill of the ride.

Yea, I had to get  off my bike and push it up the hill. The tour guy said this was the steepest hill.  (yea, it wasnt). It was just the first hill. LOL  Sorry to say, everyone kept having to wait for me.

Same hill just Lou taking the picture from up top and down on me, coming up last.

 This was taken from the Golden Gate Bridge.

We road our bikes down that road, all the way down to under the bridge.

But when you go down, you have to then ride back up again.  The tour guy said, when we got up  this hill, "its all down hill from here".  It wasnt. We still had a lot of up hill to go. Hmmm, maybe he is just so use to the hills, he thinks up is down. LOL  NOT!!

At first we thought we would ride the bikes back across.   Yea, we changed our minds.  Maybe if it had been driving rain when we were done, we would have done it. SO we took the ferry back across.

We had a lot of riding to do , to get back to the bike shop.  We saw a guy being arrested.  It looked like he was coming off the cruise ship but Im not sure. We also saw lots of homeless people sleeping in the door ways of the shops early in the morning. Oh yea, and they break into cars there all the time too. We saw peoples cars with broken window as we went around on our bike tour.  So its good if you are in the city, to not use  a car to get around. That way you dont leave stuff  in it for people to want to steal.

That night we went to Ghirardelli's Square. We all split this ice cream and hot chocolate.

On Monday we drove up to Napa Valley to our next hotel.  We stopped at the Muir state park and hiked there. I figured it was a good thing to do on a rainy day.

This place was beautiful. And we  were there so early, that there werent many people there. Now when we left ,it was packed. And thats with pouring rain. LOL

 Can you see how little the people look next to the trees on the right side of the photo?

It was really beautiful and I just couldnt great pictures, so you could see it.

After that we drove up hwy 101 to Napa Valley. On the hwy everyone was slowing down. We were in the right hand lane. A huge truck in front of us and  kept going half way over onto the side of the road. I couldnt figure out why he was doing this. Then we all came to a stop and the car in the middle lane is turning left. . What the heck. Then I see it. A baby cow is on the highway.  Poor thing. How it didnt get hit, was amazing. (I think the truck  in front of us was weaving onto the side of the road to herd the cow with his truck).

I have not idea how this baby cow could get on the highway. The blonde lady was in the car next to me. She got out to help the lady in the Honda Element. At first the calf wasnt happy, kicking. But once she picked him up, he relaxed. Im not sure how he acted once in the honda Element. At least its the right car to put a calf in. No carpeting.

We checked into our hotel , a Hampton Inn in Windsor. It was a very nice Hampton Inn. The staff went over the top to help us. They gave us maps with winery's to see  and places to eat. They help us find the urgent care on Christmas eve day, when I was sick and had a tick in me, that we couldnt get out.  Warm cookies every night and brown bags of water and food, set out every morning for people to take as needed.  I liked this hotel better than the Zephyr .

That evening we went to a winery, Francis Ford Coppola. We didnt do a tour because it was already late.

Inside is a lot of movie stuff.

This is from the movie "Marie Antoinette" from 2006.

This is the car from the movie "Tucker" 1988.

This is Stephanie from 2015, LOL

We didnt taste any wine here.   Ok, Ill post more tomorrow.