Friday March 22nd 2013 - Day One

We arrived late Friday night at our flat in San Francisco. We were located on Fell Street just a block from Alamo Square. This is considered part of the group of Western Addition neighborhoods and is very near the Haight-Ashbury area. Doris and Martha arrived earlier and got a change to eat dinner at Japan town, which is also near where we are staying. We purchased City Passes for the four of us, which included admissions to various attractions including Alcatraz and a MUNI pass for our transportation around the city.

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Saturday March 23rd 2013 - Day Two

On our second day of our San Francisco trip, we visited Chinatown.  We took a tour from the City Guides and ate lunch at Utopia Cafe. We did a fair amount of shopping around the area, then walked to the Coit tower for some views. For dinner, we headed into North Beach for some Pizza at Caffe BaoNecci.

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Sunday March 24th 2013 - Day Three

On our third day of our San Francisco trip, our first stop was the Aquarium of the Bay. This is a small aquarium on the wharf and was included in our city pass. The large aquarium with the tunnel walkway was neat. It is well done but small, so we got through it pretty quick. We next did another tour from the City Guides in the Pacific Heights area. This is an area we had not visited before; where San Francisco’s wealthiest families live.  We again enjoyed the houses, views and a very informative guide.  Or next stop was a tour of the Haas-Lilienthal house. This is really the only Victorian Mansion in San Francisco that is publicly owned and you can tour. We enjoyed seeing the inside and how the family and their servants lived and worked.  Our final stop of the day for dinner was to the Stinking Rose restaurant. Doris and I went there many years ago on our first trip to San Francisco and we wanted to take the girls.  We had lots of garlic loaded food and even finished off our meal with some garlic ice cream.  It was actually quite good, although I would not consider buying it at home.  

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Monday March 25th 2013 - Day Four

Monday was Doris’ birthday.  We celebrated with a trip to Golden Gate Park.  Our first stop was the Japanese Tea Garden. Doris and I had not been there before.  It was a nice time of the year to visit with a lot of plants starting to bud or flower.  We had tea in the tea garden’s tea house. Our next stop was right next door at the California Academy of Sciences. This is a combination museum, zoo, IMAX theatre and Aquarium.  We really enjoyed the variety of exhibits they had. After that stop, we headed west for a quick stop at the tulip garden at the west end, and then on to the coast. We spent the early evening hiking around the Land’s end area Sutro Baths ruins, which are part of the southwestern most part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). We ate dinner at Louis’ restaurant, which is within the GGNRA. The girls found the idea of these baths interesting with our love of swimming and we saw some great pictures of that in the restaurant. We caught some great views of the coastline at dusk during dinner and then headed home.

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Tuesday March 26th 2013 - Day Five

Tuesday was a big day for the girls. We visited Alcatraz. The girls had been looking forward to this all trip.  Doris and I had also enjoyed it as we had visited twice before on our previous trips.  The girls had both read the children’s books ‘Al Capone does my shirts’ and ‘Al Capone shines my shoes’ by Gennifer Choldenko, along with other books from our previous trips. We took one of the first boats out and spent over half the day there.  When we returned, we spent the remainder of our day on Fisherman’s Wharf. We got in a cable car ride, did some shopping and visited Ghirardelli Square for some wonderful chocolate and ice cream.

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Wednesday March 27th 2013 - Day Six

Wednesday was a transition day for us.  We left the flat and got car to start the second half of our trip outside the city.  Since we got the car, we had to take a drive down Lombard Street. The girls were very excited to do that. Afterwards, we had a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked the bridge and checked out the visitor center and exhibits. When we were done with the bridge, we visited Sausalito for lunch and also checked out the house boats in the Marina. Our next stop was the Marine Mammal Center. This is located in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge in the area that was previously a Nike Missile Site. The center serves as a hospital for rehabilitation of injured marine mammals such as sea lions, sea otters, seals and others.  That was a big hit with everyone, definitely Martha.  We left the San Francisco area and headed south to stay the night at Monterey. For the next several years, we plan on combining in some college visits with our family trips. Monica was interested in Visiting Stanford, which is located in Palo Alto, just outside of San Jose. This is the heart of the Silicon Valley, home to many large technology companies. We enjoyed our campus visit, then headed to Monterey and our Hotel for the night.

