San Francisco in Pictures

Just over a month later, and I am finally getting around to posting about our trip to San Francisco. It was a great trip. We had pretty decent weather, and we got lots of exercise from all the crazy hills! The pictures below are just the highlights - if you want to see all the pictures I took, just click on one of the pictures included below and it should take you to our flickr page. Or you can just click here.

First stop, Alamo Square to see the houses that were used at the beginning of the Full House episodes.

After that, we headed to our hotel which was at the top of a really steep hill. This is a picture of one of the streets that Ryan had to drive up (and sit at the almost-top waiting for a red light to change) to get to our hotel.

Dinner at a restaurant called The Stinking Rose. Their motto was that they season their garlic with food - hence the strands of garlic hanging from the ceiling.

One of my first pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken on our way to Muir Woods.

Ryan and me at the Golden Gate Bridge.

The entrance to Muir Woods.

Ridiculously tall and perfectly straight redwoods.

Back in San Francisco, one of the old streetcars.

The Bay Bridge that goes to Oakland (the one that they just found a big crack in).

Ryan on the cable car on our way back to our hotel one night after dinner. We wouldn't have survived without the cable cars!

Ryan and me at the Phillies/SF Giants game.

A picture for all the Phillies Fans. We had great seats that were right near the bullpen, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of Cole during the National Anthem.

After the game, we went to Fisherman's Wharf. It was a total tourist trap, but still one of those places that you just have to see.

Ghiradelli Square (in case you weren't sure what this is).

From Ghiradelli Square, we took the LONG walk up to see the crookedest street in San Francisco - Lombard Street.

A cable car in front of our hotel.

Another picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken from the ferry to Sausalito. Notice how cloudy it is in this picture.

A picture of Sausalito from the ferry. Sausalito is less than 10 miles from San Franscisco, but had completely different weather (notice the blue skies and puffy clouds). This picture was taken about 10 minutes after the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge above.

That afternoon, we took another boat out to Alcatraz for a tour.

Ryan in one of the cells at Alcatraz.

We came back from Alcatraz and got dinner at Fisherman's Wharf before we headed to the airport for our flight. While we were wandering around, we found Pier 39, where the Sea Lions hang out. It smelled really bad, but we suffered through so I could get a few pictures of the sea lions.

Pebble Beach Days 2 & 3 - Recap

Ryan spent the morning playing a round of golf at the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Here he is on the 18th green. He had a great time and shot under 100 (I think a 98).

Since I had no plans while Ryan was playing golf, I decided to take the rental car and drive north about 30 minutes to go back to a produce stand that we passed on our way to Monterey from San Francisco to pick up these. It was so worth it! I ended up buying 3 baskets and managed to finish off one whole basket of strawberries by myself before Ryan had returned from golfing.

On the way back from the produce stand, I stopped in downtown Monterey. The picture below is of Cannery Row in Monterey.

I also visited Lover's Point in Pacific Grove which was over-run with squirrels!

After Ryan returned from golf, we picked up our rental car (see below) and did the 17-mile drive. Just kidding about the rental car. As part of our package, we got to take a test drive of the car below for 2 hours, so we figured what better test drive than 17-mile drive.

One of our stops along the way. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the seals on the rock.

The Lone Cypress. This tree has survived out there for over 250 years!

During our last day at Pebble, Ryan had an early tee time at Spyglass Hill Golf Course (see below). He said that this course was much harder than Pebble. While he was golfing, I was lucky enough to spend some time at the spa getting a Hot Stone Massage. It was amazing.

Blogging While in California = FAIL

Despite my good intentions to blog while we traveled to San Francisco & Monterey, I was a complete failure. Even though Monterey was really relaxing, I just couldn't find the time to blog, and I was so exhausted from all the sightseeing in San Francisco that I couldn't even think straight! I'm working on some recaps from the trip and still need to finish the honeymoon recap, so it is clear that I have a ton of catching up to do. For now, we're on a semi-vacation in Atlantic City. Being the good CPAs that Ryan and I are, we are here to take a class for continuing professional education in order to keep our licenses current. Conveniently, Ryan found a class that we could take that was located in Atlantic City. Imagine that... Ryan found somewhere to go where he could get an accounting class in AND gamble. Whatever, I'm just happy to get away for a few days. We're staying at the Borgata and after a minor snag while checking in at 9pm (there were not any non-smoking king rooms clean - not quite sure how that happens, but we were able to get an upgrade to a suite, so I guess we won't complain), we've had some cheesesteaks with wiz (Cheese Wiz for those who aren't familiar) from Tony Luke's and Ryan is happily seated at a blackjack table hopefully winning some money. After walking around the casino floor and checking out the minimum bets at the blackjack tables, I decided that I just couldn't part with that much money, so I headed back up to our suite and relax. Here's hoping that Ryan manages to walk away a winner tonight.

Pebble Day 1 - Recap in Pictures

On our way to Pebble Beach, we took Route 1 (the scenic route) and saw this.

Half Moon Bay

Some amazing coastline

More amazing coastline. Yes, we drove over that bridge.

We stopped at the River Inn in Big Sur and saw what we think is a woodpecker.

The view from the River Inn at Big Sur.

We made it the Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach in time for Happy Hour and listened to the bagpiper that plays every day from 5:45 - 6:30pm.

We sat around the firepits and enjoyed some libations (sorry, didn't get a picture, but Ryan had a mojito and I had a snuggler - a hot chocolate with pepperment schnapps, marshmallows and whipped cream)

And ate pretzels shaped like golf tees.

Then we had dinner at Pebble.

And had our picture taken in front of the famous 18th green.

The View from 15,000 Feet

After a little bit of a rocky 4am start this morning, this beautiful sunrise at 630am on our way into Charlotte, NC made it all better! We arrived at the Inn at Spanish Bay at Pebble Beach this afternoon and it's so beautiful here! More to come soon!

