And I'm back! FINALLY!

OK, so that whole "blog through our vacation" thing didn't work out so well this time. Really, it was for a number of reasons:

1) Our internet access was somewhat limited. We had a few connectivity problems in Seattle, and then in San Francisco, the hotel wanted to charge us $12.95/day for internet access. And that sooo wasn't going to happen.

2) We were sooo busy. We really worked ourselves quite hard this vacation. Lots of places to go, things to see, etc. so when we were back at the house or hotel, I spent my time relaxing instead of blogging.

3) We forgot our camera cord, so we weren't even able to transfer photos. Whoops.

4) Quite frankly, I was lazy about it. I guess it was kind of nice to take a break from it in a lot of ways. Now, however, I'm sort of regretting it. SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON!!

I ask you to bear with me this week, as I'm going to attempt to go back and recap our vacation day by day. You'll (hopefully) see lots of back-dated posts from me over the next few days. So, if you read through a reader of some sort, the posts should pop up for you as normal. But if you read right here on my blog, you'll want to scroll down past this post for the next few days to see my vacation updates. I'm going to do my best to get caught up as soon as possible, but my dad gets into town for a visit tomorrow, so I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have. We'll see how it goes!

To give you a very short overview, we had a wonderful time, but we found that it was more of a "go-go-go" vacation instead of a truly relaxing one. Of course, we enjoyed not having to cook, or clean, or do any of the daily grind things--so in a lot of ways, it WAS relaxing--but I'll admit that the last couple of days in San Francisco? Completely exhausting. We sort of hit a wall.

We took the red-eye home this morning, and needless to say, we didn't get a lot of sleep. Today, we are zombies. We're hoping this helps us avoid any kind of West-to-East-Coast jetlag, because it's back to work tomorrow.

Anyway, did ya miss me?! ;)

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Anniversary Day

We knew from the get-go that today was going to be a busy day. We got out of bed at an early (but not insane) hour to get a jumpstart on it all.

But before leaving the hotel, we had to take care of business. That is, we had to get our celebratory anniversary champagne (purchased at Mumm the other day) on ice. No fridge? No cooler? No problem!

From there, we rode a trolley down to the bottom of Powell, then caught a bus to go check out the Painted Ladies. We got off the bus at Steiner Street and had to walk a few more blocks to get to Alamo Square. We thought that once we arrived, the Painted Ladies would be pretty easy to spot.

We were wrong.

I'd be lying if I said we didn't walk around the entire park without spotting the Painted Ladies. Finally, after some Googling on my BlackBerry, I was able to get the actual addresses, and we were able to find the famous ladies.

Is it wrong if I say we weren't entirely impressed? Still, we took pictures, because it was kind of a pain in the ass to get there. After all that effort, we weren't going to walk away without at least some photos.

They're pretty and all, but we wouldn't really say they were worth the trouble of getting there. That's just our $0.02.

From there, we rode a few more buses to get us to Crissy Field in Presidio Park. Our concierge had told us that this was her favorite place to view the Golden Gate Bridge.

And for good reason. It was beautiful.

We had pretty perfect San Francisco weather today. It was sunny, clear, and for the most part, comfortable.

Except right down by the water. There, it was kinda freezing. I was shocked to see people swimming in the bay. Meanwhile, I had to put on my fleece, and wished I had brought gloves. (Kidding. Sorta.)

Before hitting the beach (fully clothed, of course), we stopped at a little nearby cafe to grab a little something to eat. We shared a sandwich, and a muffin for something sweet.

We spent quite a bit of time down on the beach, just enjoying the scenery and taking photos. There were a ton of dogs running down there, so we did some dog and people watching.

Eventually, we decided we should start to make our way back toward our hotel, since we wanted to stop in there to rest up for a little while to refresh ourselves for the evening ahead.

We walked down the beach for a bit, then made our way back to the streets and out of Presidio Park. We eventually made our way back to a bus route and caught a bus back to Fisherman's Wharf before riding a trolley back up to our hotel.

After several days of so.much.walking, and especially on all these hills, we are not ashamed to admit that we are pretty tired! My legs are starting to scream at me. We rested for a while in our hotel room before making our way back down to Fisherman's Wharf and over to Pier 39.

On our agenda for our anniversary evening? A sunset cruise, then dinner.

We booked our sunset cruise through Adventure Cat. They offer both daytime and sunset cruises. We opted to pay a little more for the sunset cruise, and in the end, we were glad we did. It was pretty romantic, and the scenery was even more beautiful under the gorgeous orange glow of the sunset. Plus, we got to enjoy a couple of drinks (two apiece), and some light snacks while we sailed the San Francisco Bay.

