Bryan’s parents drove us to the airport Saturday morning. We arrived in CA around 1:30 and we were starving. We were supposed to have dinner with Chris and Rae, but they didn’t want to eat that early. We decided to try In-N-Out. It was good, for fast food. After we went to Chris and Rae’s where we found out we’re going to have a little niece or nephew :) we went out for gelato in downtown Mountain View to celebrate.
Sunday we went to Muir Woods. The woods there are much different then here. No bugs, it’s bizarre and so quiet. Those trees are absolutely huge. It was very pretty. Very glad we went Sunday since it was closed the rest of the week because of the government shutdown.
We had dinner at the place eye were supposed to go Saturday night, Rok Bistro, where you cook your food on a hot stone. It was really good. Rae got the kangaroo and we tried some, not bad. Dessert was definitely the highlight of the meal. S’mores fondue, omg.
We went into the city on Monday. Waked around Union Square, a big mall just like the malls here, and had lunch at a Thai place. We wanted dessert, so ewe waked to a highly rated gelato place in the North Beach area. Definitely an good as the gelato in Rome.
We went back to the hotel for a nap and then went over Chris and Rae’s again to watch the series finale of Breaking Bad. Good ending.
Tuesday we went to the Intel museum and then ate lunch at Apple with Chris. Bryan and I got suchi and gelato.
After lunch we headed over to Palo Alto and went shopping in the downtown area and then took a long walk to Stanford and saw the sculpture garden. I’ve now been to Harvard, Columbia and Stanford, but not Princeton even though it’s the closest.
Wednesday we were meeting up with Bryan’s family in the city. We got a little lost on the way there and ended up being forced over the Bay Bridge. In general, the driving sucked. We finally made it though and walked over from Pier 39 to The a Ferry Building. We met up with his cousin, her husband and their adorable baby and had lunch at The Slanted Door. Good stuff.
His cousin took us for a drive around the city. We couldn’t get into the Golden Gate Recreation area though because of the damn government shutdown again. We ended back at Fisherman’s Wharf again and had dinner with his cousins, aunt, uncle, Chris and Rae. Bryan and I walked to Ghirardelli Square for dessert.
His aunt said we should go up to their house Thursday, so we did. They took us around to Sonoma wineries and to the beach. The beach was beautiful. Web don’t have beaches like that in Jersey.
We had sandwiches for lunch at one of the wineries. I had a delicious eggplant sandwich. Of course we did a wine tasting :) Bryan didn’t like any of them. We ate dinner in their downtown area and had the best French fries ever.
His aunt had some home videos from when Bryan was little. We watched little Bryan and he took the videos back to convert to DVD. He was very happy to have some video of when he was little.
Friday we went to Half Moon Bay, walked around the beach and then the downtown area there.
We went back to Mountain View and geeked out at the Computer History Museum. It was actually really cool. We learned what programmers do :p
We had dinner at a fancy Vietnamese place. I ordered Duck Duck Good and had mango panna cotta for dessert. Another yummy meal. We went back to Chris and Rae’s and said goodbye.
Overall, a pretty great trip, mostly thanks to Bryan’s family. Our hotel wasn’t bad. They had free breakfast, apples and cookies. Their fitness center lacked free weights, but I did OK with the weight machines.
The weather was beautiful all we and we thoroughly enjoyed the lack of bugs. We’ll go back again some day :)
I am so glad that you had a nice trip to California. It is kind of weird for a forest not to have any bugs…I wonder why it doesn’t? I keep picturing Forest Rangers going around with Fly Swatters and killing them. :P