I Heart NYC...

Because that is where Becky & Jordan live! This past weekend Val and I drove to NJ and hopped on a NJ Transit train to spend the weekend with Becky & Jordan. From the start, this trip was a bit of a debacle. Val and I both work downtown (in Baltimore), so we decided that I’d pick her up and we’d drive up to NJ together. I picked her up around 5, and we attempted to leave the city and get on 95. Traffic was a nightmare. What should have taken about 15-20 minutes to get through Baltimore ended up taking about 45 minutes. All because no one knows how to drive in this freaking wonderful city. We finally got onto 95 and stopped to pick up a quick dinner (Chick-fil-A, Yum!). We got back on 95, and it started to rain and about 20 minutes into the drive, my phone rings. Of course, I am expecting it to be Becky asking where we were and when we thought we’d get to NYC. No such luck… It was a slightly hysterical Ryan calling to tell me that our basement flooded again. Yes, I said again. You see, while we were on our honeymoon, our sump pump failed and the basement flooded. Thankfully, my sister was taking good care of our house while we were gone, and she and my brother-in-law dealt with it. Dealing with it meant having to rip up perfectly good carpet that was soaked by the water overflowing from the sump pump. We were fortunate enough that not much else was really damaged, and it was kind of a blessing in disguise because we were able to re-do the basement the way we wanted including painting it a new color without having to worry about dripping paint on the carpet. About a month ago, we finished re-doing the basement, and we were really happy about it so to hear that the basement was flooding again on Friday was a little devastating. Probably more for Ryan than me since he was there seeing it firsthand, but still depressing. Once I talked to Ryan, I called my dad to ask if he’d go and help Ryan with whatever he needed to do to stop the water. My dad dropped everything he was doing and headed over to our house – Thanks, Dad!! We are so lucky that he is always there for us and is so helpful! Val quickly texted Becky to ask her to have the drinks ready when we got there – what a good friend for knowing just what I needed! So, you’d think that this story gets boring now, but no, it gets better. We had planned on taking the 8:35 train into the city and arrived at the train station at 8:20 with what we thought was plenty of time to spare. We should have known better when we saw a train departing the station for NYC at 8:25. (It was the train before ours and it was running a little late). We bought our tickets and hung out for a little while thinking that our 8:35 train would be arriving shortly. 8:35 came and went and no train. Finally, I looked on my blackberry to try to figure out what was going on and it said that there was a trespasser fatality at the Princeton Junction station (the station right after ours) and that the trains were running 15-20 minutes late. No big deal, we thought. 15-20 minutes came and went. After waiting for a while, they announced that our train would be arriving shortly and to begin walking to the end of the platform to board. As we were doing this, we talked with a few of the girls getting on our train and they said that there had been a suicide at the Princeton Junction station and that this actually happens quite often. How sad. We finally boarded the train at 9:30 and all was well (well, kind of). Both Val & I love to read, so we pulled out our books and started reading on the train which seemed to be barely moving. The ride to Penn Station was supposed to take about an hour and 20 minutes or so. By 11:00, we were still not there yet. In fact, we were stopped in Secaucus. A train in front of us had broken down and we had the red light, and there were 3 trains in front of us that were waiting for a green light first. Around 11:20, we finally got the green signal and made it into Penn Station around 11:30. What a trip! Once we arrived in NYC, we hailed a cab to Becky & Jordan’s apartment. The drinks were cold, and the company was even better. We stayed up until 1:30am looking at the wedding album and watching the raw footage of the wedding dvd. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time.

Saturday, Becky & Jordan cooked us yummy pancakes for breakfast and then we headed to Central Park for a picnic and wine. The weather was beautiful – we couldn’t have asked for a better day. We left the park in the afternoon and headed to my favorite bar, Third and Long which had $2 beers from 4-8pm. Perfect timing. Since Third and Long doesn't serve food, we had a pizza delivered to the bar (only in NYC!) and had dinner there. After a long day of drinking, we headed back to Becky & Jordan's apartment to change and go back out to a bar that was playing 80s music videos. Slight snag in the plans... Becky & Jordan decided to take a 30-minute nap at 8:30pm. Val & I knew that there was no way we'd be going back out, so we just hung out with the cats for a bit, and we fell asleep around 9:30pm since Becky & Jordan were still "napping". Around 11:45, Becky woke up and decided that it was time to go out, but she was out of luck. Val and I had retired the party pants for the day. Sorry, Becky! The next day, we went to brunch at Regional, and it was amazing. The food was great, and we even got to sit in a window seat and people-watch while we ate. After brunch, it was time for us to say goodbye, and Val and I headed home, this time without any major issues. We did stop for a quick caffeine break in NJ at a Dunkin' Donuts and found that it was a Dunkin' Donuts in a huge liquor store. So strange... Since no post is complete without some pictures, I have included a few below.

Val and I waiting at the train station for our train to arrive.

Val and I on the train after we found out that our train was stopped because of the broken down train ahead of us. Notice that we are still smiling...

Becky & Jordan's cat, Murray (the kind-of crazy one). He really wanted to hang out in Val's purse.

See? I told you. Becky had to bring out one of her bags so Murray would get out of Val's purse.

I promise, this was not staged.

Olive, their other kitty. She was so chill, just hanging out in her clothes basket.

Becky & Val in Central Park.

Becky & Jordan in Central Park.

On the escalator in the subway.

We heart Val!

The rose between 2 thorns. Just kidding, you guys! :)

Naptime. Notice that Olive is sitting on Becky's back.

Thanks, Becky & Jordan for your wonderful hospitality. And, can you please hurry up and move home so we can hang out more often?!?!?!