San Francisco!!!

Weston and I talked about going to San Francisco since we got married. Last August we were going to go, but it ended up not working out so we did a staycation. This year I told Weston that we were going whether we had the money or not because it would be our last big vacation before we try to have a baby. We decided to drive my Mazda3 since it is older and we didn't want to put the miles on our newer car.

We left Friday around 4pm to head up to Bishop, CA. Two hours into the trip, around Beatty, our air conditioning went out. It happens every so often, but turns back on usually. Well, it wouldn't turn back on this time. It was so hot! We had to drive through 3 windy roads to get to Bishop and it was pretty scary driving that at night. We got to our hotel safely, and sweaty, and went to bed a couple hours later.

The next morning we got up early to get some Freon to see if maybe that was the problem. After putting in Freon our AC was still just as hot. We went to a mechanic after that and they found a leak in our high pressure AC hose, but couldn't fix it since they didn't have the part. We decided to just drive on since the weather wasn't too hot and we would be in the mountains most of the day. We ate lunch at a cute pizza place in Mammoth Lakes while I called around to find out if any of the Mazda dealers in San Francisco had the part we needed. We drove up to Yosemite and then down to the valley floor. It was beautiful in Yosemite, but such a long drive and I think we were just ready to get to our next stop. We watched a video about Yosemite and stopped to take some pictures then headed out to San Mateo. We got to San Mateo, which is South of San Francisco, and were ready to sleep after another day of no AC in our car.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked our car and walked about half way down the bridge. It was was really foggy so we didn't get that postcard picture of the bridge we would have liked, but it was still amazing being there. We were told Muir Woods was worth going to because we would see huge trees. I think we were both hoping for Sequoia size trees and were disappointed. We just drove the windy roads and headed back to a park by the Japanese Tea Gardens. We took a nap on the grass and walked around. It was expensive to go into the Tea Garden, or any museum for that matter, so we just walked around some more. I didn't buy Weston anything for his birthday so we decided to go look for shoes since Weston needed new volleyball shoes. He ended up getting two pairs of shoes because anyone that knows Weston knows he loves shoes. We ate dinner at BJ's and headed to bed early because we had an early morning the next day.

Monday we got up at 5am to go down to Fisherman's Wharf and wait in line for tickets to Alcatraz. It was Weston's birthday and he wanted to go to Alcatraz that day. We waited too long to buy tickets online so we waited for an hour and a half in line for the limited tickets they sell for same day trips. We got our tickets though and almost froze to death waiting! Weston wanted French toast for breakfast so we ordered IHOP to go and went back to the hotel to shower. We drove back into the city and took a ferry out to Alcatraz. They provide an audio tour and I'm not usually a big history person, but this was probably my favorite part of our trip. It was amazing to hear the stories of the prisoners and the history of the prison. When we got back to Fisherman's Wharf we went to get Weston some clam chowder for lunch and I had fish and chips. After lunch we walked around Fisherman's Wharf, went to the Maritime museum, the Ghirardelli Factory, and looked at the Trolleys. We took a street car to Union Square and walked around then headed back to the car near Fisherman's Wharf. Since this day was all about Weston he decided he wanted sushi for dinner. Mmm my favorite (sense the sarcasm). We walked around downtown San Mateo till we found a good sushi place with not too long of a wait. We ended up sitting by the nicest couple who eventually asked if we were LDS. I was so confused and asked if my garments were showing, but the husband just thought we were and they were too! Such a small world.  It was a busy day, but so much fun!

Tuesday we drove an hour outside San Mateo to a Mazda dealer that had the part we thought we needed. They told us our entire AC system was out and it would cost us $1700 to fix. Well that didn't sound so good, so we decided to finish up our trip and get it fixed when we got home. We went to the Exploritorium for a couple hours and then decided it was time to head out. There was a lot more we would have liked to see and do, but we were so tired and ready to go home.  We drove to Bakersfield and slept there that night so we could drive home early the next day before it got too hot.

Our trip was stressful at times, but definitely worth the memories. We would love to go back someday when we have more time to explore the city, but for now it is one city checked off our life to do list!