Here are some photos from our cruise:

Since Adventure Cat is located right down on Pier 39, we were right next to the famous "Pier 39 Sea Lions." When we walked down the dock to board our boat, we saw this guy taking a snooze. Apparently, he needed some quiet time away from all his buddies, because he was all alone over there.

Michael on the boat, ready to get the show on the road.

As we were pulling away from the dock, I was able to take a few photos of all the sea lions.

With the city behind me.

Our captain, Hans. Our crew was pretty awesome, too. Since it's a relatively small boat, there were only two crew members, but we really liked them. They were great multi-taskers, helping out the captain when needed, and also serving drinks and talking to all of the passengers. Unfortunately, I've already forgotten her name, but one of the crew members even offered to give us a bunch of restaurant recommendations. We told her what kind of food we liked, and she spent some time putting together a list for us while we concentrated on enjoying the view.

From Pier 39, we set sail straight out toward Alcatraz, and sailed right around it. It was interesting to get to see it up close. After hearing a few opinions, we've decided we're not going to tour Alcatraz while we're out here. We just don't think we want to devote 4+ hours of time to tour an old prison! So it was nice to just be able to see a little more of it.

More Alcatraz.

From there, we started sailing out toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Everything was gorgeous. The water was sparkling, and we just could not have asked for a better evening.

If you do decide to do a cruise like this, I recommend wearing layers, and bringing warmer clothes than you might think you need. At first, I was wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt with a short-sleeve t-shirt over it, and a thin fleece with pants and sneakers. You'll want to be wearing shoes with rubber soles, because it can be challenging to walk across the deck when the boat is in motion.

Once the sun really started to go down, it immediately felt 10x cooler than before, so I was glad that I had brought yet another layer, which was a thick, cozy hoodie sweatshirt. Ultimately, I was happy to have so many layers!

While I was standing up at the front of the boat here, we had a minute or two of rough water. At one point, we heard shrieks from over to our left, and when I turned to look, I saw that two girls, who were standing where Michael and I had been standing not long before, had gotten absolutely soaked! I guess we had hit a wave just the right way and it had sent water shooting up over the side of the boat. Whoops! I felt sorry for them, as it was cold to be walking around with wet pants, but they seemed to be good sports about it.

As we got closer and closer to the bridge, the view was more and more spectacular. Plus, the setting sun was making the bridge's color stand out even more than usual.

We sailed right underneath the bridge, which was a unique way to get a good look at it. Pretty cool.

And then we popped out on the other side so we could see the bridge from yet another angle. Shortly after going under the bridge, we turned around to start heading back to Pier 39.

At one point, I looked back behind us to see this. It was simply breathtaking.

Back at Pier 39, the sea lions were still hanging out. Some snoozing, some making lots of noise.

Remember our friend that was napping on the dock before we left? He was still there, and still out like a light.

Once we got off the boat, we decided to walk over to the area of the pier that is best for viewing the sea lions. We couldn't help but watch them for a while. It's so funny to see them all.

This guy was particularly vocal, and rowdy, too. He jumped off the dock to take a swim for a little bit, and kept popping his head above water to continue to make noise. Eventually, he jumped back up on the dock, which was cool to watch. It's amazing how easily they can jump right up out of the water, even though they are so huge.

At this point, it was 9:00 p.m. and we still hadn't eaten our anniversary dinner. We decided to stick close by, and walked around Pier 39. We settled on going to Pier Market. Michael enjoyed some seafood, and I enjoyed some chicken. We were in particularly good spirits after our awesome sunset cruise, so we took the opportunity to relax, eat slowly, and just enjoy each other's company.

Then, we did something we hardly ever do at restaurants. We ordered dessert!

After some debate between the chocolate lava cake and the apple crisp, we went for the apple crisp. The warm apples, crusty oatmeal topping, the ice cream, the whipped cream! Who can resist?! And lord, let me tell you... so. amazing. Four enthusiastic thumbs up on this one.

Soon, we wandered out of the restaurant and easily caught a trolley back up to the hotel.

Our champagne was waiting. Normally, when I open champagne, I keep the flying cork under control by holding it in my hand and simply working it out of the bottle, or by covering it with a towel so it can't go far. This is usually to avoid injury or breaking anything in our house.

This time, since we are in a hotel room, I decided to let it fly. That thing came off with a lot of force. It was quite funny. But thankfully, even though nothing belonged to us, we still managed not to break anything.

Now, we are sitting back and enjoying our champagne, after a long but wonderful anniversary day.

Happy 1st Anniversary to my husband! <3

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The Bay City

After getting up so early yesterday for the wine tour, we decided to sleep in a little bit this morning. We were still up around 8:30 a.m., but it was nice to get some good rest.

