California Trip

After MAMEA, I literally left two days later for vacation in California. It was kind of crazy, and sort of a whirlwind, but had a great time. Andrea drove down from Charlottesville and we flew out together, meeting the rest of the crowd in Atlanta before our final flight to San Francisco. It was me, Andrea, my mom, my aunt Carol, and Mary. This is the second time that we have taken advantage of the NERRS meetings in order to plan a vacation.

We stayed in San Francisco from Tuesday through Friday, visiting all of the touristy things on Wednesday. We did the Fisherman's Wharf, rode a cable car, drove up and down some crazy hills (this is the view from our hotel to the left), went to Ghiradelli Square, ate some sourdough, went to Chinatown, took a boat tour of the harbor and Golden Gate Bridge, went around Alcatraz, saw the famous Pier 39 sea lions, etc. It was a great day!

Thursday we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and went up to Napa Valley for some wine tastings. We visited the Robert Mondavi Winery, the Bealieau Vineyard (my mom and dad's favorite wine when they got married), and Frog's Leap (which is completely organic and is in a LEED certified building and very cool - found their wine here in VA yesterday but it was $25 and $45, so I didn't get any). We had lunch in Napa and then drove back towards San Fran. Stopped in for the last 15 minutes of Muir Woods being open. Would have loved to spend some more time there, but traffic was pretty bad and delayed our trip some.




Friday we left San Fran and drove down Route 1 to Monterey. It was rainy and cloudy but seriously one of the prettiest drives ever. It was right along the coastline and we got to see Santa Cruz, Natural Bridge park where the Monarch butterflies migrate to, tidepools, etc. In Monterey, did a lot of driving around the coastline and went on the 17 mile drive through some of the famous golf courses like Pebble Beach and to see the Lone Cypress tree. Very cool day of seeing the sights. I was really excited about the tidepools and the beach and the kelp and all of that! :) Collected some cool stuff along the way too. Friday night was also Halloween, so we dressed up like crayons and went out on the town! :)Saturday was the day I was looking forward to and also dreading b/c we were headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which I've ALWAYS wanted to go to, but also the rest of the group was leaving that afternoon which was sad. The Aquarium was awesome and being the dork that I am, what would you guess my favorite part would be? The penguins? nope. The adorable otters? nope. The amazing jellyfish tank? nope. Nope, it was the barnacles. I mean they were just so crazy big and amazing to look at, I couldn't get enough. I told everyone about those barnacles and that they had to go see them, but no one was quite as amazed as me. :) I also really enjoyed the touch tanks and the kelp tank.
After the Aquarium, everyone had to leave. :( They left me in Monterey to fend for myself at the NERRS meeting and they drove back up to San Francisco to fly home. It was a great, great week!!!! :)