Trip #2, Part 1: Trolleys and Tall Trees (a.k.a. San Francisco and Yosemite)

The thing about vacation posts is that sometimes it feels akin to Grandpa pulling out the slide projector and insisting that his family and friends look at the 427 slides of the cruise he just took.

(And that example is based on real life, as I vividly recall my grandfather -- whom I called "Papa" -- hanging a sheet up in my parents' living room so that he could show us slides and movies from his Mexican cruise. This was circa 1977, of course.)

The point is...I'm not sure that anyone is all that interested, but for the sake of posterity, I will forge on.

SO...

We had an afternoon flight on a Saturday, and while I AM A FAN of the afternoon flight, it really encouraged my procrastination tendencies. An hour and a half before we left, I still had nothing in our suitcases. (My mother probably just fainted after reading that statement, as she is a fan of packing DAYS in advance.)

But we made it, and here we are, ready for our journey:

We were really too tired to do much Saturday, but Sunday, we took in some of the sights of San Francisco.

We walked along the Fisherman's Wharf, visited Ghirardelli Square, and rode a trolley. ALL Amelia wanted to do in San Francisco was ride a trolley, so we couldn't let her down, right?

A nice parting gift for our time in San Fran was a $60 parking ticket that Darryl received because he did not turn his wheels toward the curb on the hill where we parked. The San Francisco parking cops don't play, y'all.

Darryl was not amused.

Then we headed in the direction of Yosemite via Napa...really just so we could see Napa. We also made a stop at Thomas Keller's bakery, Bouchon. Darryl gave me the Bouchon cookbook about a year or so ago, and if there is one word I could use to describe Keller's technique it would be meticulous. ANYWAY, I had a homemade Ho-Ho that was nothing short of life changing.

Amelia enjoyed a chocolate macaron. She obviously has a refined dessert palate.

Then we made our way to Yosemite. We enjoyed a nice dinner outside at our hotel (y'all, that California weather is perfection), and woke up on Monday morning, ready to pack in as much of Yosemite as we could in one day.

Yosemite is pretty much amazing, and we wish we could have spent more time there. We plan to go back there in a couple of years, probably when Amelia is a tad older and can take on more of the hiking. (That's right. I said hiking. I mean, you have to work off those homemade Ho-Hos, right?)

We were pretty impressed by these giant Sequoias.

We stopped at one place with a spectacular view, and Amelia wanted to get out her notebook and sketch the scene. :-)

And here are a couple of other mountain photos, because YOSEMITE.

And Amelia dipped her toes in some cold water.

After a full day in Yosemite, we made our way to Lake Tahoe. I just need to switch over the slides in my slide carousel...