California Dreamin’

A while ago we had some friends move out to California. The moved to San Jose near San Francisco and we naturally used this as a reason that we needed to plan a trip to visit them once they got settled in. It kinda had a duel purpose also because I wanted to run the San Jose Rock n Roll Half so we planned our trip around incorporating that weekend.

We ended up going for 6 day at the beginning of October and we spent 3 days with them in San Jose and then 3 days in San Francisco exploring. We arrived on a Friday and explored around a little, picked up our race packets and hung out with our friends.

On Saturday we went to the Winchester Mystery House. I had read up on this house and it sounded really cool. Sadly I feel that it was a little underwhelming for the hype. It was a nice house but I didn’t think it was as mysterious as they play it up to be. Still it was a fun outing for the day. It sits right in the middle of busy streets which makes it hard to imagine that when it was built it was apparently really far outside of town.

Sunday morning was the half marathon. I was the only one doing the half, one of our friends did the 10k. It was a nice course, but I wouldn’t put it in my top 5 courses I’ve done or anything. (Incase you’re wondering the RnR Philly course is my favorite!)

On Monday we rented a car to drive from San Jose into San Francisco. In my research I didn’t even look into public transportation. I don’t know why but probably because we don’t really have good public transportation in Florida so I’m not used to it. On a later trip we realized we could have rode the train into San Francisco for a fraction of the cost of renting a car (oh well, you live and learn, right?)

Driving wasn’t too bad we went the long way around through Oakland because we wanted to make a stop at Muir Woods to see the red wood trees. I had asked on FB for suggestions of must see/do before we headed off on out adventure. We tried to make to everything that was suggested. The woods did not disappoint, we spent a few hours hiking through the woods and it was beautiful! We were told if you went far enough you could see the beach on the other side, about 2 hours into our hike we passed so other hikers who said that was not true. So we turned back, I still don’t know 100% either was if that’s true or false. Anyone know the answer?

You have to drive pretty far up a mountain to get to the entrance to Muir Woods. On the drive down every so often they had these pull overs so you could stop to take in the view and take pictures.

From there we stopped in Sausalito, which is a cute little town across the bay from San Francisco. We stopped to find somewhere to eat lunch and this little town could not be any more beautiful. The way the houses are built up the hills all the pretty fun colors in the downtown area. There were lots of bike riders everywhere, most people either bike across the Golden Gate Bridge, or bring their bikes across of a ferry. The line waiting for the Ferry was crazy.

After that was time to head into the City to our hotel, we were told to stop at the park right before you cross the Golden Gate Bridge. The problem with that was it was on the opposite side of the road. We weren’t sure how to get over to it with out crossing the bridge and coming back. That would require crossing the Golden Gate three time and since it’s a toll bridge we decided against that. We randomly went up a side road before crossing thinking we should be able to at least see the view somewhere along the way up. It was better then we expected! I think we got even better pictures going this route then we would have in the park which would have been on street level.

From there we crossed the bridge and headed to find out hotel and return the rental care because we wouldn’t be needing it for the rest of our adventures in San Francisco!

Up next I’ll fill you in on all the stuff we squeezed into our two days in the city!