California Trip Day 4-San Fancisco, Hwy 1

It was another early day. We were up and ready to go a little after 7. We ate breakfast at the Inn, all they had was toast and juice. Jaycee spilled a cup of juice. The lady that worked there was pretty mad. There was also nowhere to sit and eat, so we had to take it back up to our room, which also had nowhere to sit. It was kind of a joke.

Today we were on our own.

We went to see if we could see the Golden Gate Bridge better, we could not. 

So we walked over to see the Wave Organ.

The tide was low, so we didn't get to hear the organ, there was also a bum sleeping on the organ.

We could kind of see Alcatraz.

Then we went and drove down Lombard Street.

That was fun. The kids were like "Why are we driving down this street?"

We drove over to Pier 39, but didn't stop, we couldn't see any sea lions and we didn't want to spend $30 on parking.

So we started down the 101 again.

We stopped at a little fruit stand and bought strawberries and peaches and took a potty break.

Then we stopped at Panther Beach.

It was a little tricky getting down to the beach, it was pretty steep.

We walked under a natural bridge to the ocean. 

I am pretty sure the ocean calls him.

Right when we got here a big wave came and got Bensen and scared him pretty good.

Bensen and Viv didn't love the water.

Jaycee and Wesley loved it!

The waves were pretty big and it made me nervous having them in the water. 

I kept thinking they were going to get swept away.

We stayed for about an hour. The tide started to come up so we decided we better leave. A lady cleaning up the garbage (there was sooo much garbage)warned us we needed to get to the other side of the arch or we would be stuck until the tide went back down.

After we hiked back to our car and started the hassle of changing everyones wet, sticky, sandy clothes. It was sure a mess.

Then we saw some natural bridges. We went to Mosslanding to see some sea lions, but we couldn't find it. We did find a place where we could see whales and we saw two sea lions.

After that we started for Big Sur. We were a little worried because to get out (there was a mud slide last year so the road is closed, so you have to turn around and come back) traffic really wasn't moving. We were hoping it would be better on our way out.

We saw Bixby Bridge.

And McWay Falls.

We couldn't find the purple sand beach.

Overall I don't think it was worth it.  It took us forever to get out. 9 miles took us about 3 hours! 

When we got to our hotel we decided to go get some dinner. We picked Black Bear Dinner. It was okay. then we went back and crashed!

California Trip Day 3-Avenue of the Giants, and San Fancisco

As we were driving we saw the signs for the Avenue of the Giants which we were hopping to see that night (to keep us on schedule for the next day), so we took the exit.

We saw the Immortal Tree.

The Eternal Tree House.

And Shrine drive thru Tree. We were too big do drive through, but they had some cute Tree houses.

You know whats funny, I didn't actually take a picture of the drive through tree. Oops.

Mike still wasn't feeling great. By this time it was about 9:30 and getting dark. We had a pretty packed day, so we went and found our hotel and went to bed!

Then next day was another early morning. We had Poptarts and Cliff Bars for breakfast. Then we went to meet up with Emily and Josh, they have been camping. They weren't ready to go yet, so we decided to go and see a few things that we missed the day before in the Avenue of Giants.

Today we saw the Tall Tree, and the Flat Iron Tree.

One of my favorite trails was the Founders Trail. Of course the kids loved it all!

Then we left the Avenue of the Giants and headed down the 101 highway.

We stopped at the Chandelier Tree.

We were too big to fit through the tree, so we put the kids in with Grandma and Grandpa and took picture of them driving through. 😃

We had a picnic of PB&J before we headed to our next destination.

We continued down the 101 to Fort Briggs and the Glass Beach.

There really was a lot of glass. 

Wesley found a hermit crab that he really wanted to bring home.

Right when we got here Grandpa and Bensen went straight for the water, a big wave came and got them all wet.

So Bensen warmed up on some rocks, and watched the seals.

After the beach we had about a 3 and a half hour drive to San Francisco. 

When we got there it was foggy.

We did drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was so foggy we couldn't really see anything.

We stayed at the Mirage Inn. The kids thought the bathroom was amazing.

Mike is feeling some better, still not sure if he passed his stone. I have been keeping in contact with my family. Jaime seems to be doing okay.

So far Bensen's favorite about our trip so far was the soft bed in our first hotel. Jaycee says the ocean, Wesley says the ocean, more specifically the hermit crabs. Viv's favorite was hiking, Mikes was the trees, he really liked the Founders Trail.