Home

While I could probably write pages and pages on the wonderful week's vacation Erin and I just returned from, I'll try to summarize :) This was a 2-part vacation, driven by the fantastic wedding of my friend John from college, and his (now) wife Lillian.

We started out last Wednesday evening driving to Roseville to stay with my wonderful cousin Cindy who always volunteers to be our bed and taxi service to the airport so we can save money on parking, extra flights from Rochester, and most of all sleep. We woke up at 4am and were at the airport by 5:15am ready for our 6:30 flight. After a short stop in Denver, lots of coffee, and another short flight to San Diego, we get there - and it's 10am Pacific time! The morning that never ends! Fortunately we had the whole day Thursday to relax, recover, and adjust to the time zone (we went to bed at 7:30). Friday was a wonderful day seeing all the arriving old friends, as well as new friends at the wedding rehearsal (I had the honor of being a "grooms-person" - there were men and women on both sides of the wedding party, which I think was SO cool). Rehearsal dinner at a great Mexican place in Olde Town called Cafe Coyote, and back to the hotel for some sleep for the big day. Saturday the weather was beautiful (really always is there), not too hot, and was just perfect at 5:15pm when the wedding started (preceded by the wedding party men sharing So Co shots in my hotel room). Reception across the street at the Museum of Conteporary Art in La Jolla, overlooking the ocean (the hotel, church, and gallery were all within 2 blocks - awesome). Great appetizers, dinner, cake, dancing, and then quite a late-night after party at Jack's - La Jolla night club, which was quite upscale - John's grandma even attended!

Sunday morning we got to have a leisurely breakfast with best friends John & Jen and their 2 kids at a little place called The Cottage - a hidden treasure of a restaurant in La Jolla. Our flight left at 1:00pm to San Fran, so we hopped on the shuttle and arrived mid-afternoon, picked up our rental car, and made our way through downtown to our hotel on Fisherman's Wharf. Had it not been for our Sonoma wine tour which we really had to drive to, I think a car would not have been necessary, as it really was harder to drive and park anywhere than it was to take public transit. We walked around and had sourdough bread sandwiches for dinner Sunday evening, and made our way to Pier 33 for a boat trip and tour of Alcatraz - quite cool - by the time we got there it was getting foggy and darker, which made everything just a bit eerie and authentic.

Monday, after breakfast at the IHOP which was attached to our hotel (Erin was VERY excited about this), we headed up the 101 across the Golden Gate Bridge - in the fog - which made it quite a cool experience. Weather was beautiful the rest of the way up, and really the rest of the day, for our wine tour in Sonoma. We had a small bus full of people and a great tour guide/driver and we managed to hit 5 wineries. I am now well educated in wine, and, sadly, probably very spoiled now, because I now know that the cheap $5 bottles of Yellow Tail just aren't the same as what we tasted out there - this wine was amazing. We even signed up for the Benziger Wine Club, which sends you 6 shipments a year of a couple bottles of their newest and finest. A short stop at The Red Grape pizzaria in Sonoma which had some of the best pizza I've ever had, and we headed back to San Fran, making a detour around the other side of the bay to pick up a friend of Erin's who was stuck without a car, to hang out and catch up with him.



Tuesday we slept a bit later in the morning and then realized we didn't really have time to figure out how to get to the Castro District for the Castro Tour we signed up for - so we drove - really probably not the smartest idea as it took forever to park and then it was 2-hour parking so we had to move the car. As it turned out it was ok, the tour was 2 hours, we moved the car, spent some more time walking around and eating lunch, and then headed back to the hotel via Golden Gate Park (really just drove through it, as we didn't have time to stop). Ghiradelli Square was on Erin's list of things to see, and 5 blocks from our hotel, so we went down to load up on chocolate-y goodness before dinner with some friends we met at John & Lillian's wedding in SD, at a place called Luna Park - this time we were smart enough to figure out the mass transit, which was much quicker and simpler to use than driving and parking!

Early plane ride out of SF (9am) which meant getting up at 5:30am to get there, ditch the car, and get checked in. Short hop to Phoenix, longer ride to Minneapolis, picked up by Cindy, and off to home (there was an accident on 52 which took us some doing to get around, but nothing too bad). I'm sure we were more excited to see the kitties than they were to see us but they were there waiting!