Napa and San Francisco

So this trip we just took to Napa and San Francisco was about a year in the making. Last summer Joyce and I were talking about their impending 30th wedding anniversary and what they were planning on doing and during that phone call we decided that it would be fun if we could all celebrate it together. In talking, Joyce mentioned that they had always wanted to go to Napa and San Francisco and I said that we had talked about it as well so we decided to make it happen.
We all flew into San Francisco on Sunday and drove up to Napa because that's where we were spending the next several days.  We had arranged for a private tour of Napa on Monday and ended up going to 5 boutique vineyards on Monday.  It was the best way to do Napa as far as we were concerned.  The driver had taken care of all of the reservations and did all of the driving so we didn't even need to have one of us be the DD (even though Mark doesn't drink wine). 

On Tuesday we were on our own and we did 3 more vineyards and a distillery.  I think we were all about done with the wine tastings by this point and the tasting at the distillery was phenomenal!  We learned that we basically have been drinking our spirits incorrectly and learned how to do "boozy yoga" (just ask me about it the next time you see me).

On Wednesday we had arranged a bus tour of Muir Woods and Alcatraz Island and we were very glad that someone else was having to deal with parking and the traffic.  Let me back up a little here.  Unbeknownst to us, we scheduled our week's vacation during Pride Week.  So to add to the craziness of San Francisco tourist season, add almost 600,000 more visitors that were there simply to celebrate Pride Week.  They were estimating that there would be 1 million people in downtown SF on Saturday and Sunday to celebrate.  UGH!  Now don't get me wrong...I don't care to be around 1 million of ANYTHING...Baptists, Kindergartners, or Oklahomans (wink).  That's just tooooo many people in one area for me to want to deal with.  So back to my story.  

Muir Woods was really beautiful and it is so hard for me to believe that it is located just a few miles North of the Golden Gate Bridge.  If developers had their wish they would have chopped down these impressive trees years ago and built houses on them.  But fortunately this is a National Park site and that will never happen; at least not in my lifetime.  These trees are much taller than the sequoias that are found in Sequoia National Park but theirs are bigger around.  We are planning to see them once we are on the road full time!

Alcatraz was pretty interesting too.  I had always heard about this place and Mark and I had wanted to see it so I guess we can mark that one off of our bucket lists now.  

The remaining days we spent on a Hop On- Hop Off bus and toured the rest of San Francisco.  Amongst other things we did a walking tour of Chinatown, saw Height Asbury, crossed The Golden Gate Bridge a few times, saw Sausalito, Union Station, Fisherman's Wharf, and Lombard Street. We were going to ride a cable car but the lines were hours long and we didn't particularyly want to waste time waiting for 3 hours for a 20 minute ride. Next time!

All in all it was a GREAT week spent with our very best friends celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary!  Cheers Paul and Joyce!!