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Thursday March 28th 2013 - Day Seven

Thursday was our first day along the ‘Big Sur’ Pacific coast. We spent the morning on a Whale Cruise out of Monterey. Our charter was through Chris’ Fishing Trips, which does whale charters and fishing trips. Monterey is part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. One of the main reasons why this area is so rich in marine life is due to the Monterey Canyon. The topology of the ocean floor in this area is the reason why there so much marine life in this area. On our trip we saw Humpback whales. There were gray whales that were also in the area but we didn’t have a confirmed sighting of any of those. We saw whales for the vast majority of our cruise once we got out to their feeding area. The sea was quite calm (according to their standards) and we had a good morning without any sea sickness or weather issues. When we were done with the cruise, we ate at the Old Fisherman’s Grotto on the wharf. This place had the best clam chowder I’ve ever had. We then headed over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was a beautiful aquarium, definitely rivaling or passing Chicago’s. It did not have a large Oceanarium like Chicago does, but everything else about it was as good or better in my opinion. We ate dinner at Lopez Restaurante and then headed back to our hotel for the evening.

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Friday March 29th - Day Eight

Friday we spent exploring the Big Sur Coast. In our drive down, we cross over the Bixby Bridge, one of the most photographed spots along the cost. This was just one of many spots with beautiful vistas. We eventually arrived at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. This is a small park, created primarily for McWay falls and the river upstream into the mountains. The falls are very easy to reach off the parking area. We also hiked up in the opposite direction into the canyon that feeds it on the Ewoldsen trail. After exploring there, we headed over to Pfeiffer Big Sur state park. In this park we did a hike to Buzzard’s Roost and explored Pfeiffer Beach. This beach is just below the state park is actually part of the Los Padres National Forest. This was a very scenic area that we really enjoyed and spent a lot of time at. The parking area is very small, so if you go, you may need to wait in line for it. We headed back to Monterey for the evening.

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Saturday March 30th - Day Nine

Saturday we left Monterey to head down the coast again with our final destination of San Simeon. Our first stop was the Point Sur Lightstation. This was a bit off the radar for us as we just determined the day before that this was something we may be interested in. The views from the lighthouse were incredible. This was a three hour tour and it was easy to understand why when we got there.  We did a fair amount of walking, but it was well worth it. It was a fascinating operation to see and imagine how the many families lived at this remote and challenging environment. Our next stop was a quick stop at the Pacific Valley Bluff Trail farther down the coast. This was another nice place to hike, our last one along the coast for the trip.  We stopped for a quick dinner at Sebastian’s Store for some tasty hamburgers, then headed over to the Elephant Seal Rookery. The rookery is very much like visiting the seals at the zoo, but you are at a beach. Most of the year there are hundreds of seals here to view.  The girls loved watching them. After our visit to the rookery, we went for our evening tour at the Hearst Castle. We did the evening tour, which was a bit longer and also had the benefit of ‘actors’ placed around the grounds and house to enhance your tour experience. The Castle is a fascinating place, very expansive, lavish and extravagant. It’s hard to really appreciate in one visit.  I’d definitely go back there for another look; it’s well worth the drive down from San Francisco. We had a short drive from the Castle over to our hotel in San Simeon.

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Sunday March 31st - Day Ten

Sunday was our last full day of our trip. We needed to drive from San Simeon back north to San Francisco; our flight back was Monday morning.  We drove to Pinnacles National Monument to see the sights there.  Pinnacles is located the Gabilan Mountains, east of central California's Salinas Valley. This is the valley area south of San Jose (i.e. Silicon Valley). Much of it is agricultural and the remainder is not, making it completely deserted (other than for places like Pinnacles). While not a large park, we loved our visit here and would definitely recommend it to anyone who passes through this area.  We entered from the east and hiked from the Bear Gulch day use area to the Bear Gulch Reservoir. The Bear Gulch Talus Caves made this hike a must see.  The caves vary from fully enclosed to cracks and crevices between the pinnacles rock formations.  The hike requires flashlights and some hands and knees crawling.  The girls loved it. It’s not hard though; you only really encounter about 15 minutes of that part, but it’s definitely the most fun. The top at the reservoir rewards you with wonderful views.  When we were done with Pinnacles, we headed over to the Winchester House in San Jose. This house was built by Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Winchester. He experienced a series of deaths of her only child, husband and father in law in quick secession. She felt that her family was cursed, and sought out spiritualists to determine what she should do. A Boston medium, believed to be a psychic, allegedly told her that the Winchester family was cursed by the spirits of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle, and she should move west to build a house for herself and the spirits. The medium is claimed to have told Sarah that if construction on the house ever stopped, she would join her husband and infant daughter. She had 20 million from the family fortune (Winchester Rifles), so there was 38 years straight of 24x7 construction on the house. It’s huge. It has 160 rooms and 47 fireplaces, but that’s just part if it, the house contains many features that were utilized to trap or confuse spirits. There are doors that are small or lead nowhere and windows that look into other parts of the house. We took the inside and outside tours, which filled up the remainder of our afternoon. We drove north to the San Francisco airport and our hotel for the evening. We flew home to Milwaukee the next morning.

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