San Francisco California

June 25th we made a trip to San Francisco. I am not big about going into cities type of person, but is is San Fran! We had a great time and were sure tired after we got home from our journey. We ended up driving taking the normal route down through Livermore to get there. It was a nice drive and then got a little hectic once entering SF. We also thought it was crazy that they charge a $5 toll fee, when looking around as to how many cars were there they are making BANK! But anyway, we drove to the ocean so we were able to have free parking. We went and walked along the beach, which was rather cold that day. We found out that SF usually has opposite weather compared to the valley. I was hoping to go in the water but it was sweatshirt weather, so that was a no. It was nice to walk along the beach for a little bit.

We then got on a shuttle to go to the Golden Gate Park. This park is HUGE! It is bigger than Central Park in New York and has so much to do. I swear that is also the only area where their is grass. When driving through SF to get to the park I have never in my life seen so many apartments, it was crazy. We got off the shuttle at the very end of the park and started our walk through the park. Their was a lot to see but all the things usually cost money. We did end up going to the Japanese Tea Gardens. This was an absolutely beautiful garden that we very much enjoyed walking through.

After going through the gardens we continued our walk through the park to go to Stow Lake. This was a neat little lake in the middle of the park that had an island in the middle of it. On the way there we saw this really cool tree!

Once at Stow Lake we walked around for a little bit and decided to get a paddle boat to go around the lake in. Thought this would change things up and give us a break from walking around. Chris was leaning more so towards getting a row boat, but I wanted to paddle around too, so we got the paddle boat. Boy we were wrong about giving us a break from walking around. Once we got started I was thinking that walking around the lake would have been much easier than doing this. Didn't realize how much energy would go towards using a paddle boat. We had a lot of fun though and got some cool pictures going around the island. Also got to see things that we probably wouldn't have seen if we were walking. We also seen a Great Blue Herons nest up in a tree. It was so cool to see the birds landing in the tree and the baby blue herons. We also had some birds catch a ride on the paddle boat with us as well.

After taking the paddle boat around we started our walk to find the shuttle. After awhile we realized that we had taken the wrong road and had to do quite a bit of walking to get to where the shuttle would pick us up to go back to the beach where our car was. The Golden Gate Park had a lot of random things, including buffalo. Thought that this was quite weird to have buffalo in the middle of San Francisco that is not their native habitat, but everyone else thought that they were totally cool. My thought is that these people need to get out more, it is just a buffalo. Their is nothing really majestic about them, they are just one giant cow basically.

Anyway... so we had finally got on a shuttle to take us to the beach so we could have lunch and then head out to see the Golden Gate Bridge. When finally getting to our car we realized that when we were having fun in the park, poor Kia was being bombed with seagull crap. This picture was taken after we had cleaned the windshield off. Their was about 5 on the windshield, a ton on the hood and then some on the side of the car. When looking around the other cars didn't have this, granite we had been parked their the longest. When looking around more we noticed that we just happened to park under a light post, so that is most likely how Kia got in this condition. If anything the car needed a good washing so this just fast forward the time a little faster to get washed.

On the way to Golden Gate Bridge we came to realize that the directions that we had printed off made absolutely no sense. After stopping many times and people looking up directions on their smart phones, or whatever they are called, we finally got to see the bridge that we come all this way to see. However in the process of doing that Chris also ran a red light, that was unknown until we were half way through it when it then turned green. I would have to say that this was somewhat because the fact that instead of putting the streetlights in the middle of the road like everyone else they are placed on the side where it is not as obvious. Even though we had false directions and didn't follow the laws of the road we were finally able to see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a bit foggy, but we were still able to see it.

Here is a video of us going across the Golden Gate Bridge. I was pretty excited because this was my main reason for wanting to go to San Francisco.

The other side of the bridge looking at San Francisco. We were also able to see Alcatraz however we are taking a cruise around the bay tomorrow and will have a closer view of it. We had tried to get tickets to have a tour but they were all booked up so we are taking a cruise instead.

After driving a little bit around Sausalito we started our trip back to Stockton. We took the Northern route instead of having to go back to SF and we were also able to see different things as well. Here are a few pictures of things that we saw on the drive back to Stockton.

Of course we saw vineyards, that is a big thing in Cali.

Wetlands

And Windmills
We had a great time seeing San Francisco and will be going back next week to see the downtown area. You can't even put a dent in seeing San Fran in a day! It will be interesting going into downtown. At least this next time we will be taking the BART instead of driving over.