San Francisco

The Zs had the fun pleasure of heading over to Lake Tahoe this year for Amy's annual conference, and before spending the week there, we flew out on Thursday night to San Francisco and spent Friday & Saturday there before then driving over to Yosemite for Sunday & Monday before arriving Monday night at Lake Tahoe.  It was a whirlwind, but we were able to see lots of highlights in each spot so it was perfect.

The Johnsons also came with us, and they actually were supposed to fly out earlier than we did on Thursday but their flights were messed up and they arrived just in the nick of time on Friday to hit our Alcatraz tour - literally with about 5 minutes to spare - whew!

We got up on Friday morning and drove into downtown (parking in a secure lot as car vandalism is a huge problem right now!) and then headed to ride the cable car - we were able to see it do the turnaround and then rode it all the way down to the Fisherman's Wharf area.  It was fun to ride a national moving monument -- although the line was seriously long to actually get on it!

At the turnabout square, it was being rotated in the background

And then we were fortunate to be able to sit on the benches looking out over the city as we journeyed up and down the streets - wow those streets are seriously steep!

After we got off, we walked from Fisherman's Wharf along the water down to Pier 39.  We stopped and enjoyed a delicious mango smoothie, took pictures of the sea lions, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz island and even had the most amazing coincidence of crossing paths with the Isidro family whom we had just been on the cruise two weeks prior to Alaska!

They just finished alcatraz tour while we were just about to board on ours!

San Francisco has art statues of seals throughout the waterfront, so we stopped to take a few pictures along the way

Always climbing on something!

The city in the background.

Pier 39 with te seals in the background - hard to see but it was fun to at least see what is so well known about San Fran!

Fisherman's Wharf

Very very far in the background is the Golden Gate bridge

If you have ever watched various bloopers, you'll likely have seen crazy people who hide in things and then jump out and scare people walking along.  Well, that happened in San Fran as we were walking along - Karis, Zach and Addison were ahead and they stopped and turned around to take a picture of Amy and Kaleb walking together....so sweet, until the "bush" jumped out at Amy and she screamed bloody murder (because frankly it is more fun to be dramatic anyway!!) while they all laughed their silly heads off!  It was a hoot!

Doesn't look that comfortable to me!

We had an afternoon cruise out to Alcatraz for the tour - it was quite interesting to see all of the various inmates etc that had been there.  Thank goodness we are law abiding, that would be awful!  We had watched "Shark-a-traz" a few weeks before the trip to give the kids a bit of history about the federal prison (to which Addison aptly said afterwards "I am not sure I should have watched that" as it showed the potential sharks swimming in the water!)

Yech.

Pictures of some of the more famous inmates

The flowers were blooming while we were there, so pretty!

As we walked along the trail there were pigeons with babies along the path, so precious!

 Afterwards, we ate an early supper on Pier 39 at a pizza place and then headed over to Ghirardelli square for an ice cream sundae. 

The alley had these colorful lanterns everywhere, so pretty!

On Saturday morning, we hit a few of the drive-by type tourist spots in San Francisco before heading over to Muir Woods.  

Mosaic steps

Beautiful succulent gardens by the stairs!

Followed by the Seven Sisters (famous houses).  Yikes, look at how close the houses are!!

And then we drove over to Lombard Street - which has switchbacks as you drive down it, making it the "crookedest street" -- apparently it was built this way when cars first came out so that they didn't "run away" down the hill.  It was full of beautiful flowers along the roadside, and you can see the black marks on the curbs from cars hitting it even in modern day!

Lombard Street - the crookedest street in San Francisco - from the top

And then a view from the bottom - it is switch-backs all the way down the hill - neat to be able to drive down it

We then hit the finale with an overlook spot of the Golden Gate bridge - it was cool and cloudy so we didn't get great pictures of it but the rest of the day cleared up and was incredible, so it wasn't a total loss.

A very cloudy Golden Gate bridge!

We must get a family picture though - even if it is hard to see the full bridge!

Elin hitching a ride from Kaleb

We then drove over to Muir Woods - it was incredible.  Just incredible.  The redwood trees were amazing, and the whole place had this ethereal green serenity to it.  It felt very worshipful, which was appropos on Sabbath.  This is a definite must if you ever go to San Francisco!

Climbing once again!

Super neat to see these majestic trees - you can't get the entire tree in without doing a panoramic picture!

Our attempt to get the whole tree into the picture!

The green canopy was beautiful

We hiked along a short path which was fun, perfect temperature, and peaceful

Who's this cute girl?! 💖

After Muir Woods, we jumped in the car and drove several hours over to an AirBnB that was just south of Yosemite National Park.  We encountered a beautiful sunset as we journeyed, what beauty God provides us

The next day we headed into Yosemite, and WOW, the car lines were super long.  It took forever to get into the park itself.  So long that Addison had to go to the bathroom in the woods, and afterwards Amy and Addi had to race back to our car - this was a picture taken from the Js vehicle as we ran - it was actually nice to get out and stretch our legs. 

Wait for us!!!

Upon entering into the Yosemite park (free thanks to Addison's 4th grade national park pass!), we went to Mariposa Grove where we could see the Giant Sequoia trees.  Redwoods (biggest) and Sequoias (tallest) -- all in one trip!  Kind of neat.

This day was HOT, not so peaceful and serene as Muir Woods but still really a unique experience

A fallen tree behind us - huge girth of the base of the tree!

Panoramic pictures or bust!

The tree that you can walk through!

A tree bed....

The parentals for once in a picture together!

The Yosemite Valley was so full that the park rangers closed it to more traffic coming in, so we had a late picnic lunch beside a lovely river (staying carefully away from falling in as it was moving quite quickly!) while we waited for Kelli's brother Calvin to join up with us from L.A.  We were able to connect and then start the drive into the Valley later in the day where we saw just amazing sites!  Yosemite is definitely worth the time if you have a chance to go there!

This is like a postcard!  El Capitain on the left, Half Dome is in the middle of the picture but hard to see as it is small and far (kind of right above Zachary's head), and then Bridal falls is between Amy and Kaleb's head

We had a good laugh as we looked closely at the boys - apparently they decided to be twinsy's in their blue Old Navy shirts!

Bridal Veil Falls from the Tunnel View

If you ever have watched the documentary "Free Solo" then you know all about El Capitan and how difficult it is to rock climb.  Amy watched it a few years ago on a plane ride so she was intrigued to see the rock face up close.  It is SO HUGE that you can barely see the people climbing it if you don't have binoculars!

We did not have enough time to drive the full Valley over to see Half Dome up close as the traffic was gridlock, but we were able to get closer to El Capitan as we drove out.  Prior to leaving though, we did stop and hike up to Bridal Veil Falls (paved, easy hike) -- with all of the snow that they had this year the water was just pounding over the edge!

On Monday, we enjoyed a leisurely morning and then drove the 5 hours to Lake Tahoe - stopping in Roseville at a very "bougie" movie theater to watch Elemental - complete with waiters bringing food and beverages to your seats!  It was a fun time and a nice way to break up the drive.  

Random picture:

Not sure if we've just never take this particular "route" out of Orlando before, but it was fun to look out the window and see the AdventHealth hospital main campus out our window as we flew!  It is on the bottom left hand side to the left of I-4.