...a San Francisco treat!

The last part of my spring break was spent tagging along with Patrick to San Francisco. He had a meeting there, and we decided to extend the trip a little bit to fit in some more fun. Teagan stayed with my parents, and it was probably the hardest time I've ever had leaving her.  I'm not exactly sure why this time was harder-could have been that it was the longest we'd ever been away from her or the fact that it made most sense to leave her in Augusta after the Masters on Tuesday...which meant Wednesday was spent with me having a day to myself. Normally I would welcome this opportunity, but after not seeing her most of Tuesday (because of the Masters) and knowing I wouldn't see her again until Sunday was killing me. I sobbed like a baby...numerous times.

...but Patrick and I did make the most of it. We went one TWO dates on Wednesday before leaving for our trip! Score!

Thursday morning we headed out to San Francisco and checked in to the hotel where Patrick got our "non view room" that we had reserved with points upgraded to a large corner room with awesome views of the city every where you turned. Another score!

We went to San Francisco for part of our one year anniversary trip, so we wanted to make sure that we did some of the things that we didn't get to do our first time there...and some things were worth repeating.

First, we headed to a little place called Mama's for breakfast. {I may or may not be known for telling Patrick on our first date that "breakfast is one of my favorite meals." Umm one of? You mean out of only 3?} Ha, anyways point being I love, love, love a good breakfast spot. And this was it! We waited a good bit for a table, but the food was worth it!

We then took a steep walk to Coit Tower to find out it was closed and supposed to open April of 2014. Umm, it is April people. Next, we took the stairs of Telegraph Hill...all 400 of them. Luckily after our climb up to Coit Tower the stairs were taken down. However my legs were still feeling the burn and quivering the next day...you know, because I work out all the time. not.

{please note that none of these pictures truly capture the steepness of the San Fran hills}

Stairs of Telegraph Hill

We then took the trolley {different than the cute cable cars which I realized after thinking we had just ended up with an ugly one} to the Castro as the blog we were taking recommendations from told us to. Up until this point all the recommendations had been awesome!

And that begins the part I'm not sure that I'd recommend. The trolley was fine, but the area around the Castro and the Hot Cookie place weren't exactly worth our while. We continued to follow the recommendations of the blog by going climbing 2 miles to find the shopping at Haight-Ashbury. {Apparently the iphone maps can find you the shortest route, but they don't let you know that what you saved for in distance was made up for in steepness. Yep, pretty sure that the option that was just .2 of a mile longer was relatively flat. Oh well, we were still working off that amazing breakfast we had.}

For whatever reason, I thought this was going to be the Rodeo Drive of San Francisco. Nope, just a somewhat scary experience with terrible stores...but maybe we just missed the part that was supposed to be cool enough to list on a top 10 things to do in San Fran. So, after all of our climbing for the day we were d.o.n.e. and wanting to get back to the hotel. We abandoned the idea of shopping, even after our steep climb to get there and got on a bus that began to head in the wrong direction. Oh boy. Luckily, we were just able to laugh about it and pray that a cab would pass us soon. Finally one did...and the scary experience continued. Patrick and I were gripping each other's arms as our driver, listening to his calm jazz music, took us down the wrong sides of the road to get around traffic, raced, slammed on breaks, etc. We were happy to see our room with a view and thankful for an elevator to get us to there. :)

And I'm pretty sure the above chair is where my day 1 ended, as I crashed in it while Patrick watched the Masters. I don't even think I ate dinner that night due to exhaustion.

Day 2:

This day was a lot more relaxed because Patrick had some work to do. We started off our day with breakfast at the hotel and getting on the cable car...the cute ones. Our hotel was conveniently located just a block away from where both cable car lines end and have to be manually turned around to head back in the other direction.

We grabbed lunch at a burger place across from our hotel, and then I napped while Patrick went to his meeting. We then got back on the cable cars and headed to Fisherman's Warf for dinner at Scoma's- recommended by the blog and a local there. We walked around a bit before heading back to the hotel again...nice to have a much more relaxed day after all that we had packed into day 1.

Coit Tower in the distance

view of Alcatraz

Day 3:
This day was probably our favorite! We rented a car and headed to the Golden Gate. We did this our first trip, but loved it so much we wanted to do it again. We parked and walked part of the bridge. I definitely recommend walking it, you just don't get the full grandness of it when you simply drive over it.

We then headed to Sausilito for lunch-a favorite from a trip that one of my best friend's took. This was a recommendation I knew I could trust.  This place is precious! It feels like a European village and the views are gorgeous! We had lunch at Bar Bocce and then walked to find some ice cream-and ate it with the most gorgeous of views.

view at lunch

 

ice cream with a view. I'll take ice cream regardless of view, but with a view is even better. 

We then headed to Muir Woods and saw the giant redwoods. It was unreal. Headed in, I wasn't sure it was going to be all that I had pictured it in my head because the drive in didn't seem too cool...but I guess they saved it all for the park. And we kept telling ourselves that if it is a national park, it has to be worth it. There wasn't a parking space for over a mile away from the park, another sign that it must be good. Once we got in there, we realized that it was in fact exactly what I had pictured in my head with trees bigger than you can imagine...and definitely worth the title of a national park.

Instead of heading back to San Francisco, we decided to drive out to Sonoma for a wonderful dinner at a place called The Girl and the Fig. It was torture for this pregnant girl to be in wine country without any wine though.

 We then headed back to the airport for our red eye flight back home to see our sweet girl. I wouldn't recommend a red eye flight...but a sweet little girl to come home to, that one comes highly recommended. ;)