California Honeymoon
When Becky and I decided to marry, the hardest thing was coming up with a date. Once we decided that the honeymoon could be later, it got a LITTLE easier. Even with that the actual date was only decided a couple of days ahead of time. That date, June 15th, actually was the first day after our 72-hour (thanks a lot, Louisiana) waiting period expired. Spur of the moment marriages are doable, but the honeymoon takes a bit more planning (and reservations do have to be made).
We finally got to take our honeymoon in October. It's a good thing that Becky and I are both pretty laid back, because there were a couple of last minute gotchas. Little did we know that the honeymoon dates would fall during the government shutdown. Goodbye Yosemite reservations, canceled as we couldn't take a chance on the shutdown being over. (It WAS over, but the alternative plans we made turned out great and we still had a chance to swing through Yosemite for a few hours.) The bigger gotcha was the BART workers' strike that started the day we arrived, October 18th. We had reservations near the airport and planned to take BART daily into San Francisco. Fortunately, Caltrain was NOT on strike, so we used it instead. We had further to walk but eventually figured out the bus routes and schedules to save some walking time. The strike ended the day we left San Francisco to see more sights, but we did get to use BART when we returned to San Francisco for a day before flying home.
Our San Francisco area highlights included a six+ hour small bus (not the short bus, okay?) tour (Dylan's Tours) that included a couple of hours in Muir Woods walking among the coastal redwoods, Linda Lee's fun All About Chinatown walking tour (followed by dim sum lunch at the Oriental Pearl), Fisherman's Wharf, the Alcatraz tour, Becky's first burger at an In-N-Out, Ghirardelli Square, the view from the Marin Headlands, sea lions at Pier 39, wandering the grounds of the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts, riding cable cars, seeing a little of Haight-Ashbury, and eating at Original Joe's. There's, of course, much more to do and see in San Francisco, but we did as much as we could our three days there.
After SF we stopped in Angels Camp (setting for Mark Twain's short story), saw sequoias in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, took the unbelievably narrow Hwy 4 to the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, saw the tufa towers at Mono Lake (Lee Vining, CA), spent hours (wish we could have spent more) in Bodie State Historic Park, took the Tioga Road into Yosemite, spent a few hours in Yosemite, had a great time with my Santini relatives near Escalon, and got to see Knights Ferry, home of the longest covered bridge west of the Mississippi (and just missed the Stanislaus River Salmon Festival held there).
Becky and I both like photography, so between us we took a LOT of pictures. The pictures here comprise about 20% of what we took, so maybe we'll add more later. We had a wonderful time and saw amazing sights. We won't call it a honeymoon next time, but we can't wait to return next year.
Read MoreWe finally got to take our honeymoon in October. It's a good thing that Becky and I are both pretty laid back, because there were a couple of last minute gotchas. Little did we know that the honeymoon dates would fall during the government shutdown. Goodbye Yosemite reservations, canceled as we couldn't take a chance on the shutdown being over. (It WAS over, but the alternative plans we made turned out great and we still had a chance to swing through Yosemite for a few hours.) The bigger gotcha was the BART workers' strike that started the day we arrived, October 18th. We had reservations near the airport and planned to take BART daily into San Francisco. Fortunately, Caltrain was NOT on strike, so we used it instead. We had further to walk but eventually figured out the bus routes and schedules to save some walking time. The strike ended the day we left San Francisco to see more sights, but we did get to use BART when we returned to San Francisco for a day before flying home.
Our San Francisco area highlights included a six+ hour small bus (not the short bus, okay?) tour (Dylan's Tours) that included a couple of hours in Muir Woods walking among the coastal redwoods, Linda Lee's fun All About Chinatown walking tour (followed by dim sum lunch at the Oriental Pearl), Fisherman's Wharf, the Alcatraz tour, Becky's first burger at an In-N-Out, Ghirardelli Square, the view from the Marin Headlands, sea lions at Pier 39, wandering the grounds of the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts, riding cable cars, seeing a little of Haight-Ashbury, and eating at Original Joe's. There's, of course, much more to do and see in San Francisco, but we did as much as we could our three days there.
After SF we stopped in Angels Camp (setting for Mark Twain's short story), saw sequoias in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, took the unbelievably narrow Hwy 4 to the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, saw the tufa towers at Mono Lake (Lee Vining, CA), spent hours (wish we could have spent more) in Bodie State Historic Park, took the Tioga Road into Yosemite, spent a few hours in Yosemite, had a great time with my Santini relatives near Escalon, and got to see Knights Ferry, home of the longest covered bridge west of the Mississippi (and just missed the Stanislaus River Salmon Festival held there).
Becky and I both like photography, so between us we took a LOT of pictures. The pictures here comprise about 20% of what we took, so maybe we'll add more later. We had a wonderful time and saw amazing sights. We won't call it a honeymoon next time, but we can't wait to return next year.
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