Saturday, July 7, 2012

San Francisco trip

I went on an awesome trip with my mom, grandma and sister the beginning of June... and i'm finally blogging about it. (Picture overload, BTW...)

We went to northern California and drove along the coast, visiting cities along the way to SF. The trip was actually put on by Dixie State College and it focused a lot on art. It was really incredible and I learned so much! 

The first day we drove forever and finally reached Santa Barbara in time for dinner... we ate at the best little restaurant. I still dream about that place.
Day 2: We ate breakfast at the same place we ate dinner at... haha it was just too good! We explored some more of downtown Santa Barbara and went to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. 
After the museum we ventured on and drove to San Simeon, CA to visit Hearst Castle!  Hearst castle is the largest privately owned home in CA and was built in the 1920's. Mr. Hearst built his home to look like a mid-century castle up on a tall hill in San Simeon. He owned like 40,000 acres of land and even had a zoo and an airport on his property. His house was the "playboy mansion" of the 20's. Celebs like  Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill hung out there on weekends for parties. 
We did the Grand rooms tour which showed us all the main big rooms in the castle. It was pretty impressive and really fun to see how rich people lived back in the day. There are 165 rooms and 127 acres of gardens, terraces, pools and walkways. Pretty cool, right? We thought so. 

After the castle we went to the beach and ate some awesome fish and chips at a little cafe. It was delish. 

Day 3: 
This day we left San Simeon and drove to Big Sur for a sweet rest stop with sea lions, haha. We drove along the coast on a rocky highway that was like 400 billion ft in the air and I feared we might topple over the edge into the sea, but we didn't. It was freaky.

We arrived at Monterey, CA and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. IT WAS AWESOME!!! 
It is one of the biggest aquariums ever, I guess. It was 3 stories and had soooo many sea creatures. After the aquarium we drove to San Francisco! 

Day 4 & 5: We spent our time in the city visiting museums and eating yummy food. We went to the de Young museum and the Legion of Honor Museum. I got to hangout with Picasso, van Gogh and Monet! 




the Legion of Honor Museum
van Gogh on the top, Picasso on the bottom


The de Young Museum
Japanese Tea Gardens
View of the city waaaay up high
After the museums, my uncle Dave & aunt Merrie came and picked us up and took us for a night on the town. They live an hour outside of SF so it was really nice to see them! We went to china town, fisherman's wharf, Lumbard street: the crookedest street in the world, and the palace of fine arts. 
 Day 6: 
This was the last day of our trip and we spent most of the morning at fisherman's wharf. We took a boat ride underneath the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz Island. They told stories about the history of the city and the island while we enjoyed the ride.
 We ate the best sourdough bread at fisherman's wharf. I ate a grilled cheese and tomato soup that was to die for. My mom bought enough sourdough bread to feed an army and took it home to my brothers and dad. That was their souvenir. haha. We drove home for like 45343 hours and finally made it to St. George where my sweet husband was waiting for me. He missed me so much... haha ya right. He got to eat pizza everyday and sleep in our king size bed without anyone making him share the covers! He survived without me.

I had so much fun on this trip and definitely want to go back to SF soon! 

1 comment:

  1. looks like such a fun trip! youre beautiful, and i envy your hair!

    ReplyDelete