San Francisco Treat

2013 is the year Jamie and I celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. It doesn't seem all that long ago we were celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary. I remember it well. It was our first winter in Calgary and it was absolutely freezing cold. We were going for dinner and we couldn't find a place to park close to the restaurant. When we finally did park, all I can remember was how my face ached from the bitter cold in the short five minute walk from our car to the restaurant. Once we were seated and settled, Jamie and I talked about how we should celebrate our anniversary in warm places. The idea to have our 10th wedding anniversary in Tahiti was born.
Interesting to note that we had nine years to research Tahiti and save up money for this event. We did neither so you can imagine how shocked we were to discover that Tahiti is about $1000/day (for flight and accommodations) and that doesn't yet include your food or drink. Sticker shock and the thought of being away from my baby for two whole weeks was more than I could handle. We decided to break our celebration into two separate weeks within the year.
San Francisco quickly hit our list as a place we wanted to visit. The city itself is know for it's fabulous dining, super attractions and historic cable cars. For us, we also appreciated the close proximity to Napa Valley and Carmel-by-the-Sea - a place I'd heard about and have wanted to visit for years.
We booked our trip for May and, when the time came, kissed our little man and my parents goodbye. Getting to San Fran was really quick and quite easy. We booked our hotel in the heart of Union Square and that proved to be an excellent decision. We seemed to be close to everything! The shopping at Union Square was amazing but it was also easy to hop on a cable car and visit Fisherman's Wharf. We loved Pier 39 and our visit to Alcatraz. The San Francisco Giants baseball game we took in was tons of fun and I really enjoyed wandering around The California Academy of Sciences down in Golden Gate Park. Nothing could beat the food though. The dining was truly amazing. I certainly gained a few pounds in only three short days!

Our time in Frisco was over way too soon but grabbing our rental car and heading to Napa Valley was an adventure in itself. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge (of course!) and made our way to Sonoma. Around noonish, we happened to stop at a little winery called "St Francis" to grab some lunch. In my mind, this place was perfect. We had the patio all to ourselves as we sipped their beautiful wine and enjoyed the quiet, green landscape of their vineyard. After lunch we visited another winery and then made our way to the B&B in Napa. An old historic house, this place was oozing with charm. We checked in and then checked out the town of Napa. We thoroughly enjoyed chatting with a local for the better part of two hours when he recommended a yummy nearby restaurant for dinner. I love getting recommendations from the locals!
The next day was our wine tour with a few other folks on a shuttle. We visited four wineries and they were all really nice. One lady from South Carolina really made the trip fun. She was hilarious and right on about our tour guide being terrible. Poor guy, I think it was his second day on the job and he really didn't know anything about wine or how to give a tour. Oh well . . .

The next morning we were on the road and headed for Monterey. It took about 3 hours to get to this lovely seaside town. After a quick lunch and stroll on the main street, we went in search of our Inn. Wow what a find! The Old Monterey Inn used to belong to the town's mayor. It's a big tudor style house on a large lot with beautiful gardens. If our Napa B&B was oozing with charm, this place took it to a whole new level. Jamie and I decided to open the bottle of wine we had bought at St Francis and just enjoy the stunning gardens for a few hours. It was the first chance we'd had to really relax on this vacation.
The next day, the lovely inn keeper recommended we take the coastal drive to Big Sur. This was  a scenic route with some nice stops along the way. We thoroughly enjoyed an oceanside park called Point Lobos (where I saw sea otters playing in the kelp) and had a great lunch with an even better view at a cafe called Nepenthe. To round out our day, we took the famous drive around Pebble Beach and strolled along the tragically quaint (well how would you describe it?) streets of Carmel-by-the-Sea. One last fabulous meal and then, just like that, it was all over and time to go home.

Our trip to California included meeting some wonderful people, eating some of the best food of my life, drinking more fabulous wine in one day then I thought possible, visiting iconic sites and even seeing some incredibly beautiful landscapes.  Our memories from this trip are many and altogether wonderful :-)