Once we were showered and ready, we walked down Powell to hit up Sears for breakfast. We had heard from multiple people that they have the BEST pancakes, so we figured we had to judge for ourselves (I am a big pancake enthusiast).

When we arrived, there was a pretty long line waiting outside, but it was moving quickly and we didn't mind waiting.

Once we were seated, we made our decision on what to get pretty quickly. We were going to go with the "World Famous" mini pancakes... a whopping 18 of them.

But I am going to be brutally honest. When this was set in front of me, I was sort of disappointed. I've had short stacks more substantial than this. I have *never* had a pancake breakfast, at any restaurant, EVER, in ALL my years of pancake eating, that didn't leave me feeling full all day long. Nor have I ever had a pancake breakfast that I could actually finish. Not only did I finish these, but I was only marginally full after eating my entire meal. And for $10 pancakes, I expected more.

Sure, they were pretty good pancakes, but the best? World famous? Not really. And I love me some pancakes. It was fine, and we were glad we ate there to see what it was all about, but we wouldn't necessarily ever go back. I'm just sayin'.

After breakfast, we decided to walk to Lombard Street. We certainly worked off the vast majority of our pancakes by walking up and down many hills on the way.

We eventually arrived at the world's most crooked street! (If you're keeping score, we hit up the world's most narrow street AND the world's most crooked street... all in the same trip. Go us!)

It was pretty funny watching all of the cars make their way down it. I have to assume that most of them were driven by tourists, because I can't imagine many locals having the patience for that on a regular basis, like, EVER.

From there, we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf.

We wandered in and out of many of the shops down there, and fought through the crowds. We checked out menus for restaurants, and even picked up some salt water taffy (yum).

We eventually got down toward Pier 39. Here was our view of Alcatraz.

Sooo many people. We took one lap around Pier 39 and then left because we couldn't handle the crowds. Considering it's Saturday, I'm guessing it was a little busier than it may be on weekdays. We'll try again before we leave.

We walked back down to try to catch a trolley, but the line was so enormous that we gave up on it quickly. I can't believe how long people wait to ride. Insanity. We ended up walking up towards another "end of the line" stop (different trolley line) and we were lucky and got right on.

If I haven't mentioned it already... we bought a Muni pass that allows us to ride all public transportation in the city--buses, trolleys, and trains--an unlimited number of times. Even though we're only here for four days, we bought a 7-day pass (instead of a 3-day + additional 1-day pass) because it was the most economical at $24. A trolley ride (ONE WAY!) costs $5, so we figured all we have to do is ride at least once a day. We've definitely taken advantage so far, so the pass has been completely worth it.

A pic of me riding on the trolley. The outside/standing positions are the best! It's fun to stand on the outside and get the full experience.

Back at the hotel, we rested for a few minutes before heading out again. This time, we were headed for AT&T Park for a Giants game. We purchased tickets online last night.

After talking to our concierge this morning, we decided to head down toward the Park early and get dinner down there before the game. We ended up eating at a Mexican place called Tres Agaves. It was really good, but slow. We were glad we had allowed ourselves some extra time, because otherwise we probably would've been really late to the game.

This is a view of the Bay Bridge as we were walking up the ramps at the Park to get to our seats on the top level.

It was pretty funny, because we were in the last possible row. We couldn't have been any higher up in the stadium, or any further away from the field, for that matter. I guess that's what you get when you buy $15 tickets? ;) Good thing we don't really care all that much about baseball.

One good thing about being up in the nosebleeds: This was our view. We couldn't complain.

We also could barely see the players. But that's OK.

There was one really bad thing about being in the last row. The wind. It was already cold out, and having the wind blow on us relentlessly was too much to handle. We noticed that there were empty seats a few rows down from the top in the section next to us, so we eventually moved there. It was still cold, but it was 10x better with no wind.

From there, we sat back and enjoyed the game.

After the 9th inning, the Giants and Rangers were tied up, and we aren't enthusiastic enough about baseball to stay for extra innings. Instead, we decided to try to beat the crowds and leave to catch our train.

After the train and yet another trolley ride, we are safely back in the hotel, and finally getting warm again. We have cool summer nights back home, but this is incredible! Once the sun goes down, it is f-ing COLD! So pardon me while I go thaw out my toes.

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Napa

Today, we were up bright and early at 7:30 a.m. so that I could call the rental car places as soon as they opened.

Without going into a ton of detail, my loving relationship with Priceline almost came to an end this morning. Thankfully, after a few hours of turmoil, they redeemed themselves (or, I guess I should say, they finally did what they should've done from the very beginning of the situation) and all is now right with the world.

Because of my dealings with Priceline on the phone (that took way longer than they should have), and problems catching a trolley (we had several pass us by at max capacity), we got a much later start to our Napa trip than we had hoped. But once we were on the road, it was all good.

