Sunday, April 24, 2011

There's No Place Like Home

Happy Easter, Stylenation!  Fella and I got back from our trip to California last night.  The trip was pretty great, save for a broken camera and some nasty food poisoning, and we saw a lot of really cool stuff.  That said, it's good to be back in Chicago, sleep in my own bed again and most importantly, see Jude again!  Here's a few pictures from the trip.

Europe Street
We spent the first part of the trip in Hollywood, where above, we went to Universal Studios. My new ride is bolted to the ground, though I'm sure it'd be fun riding along the winding roads and hills of Hollywood.

Santa Monica Pier
After leaving the LA area, we stopped at the Santa Monica Pier for some quality beach time.

Sunset
We drove along the coast and saw some pretty beautiful sunsets over the Pacific.  This one was just south of San Simeon.

Hearst Castle
We visited the Hearst Castle. It's a pretty amazing place, you know, if you're into giant mansions situated on the top of a hill, overlooking the ocean.

Highway 1
Continuing north, we traveled on Highway 1 along the central coast.  It was gorgeous, but a little terrifying for this midwestern gal to drive on narrow, winding roads on cliffs above the Pacific Ocean.

Carmel
We stopped in Carmel while visiting the Monterey Peninsula.  It was a little too cold for swimming, but nice to walk along the beach.

Mariposa Grove
Our next stop was Yosemite National Park.  We got to see giant sequoias in Mariposa Grove.  I mean seriously, these trees are huge!

Yosemite Waterfall
Yosemite is also home to beautiful waterfalls, which are especially great to see in April because the snow on the mountains is beginning to melt.

Napa Valley
After leaving Yosemite, we stopped in Napa to visit my brother and some wineries.  Unfortunately for me, I was recovering from aforementioned food poisoning while in Napa, so I couldn't actually try any wine.  But lucky for Fella, he had me to drive him around the region.  The countryside there is just beautiful, but since our camera broke in Yosemite, we didn't get a ton of pictures in Napa.  So shoot, we'll have to go back.

Bay Bridge Sunset
Our next stop was the Bay area.  First we went to Oakland to see the first show of the first ever Railroad Revival Tour. The picture above is the sun setting over the Bay Bridge, as seen from Middle Harbor Shoreline Park.

Golden Gate Bridge
We spent our last day of the trip in San Francisco. We walked the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge, and drove across the bridge into Sausalito in Marin County. I was disappointed at the lack of Sausalito Cookies there, but the bridge was pretty cool anyway.

Lombard Street
We also walked up and down Lombard Street.  I have no idea how people in San Francisco deal with all of those hills on a daily basis - my calves definitely got a workout!

I'm slowly getting caught up on all of your blogs since I've had pretty limited internet access lately, but I hope you've all had a good couple of weeks!

18 comments:

  1. Looks like you guys had a great vacation. And such beautiful pictures. Welcome back!

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  2. Wow, looks like a really fun trip! Gorgeous photos!

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  3. This looks like an awesome vacation. I feel relaxed just looking at these pictures! I've only been to California once, but I loved it. Welcome back!

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  4. It looks like you had a wonderful trip! Thanks for sharing some of your photos with us!

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  5. Your photos are so fab, and it looks like it was a really fun vacation (aside from food poisoning, that must have been the pits.)

    I so need to visit the west coast!

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  6. What gorgeous photos and you certainly covered a lot of territory in one trip. You're right though that going away, no matter how fantastic the scenery, makes one appreciate home again. I'll bet Jude was ecstatic.

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  7. beautiful photos...looks like you had an amazing time...except the food poisoning!

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  8. Oh, so sorry about the food poisoning. That is horrible. I'm glad you guys otherwise had a good time though. I love these pictures - especially the tree-hugging one (what? I'm from Oregon. We love trees).

    Welcome back! And I hope you had a good Easter!!

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  9. Well, it certainly makes for a memorable trip! And I am STILL in awe of the giant sequoia trees out there. We have nothing even close to that big here.

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  10. There's just something about the familiarity of home that is so nice after time away.

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  11. If you haven't already, definitely try to make a trip out west! It took me until I was almost 30, but it was well worth the wait.

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  12. Key word being "some" - I got them all onto my computer and found that we took over 1,000 pictures!

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  13. We were constantly on the move, so I don't know if I'd call it relaxing :) Fun though!

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  14. Sounds like an amazing trip, rough spots notwithstanding! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

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  15. Whoo, looks like a fantastic trip, lots of fun things to see and do. I am LOLing at how many things we both own; it's like seeing my own closet out on vacation without me! :)

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  16. You know, Cynthia (from BFD) and I are planning a week of matching outfits sometime soon. I bet you and I could easily fill up a week!

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  17. I'm impressed you drove the coastal highway. When The Rocket Scientist and I did that drive last September, it made me so nauseous that the poor guy had to pull over at least ten times so I could...ahem...on the shoulder of the road.

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  18. Yikes! Thay's pretty much how our day at Yosemite went too. I...ahem'd....5
    times in the park! Once while walking up to the health clinic. I just hope I
    make it to other peoples' vacation anaecdotes. Like "hey remember when we
    were picnicking by that gorgeous waterfall and some girl puked all over the
    park?"

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