California, Here We Come (Part 1)

Friday, March 20

I had trouble sleeping....I was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning....or knowing they were leaving for Disney World the next day.

I still drug myself out of bed, and to work, and hour early. And...promptly left at 10 am when all my work was done.

On the way home, Robin called me. My boss called from the Houston airport...right after I walked out the door. Wouldn't you friggin' know!!!!! :-)

Mot and I spent the rest of the day getting ready for the trip, and driving around Omaha running errands...pretty much doing anything else we could to keep our minds off the vacation that was to start at 6:34, when our plane left for California. :-)

The boys (Danny and Steve) arrived at our house around 5:00 or so...and we headed to the airport.

The plane ride to Denver was good...and short. I sat in a row with the boys......



...while Mot was sweet and switched seats with a nice Korean lady and her daughter.



Supposedly her daughter spoke zero English and Mot didn't want mom and daughter separated. In reality, daughter was 16 or so, and slept the whole flight. She could have cared less who she sat by. Mot is such a sucker, I mean..nice guy!!! (and I'd be willing to bet the daughter spoke English just fine)

We got something to eat and played some pinochle at Lefty's in the Denver airport.

The flight from Denver to San Francisco was 7 years long. OK...maybe it was only 2 hours...but after the first hour, the minutes ticked away slower than a 70 degree Friday afternoon at work.

I sat next to a lady (Mot calls her a psycho), traveling with her daughter...who I later found out was her niece, but she called her her daughter. She was on her way to California to sign (sign language) for an awards ceremony for a friend of hers. She didn't handle the flight well...I thought I was going to be hurled upon at any second.

Turns out she had kidney stones, and spent her entire time in California in the hospital. I only know that, because she was also on our flight home...small world, eh?

We picked up our rental (Jeep commander) and headed to the hotel. Very nice. Right at Fisherman's Wharf. By that time, it was 1:00 am Pacific time (3:00 am our time), so we all headed straight for our rooms.

Saturday, March 21

We met first thing the next morning for breakfast at a small cafe a few blocks from the hotel...Pergamino.

World Famous Waffles (per their sign)...the first day, none of us got the waffles. Aren't we funny!

We did, however, have a wonderful mango orange juice. Yummy!!

From there, we headed to Fisherman's Wharf to see what we could see. It was still pretty early, so we basically had the place to ourselves. It was fun walking the streets, the sky overcast and threatening small bits and pieces of rain....watching the stores open...and the city come alive.



Chia Crab?



We stopped at quite a few shops on pier 39. We bought a bag of mini donuts, we shopped for a sweatshirt for Mot at the Hard Rock, and a taffy shop (there's a rumor, that Danny and Steve bought 37 pounds of taffy the last time they were there).

OK, maybe not 37 pounds. Might have been closer to 50???

Like I said, it's merely a rumor. That I may or may not be starting right now. :-)



Mot stumbled across a jewelry store where he found the COOLEST necklace for me...he's always got his eye out for really fun and unique jewelry. I love it!!!!



We also stopped at stores along the way to find a sweatshirt for Steve, a t-shirt for Danny, and hats....well, for no one specific.





We drooled at the window of a crepes place...avocado and turkey crepes, yum! And we bought truffles at Chocolate Heaven (or something like that).

One other stop, which the 4 of us would rather forget...the Aquarium of the Bay. I was about to put a link to it on my blog, but decided I really didn't want to spread the horror around. It was horribly expensive, and took us 10 minutes to walk through.

H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E.

Granted, they tell us allot of it was closed, because new exhibits were set to open in a few weeks...but they could have either closed their doors, or let people in for free.

What am I doing? Pictures speak louder than words. Below is our favorite part of the whole place.



Coin racing.

Need I say more????? :-)

(to be continued)



I will have all the pics posted of our trip on my webshots page....as soon as I get done blogging. I'll post a link when it's ready to go.