City By The Bay

A few months ago, Nikki's friend, who lives in Sacramento, won tickets to a concert called Poptopia, and invited Nikki to go with her.  Nikki worked hard and bought herself an airline ticket for Sacramento for the weekend so she could hang out with her friend and attend the concert. Because I was a worried mom, I didn't want her to travel alone to somewhere she has never been, so Stan and I decided to make a weekend out of it and head to Northern California with her while she was there.

We arrived in Sacramento late Friday afternoon.  Neither Stan nor I had ever been and really thought it was a nice airport and looked like a nice city.  We weren't staying in Sacramento, though.  We said goodbye to Nikki as she was greeted at the airport by her friend, Matilda, and Stan and I took off to the city by the bay.

We actually didn't stay in San Francisco.  We stayed on the east side of the bay in a small town called Emeryville.  Emeryville is located right on the bay in between Berkley and Oakland.  Not sure I'd call it a town, as it is only 1.2 square miles and it consists of hotels, shopping, and apartments.  But it was very clean and nice.  Our hotel was the Hyatt Place and was located on a shopping district with upscale shops that reminded me a little of Downtown Disney.  It was nice because for dinner both nights of our stay, we just walked to a restaurant and did some window shopping.

The Emeryville shopping district on our first night.

This was the view from our hotel room.  You can see the Bay Bridge and if you look carefully, the Golden Gate Bridge in the far background.

We woke up the first morning to a bit overcast weather.  We had a yummy breakfast at the hotel then set out to go into the city.  It was cool and cloudy, but not rainy.  

Driving over the Bay Bridge

Our first stop was AT&T stadium.  Since it was Saturday and not baseball season, the streets were relatively empty and we found parking right across the street and just walked around the stadium.  There was some sort of crossfit challenge going on inside, but not busy outside.

There was a crossfit challenge going on, but we got to peek inside.

ASU alum represents

McCovey Cove

Resident of McCovey Cove.  He was kinda cute.

Right when we got back into the car, I shut my door and not even a second later, there was a huge downpour.  So, we decided to drive around and to figure out where everything was.  We headed a but north to Fisherman's Wharf, but it was still pouring so we didn't get out to walk around.  We drove a bit further on and came to Ghirardelli Square.  The rain stopped and the sun came out, so we decided to explore some more.

Alcatraz from Fisherman's Wharf

Ghirardelli Square.  Cute little shopping area.

The beach across the street from Ghirardelli Square.  You can see the Golden Gate Bridge from here.  

After window shopping some more and talking to some of the employees for ideas on what to do, we walked over to the cable car station (not sure what you'd call it).  We got a passport and caught the next cable car.  We had intended on taking it to China Town, but the hills are really steep and Stan's bad back and legs wouldn't be able to handle it, so we took the Cable Car to Union Square.

Some of the row houses on the steep hills of SF.  I can't imagine having to parallel park on those steep hills. 

Union Square.  Lots of tall buildings in the big city.

The Macy's at Union Square.  We ate lunch on the patio by the Macy's sign.

There was an ice rink and this big Christmas tree.

More of the big city.

At lunch.  The weather was nice, so we ate on the patio at the top of Macy's.  Stan just admiring the view.

This visitor joined us for lunch. I named him Fred.  He was on the outside of the glass wall, but seemed very interested in what we were doing.

Selfie time.  Notice that it was so nice out that we didn't have to even wear jackets part of the time. 

The cable cars stop at the end of the tracks and are turned around by hand on this wooden circle.

Where the cable cars turn around at Union Square.

I just thought this building was pretty from this angle.

After visiting Union Square, we went back on the cable car up the hill to where we parked and then headed to the Golden Gate Bridge.  That was Stan's number one thing to do on this trip.

Driving across the bridge.  It's not very long and many people walk it (on the right) or ride a bike across (on the left)

Once we got across, we stopped at the view point for some photos.  

Downtown San Francisco

Selfie 2 from the other side of the bridge.

Further up, there are more view points with amazing views.

From the bridge, we drove back into the city and drove toward the western coast.  We drove through Golden Gate Park, which reminded me a bit of Balboa Park in San Diego, with a bunch of different areas to explore.

There was a Dutch Windmill at Golden Gate Park, so I had to get a photo for my Dutch husband.

Made it to the western side of San Francisco.  The beach was pretty empty, probably because it was COLD and windy.  It wasn't my idea of the beach and we didn't stay long.

There was graffiti everywhere

The sunset was pretty.

Pretty much summarizes San Francisco.  

I was loving the architecture.  So much detail in these old buildings.

Almost every house looked like this

That ended our day in the city.  We knew we couldn't possibly get to everything in one day, but it was a full day and I feel like we did a lot.  One day we will be back and do more, but it was so much fun and we were blessed to get such beautiful weather.  From what everyone tells us, that doesn't happen too often.  

The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and drove to Napa.  It was a pretty drive.  Of course, this time of year, the vineyards weren't green, but it was pretty anyways.  Napa is such a cute town.  We visited a public market, which had so much produce I've never heard of.  We walked around the downtown area,  and just drove around.  Stan and I want to spend more time here some summer.

Napa has very old buildings with lots of detail.  Everything is so old, but so much is being renovated, like this building. 

Downtown Napa has so many beautiful Victorian homes.  I'd love to see inside one.

Even the movie theater was old.

The vineyards look like this in December.

From Napa, we headed back to Sacramento.  There happened to be a marathon, so we got stuck in that traffic downtown, but it was another cute city. (the winner of the marathon was from AZ and was on our plane to CA and coming home.  Everyone clapped for her as she boarded ).  Then we went to pick up Nikki, who had a blast.  She shared some photos from her fun weekend.

As I mentioned before, Nikki came to California as a guest to a concert that her friend won tickets to.  Somehow, they found out which plane her favorite singers (Jack and Jack) were on and they went to the airport.They actually found them as they were at baggage claim and they posed for photos with the girls.

Nikki and Jack

Nikki and Jack

Nikki and Matilda had VIP Meet and Greet tickets and had another opportunity for photos with Jack and Jack.  Nikki already has tickets to see them when they come to Tempe in April.

That was the end of our whirlwind trip to Northern California. We all had such a good time and I think we need to learn to be more impulsive like that once in awhile and just do things like weekend getaways to new places.