Our GPS wanted to take us in the opposite direction of the Golden Gate Bridge (it wanted to take us over the Bay Bridge, actually), but we knew we wanted to drive across the Golden Gate. After overriding our GPS and using a good ol'-fashioned map, we were able to experience the bridge in all of its glory. And, of course, I had to snap a few photos as Michael drove us across:

Very cool. And did I mention how gorgeous the weather was today? Look at that sky!

Once we got into Napa Valley, we kind of lolly-gagged around for a while, sort of driving aimlessly and just checking out the sights. Going off of another blog reader's recommendation, we decided that our first stop would be at Mumm.

The "tasting room" wasn't at all what I was expecting. It was wayyy better. I've been to several wineries at home--we have our own little "wine country" close by in the Fingerlakes--so I thought it would be similar out here, but I was wrong. We didn't just stand around a bar with our wine glasses in hand. Instead, we were seated, as if at a restaurant, and given a menu. Quite lovely!

We settled on our "order," and we were able to taste four champagnes. Wonderful! I thoroughly enjoyed them all. Our waiter actually let us taste a 5th, too... shhhhh! :)

Note to self: When giving camera to waiter and/or strangers in the future, put camera on "auto" setting as to avoid overexposed photos like this one. Oh well. I was able to save it (somewhat) in post-processing. It's still cute.

Check out our view from the "tasting room" at Mumm. Gorgeous.

After our tasting, we walked around the grounds a little bit.

From there, we headed out to St. Helena to grab something to eat. We had heard (from yet ANOTHER blog reader) that we should stop at Taylor's Refresher for a bite to eat. We didn't want much--just something to hold us over until dinner--so it seemed like a reasonable place to stop. Little did we know that it would be such a popular place!

The line was huge, and we ended up waiting about half an hour. At a burger joint! Oh well; it was worth it for our delicious milkshake (perfect for the 90-degree weather) and garlic fries.

Our waiter at Mumm had recommended we visit Sterling, so after our little snack, we decided to check it out. While it was expensive, it did seem to offer quite a bit of bang for our bucks.

We rode the gondola up the mountain and tasted several wines as we guided ourselves through the "self-guided" tour of the winery.

And who can complain when you have views like this?:

Actually, I did have one teeny-tiny complaint. IT. WAS. OH. SO. HOT. The 90-degree temperatures definitely started getting to me. Especially when out on this terrace area just BAKING in the sun. But it was gorgeous, and HELLO, we were in Napa, so we fought through it.

After we were done with tour, we were led into a tasting room and were served far more wine samples than I had been expecting. I was downright tipsy by the time we went back out into the heat. I enjoyed quite a few of them!

Once done with our tasting, we rode the gondola back down the mountain.

On our way off of the Sterling property, we pulled the car over to take a few more pictures of the scenery:

By the time we were done, it was 5:00 p.m. (where did the day go?!) and we realized that most of the wineries were actually closing for the day. Not only that, but I was still feeling the effects from our tasting at Sterling (no doubt it was exacerbated by the heat), so I didn't know if I even wanted to attempt another tasting anyway. We were getting quite hungry, so we decided to head back south to get dinner.

A few months back, when I asked for Seattle/San Francisco recommendations, my friend, Lesley, told me that her fiance's uncle owns an Italian restaurant in Napa, and said that if we had the chance, we should eat there. We figured, what the hell? Might as well check it out, right? Plus, we were in the mood for Italian anyway.

And so we plugged the address into our GPS and wound up at Piccolino's, right in downtown Napa.

Once we were seated, I asked the waiter if the owner was around today. I explained that we had a "family connection," and he said that he would check, and if the owner was there, he'd send him out to talk to us.

A few minutes later, Joe came by to introduce himself to us, and actually joined us at our table. We talked for quite a bit of time--I'd say at least 10 minutes!--and discussed everything from Lesley and Steve, to Western New York, to careers and how Joe got to be where he is today. It was a nice conversation, and cool to meet someone from "back home" way out here in California. To top it all off, Joe treated us to some complimentary appetizers! Bruschetta, crab cakes and a cup of potato garlic soup--everything was fantastic. We were stuffed before our entrees even came out! I had chicken marsala, and Michael had fettucine with bay shrimp. By the time we were done, I practically had to be rolled out of there. So good! We highly recommend Piccolino's.

After dinner, it was past 7:00, and it was unfortunately time to bid farewell to Napa and head on back to San Francisco. We had a lovely time, and will hopefully go back some day!

Now that we're back in the city, it's time to explore it a bit more. We haven't really had the opportunity, so we're looking forward to tomorrow.

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