Caliblog (Sarah's version)

Thanks for the nudge, Dad. I've been needing to post about our California trip, too, so here ya go. (If you read my blog, this is just a repeat of the post I have there.)

We decided kind of at the last minute to drive to the Bay area for Thanksgiving this year. My Dad's family would be gathering there this year and of course Aaron's parents are nearby, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We'd planned to leave on Saturday, but we didn't want to deal with the snow that was hitting the Sierras so we waited. We drove as far as Winnemucca on Sunday and spent the night, then headed out again Monday morning. The closer we got to the Sierras the worse the weather got. Luckily we'd bought snow chains for our tires and some other emergency items like some flares, a small shovel, extra water and a wind-up flashlight. We knew the passes would be bad so we watched for signs indicating that we'd need our chains and listened to the AM stations for road condition announcements. The radio stations said they were requiring chains but we never came across anyone enforcing it, so on we went. We got through the mountains okay but they weren't too far behind us before we heard on the radio that they'd shut down the freeway behind us. That was a close one.

Tuesday Aaron and I spent the day exploring (more on that soon) while Dad and Kimberly took the kids to the coast. (See the previous post for details on that.)

Wednesday was a girls' day out to see the city. Mom, Kimberly and I took the BART into San Francisco and walked to Pier 39. Lunch was at one of the many seafood restaraunts there and I had the tiniest half a crab I've ever seen. Oh, but it was good.

This is my Momma and my cute littlest sister, Jennifer.

And this is my other cute little sister, Kimberly and her dorky big sister.



Couldn't resist taking a photo of this GINORMOUS bottle of booze with Mom's name on it. It's not often that you see "Pama" on anything.





We window shopped on the pier then walked on down through Fisherman's Wharf. Kimberly and Jennifer shared a shrimp cocktail and I bought a loaf of San Francisco's famous sour dough bread.

We made our way further to Ghirardelli square, where we visited the chocolate shop and then the cafe and enjoyed some lovely hot chocolate.

We'd walked a loooong way from the BART station so we found a map and plotted the most direct route back that we could. This mural was really cool and wrapped around the building. I guess the Giants are kind of a big deal this year? :)

Our walk took us by Chinatown...

... and that cool green building that I took a picture of from a distance on our last visit.

And then there was the Transamerica building. Wow. I got dizzy taking this picture.

It was a long day with LOTS of walking, but was so much fun and I just loved hanging out with my Mom and sisters. We never get to do that!

On Thanksgiving Day we had a lazy morning then headed over to Uncle' Bart's house for the feast.
The guys tossed around the football a bit and the kids played outside almost the entire time. The meal was PERFECT and we got to spend time with people that we don't get to see nearly often enough. It was wonderful! I felt kind of bad that I got to enjoy the whole thing without having to lift a finger!


On Friday we packed up and drove north to Windsor to Aaron's parents' house. Grandma Gayla was all ready to have the kids help her decorate their tree, and the kids were eager to do it.



We wanted to give ourselves two days to get home so we left about mid-morning on Saturday with lots of rain coming down. Once we got to the mountains we saw a lot of people pulling over to install their tire chains and eventually we had to do the same. We pulled off at an exit and spent about forty minutes putting the chains on (first time ever), then as we were getting ready to get back on the freeway we found that they'd closed it down due to several accidents that had happened up ahead. We sat in the car for an hour then finally decided to ask the guy blocking the on-ramp what was going on. He said it'd probably be several more hours before they opened the road again, if at all.

So we took our chains off and headed back the way we'd come. We were lucky to be towards the front of the mass of cars that had gotten stopped so it was easy for us to turn around. We found a motel, got some dinner and had a good night's sleep.

On Sunday we woke up to clear blue skies and started making our way home again.



When we got to the freeway we did end up having to pull over again to put on our chains, but just as we were finishing up a State Trooper came by and said they were lifting the restrictions, so off they came. Good practice, though!

You know, it's funny- when it's not threatening your life or ruining your vacation, snow is actually really pretty.