Craigmile Crew: California Days 1 and 2

Hiiiiiiiiiiii! How have you been?

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat, then you know Reid and I just got back from a little Vaca.

We went to California. My first time to California! It was a lot of fun! A little before Christmas we had decided on heading to California, where we would stay a few nights in San Francisco and then drive the coast over a period of a few days and eventually fly out of LA. Reid agreed to go, as long as I wouldn't be overly detailed in planning so that we were free to do what we wanted and not tied down to a schedule. I obliged and Reid was overly impressed :)

We knew it was going to be a sight seeing trip and not one where we'd come home with a tan. We also knew that it was a gamble for what the weather would be like in Cali, but I was hopeful as the Super Bowl pictures were blue skies and brilliant sunshine. I didn't expect MN to have warmer weather than Cali. Oh well, we still had an awesome time and when we really needed it to not rain, it didn't.

Sooooo some recap for you, but really mostly for me so that I can some day look back and remember.

Grandma came down Tuesday night because we had an early flight Wednesday morning. Early, as in, we left the house at 3am.

We were hopeful that a Caribou would open before our plane departed...it did. Hoooray!

I also wanted Reid to take a picture because it's a rare seen to see me travel with just a purse!!

Cheers to some unscheduled no kiddo few days

We had a layover in Denver. Daddy spotted this Eagle, can you guess how much it would be to buy? $6,000 and an additional $600 to ship!

The girls did fantastic (thank you Grandparents!). Before we left, I was surprised at how sad Sally was. She was nervous for us to fly. A few weeks prior she had read an article for school on Amelia Earhart. Yep, she was sooooo brave, but her plane crashed in the ocean and she was never found. Not awesome information for a 1st grader who's parents are about to fly over the ocean.

We had a little talk about Faith and taking chances and trusting in the Lord and not living a life in fear. Eventually she came to and gave us her blessing to go. Throughout our departure day there were little things that I sent to Grandma so she could reassure Sally.

One was seeing the sunrise from up in the sky (pay no attention to the dirty plane window)

Drinks before our flights, with a little Mountain View

Our plane was delayed an extra hour, we enjoyed our time of just hanging out, kid-free

Another reminder for Sally is her love for Bunnies and how she named her bunny Nimbus, after cumulonimbus clouds. The plane we rode was Frontier and each plane has an animal associated with it, our plane's animal was a bunny names Jack. If you look closely you can see it on the wing, pictured with cumulonimbus clouds below :)

We had looked ahead at the weather forecast and knew it was pretty likely that Wednesday, the day we landed would be the only day without rain. We had really wanted to rent bikes to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. We had researched that that was the best way to experience the bridge. We "pushed" through. Even though we had been up since 2am, we still rented those bikes and bike and the bridge. I'm so glad we did.

It was a lot of fun and a lot of giggles!

Easy on the breaks, Craigy ;)

The selfie stick came in real handy during our trip :)

Uber was an awesome thing throughout our time in San Fran. We didn't schedule a rental car until we were leaving town so relied on Uber quite often.

After we dropped off our bikes (Sports Basement (reference of where we rented bikes)). We ubered back to the Wharf area where our hotel (Zephyr) and had a quick drink and dinner at The Wipeout

The next day we had breakfast at Hollywood Cafe. The kind around the corner where the locals go--Thank you Trip Advisor!! It was delicious! We reserved our tickets for our bus tour and prayed for the rain to hold off as long as it could. It held out for 2 of the 4 hours, but we braved it!

I always think the bus tours are very much worth their price, a great way to experience the city!

Thankfully they handed out raincoats.

Quick stop for a turn around after the Golden Gate Bridge

After our bus tour we head to the pier for some Chowder to dry off

We walked around and checked out the Sea Lions

Alcatraz in the background. We didn't take the tour of Alcatraz. Reid did it way back when he came to Cali with his mom in 1994 and since we only had a few hours in the city we wanted to explore more.