San Francisco: The Beginning

Laura and I took a six-day road trip up to San Fran & Big Sur last week. We got back to San Diego on Monday night and wished we could go do it all over again. Every part of San Francisco was amazing. From the architecture, to the landscape, to the food, to the history, to the culture, and back to the food; San Fran gave us everything we thought it would and more. 

Over the course of six-days we went to Napa for wine tasting, a Giants-Phillies game, SAILING, go-carting through the city streets, saw every touristy landmark/attraction you can think of, visited Hearst castle, and camped in Big Sur a few nights to finish the trip out.

When I'm done posting up photos I expect a lot flights booked to this wonderful city to see it for yourselves, if not to just visit our friend Alicia! You won't regret it! It's been pretty tough for me to figure out where to even begin my blog posts because there's just so much I want to put up on here at one time! I figured I would just start with a quick overview of San Francisco itself.

In this post you will see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Painted Ladies, Fisherman's Wharf, AT&T Park covered with birds after a game, Alcatraz, Chinatown, Full House, and some other photos taken while walking around the city.

Enjoy!

Freedom and Golf Carts

Go visit! Like I've been saying with most of the places I've visited lately... Just go! Catalina Island is only 22 miles, thanks Beth, off the coast of LA. Still part of LA county. It takes a little over an hour to get from the mainland to this tiny paradise in southern California. The main mode of transportation is by golf cart!

I could ramble on and use a bunch of run-on sentences but I'll try to keep it organized by doing my new favorite writing technique... bullet points!

• When I first got to the island I swam to a friends nearby boat while everyone else did the adult thing and unpacked or went grocery shopping... I'm can be pretty selfish when it comes to vacations and have great friends that for some reason can put up with it.... I think.
• I had a hilariously absurd rowing trip with Jessie and Beth that had us going in circles for what seemed like, and might have been, hours.
• I made sure to snorkel every day there and still wish I had snorkeled more.
• When everyone was leaving and waiting in line for the boat I was selfishly walking in the parade, taking photos to try and show exactly how this small community of 3,000 people could put on a pretty damn good parade.
• Our room came with it's own golf cart. 
• If you are wondering where we stayed, it's called Hamilton Cove. www.hamiltoncove.com
• Laura did an incredible job, as usual, of getting this trip organized.
• There's not a single elevator on the property. Stairs everywhere!
• I witnessed a pretty sweet bar fight on one of the nights where the instigator got knocked out. I was really hoping for a bottle to break... maybe next time.
• I really love snorkeling. I'm setting my sights on the Great Barrier Reef and southeast Asia next!
• I got into a conversation with a lady while snorkeling and she knows someone I know. Crazy!
• This was the best 4th of July weekend I've ever had and can only wish to come half as close to having a 4th like this again.

The photos below are from this trip. The first few photos are from Hamilton Cove. I walked around one day trying to get a perspective that would show all the maze-like steps we had to walk up and down. Don't like to publically praise my own photos but the Hamilton Cove photos should be on Hotels.com... too bad it's privately owned and they don't have a Hotels.com listing. Actually I take that back... that's not a bad thing! Hamilton Cove being privately owned makes this place much better and to me makes it feel more exclusive. The rest are from walking around the main town of Avalon and from their 4th of July golf cart parade. Enjoy!

Color update: I tried to fix the color issue as much as I could but they are still turning up a tad grey. BUT that's when I'm using Google Chrome. I always check my posts in another browser to make sure everything is posted correctly. I come to the site while using Firefox and whatdoyaknow but that the color is exactly how I wanted it to be! How strange... I will be looking more into this and trying to find a way to fix that issue.

Catalina preview update

So i figured out the color problem. That now means that the huge post a promised for tonight will now be delayed a day while I transfer all the files into the proper file type. How fun!

I now leave you with the photo from last night but with the color that should have been there.