California Vacation - Monterey, San Francisco, and St. Helena!

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So here is just a taste of our recent California vacation - we had the best time ever! It was definitely one of the best trips I've ever been on - so many beautiful things to see, so many yummy foods and drinks (read: WINE) to discover, and needless to say, I think we took more pictures and video on this trip than we ever have before. Even though these pictures are a bit backwards - we essentially started the trip in Monterey, then drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, and then drove north to wine country, where we stayed in St. Helena. These pictures just show some of my favorites so far although I haven't even had time to go through them all in detail. And I can't help but mention how definitely eco-friendly forward this area of the country is - we were so impressed with how recycling, composting, and using seasonal foods were incorporated into every place we visited. I think you could find local organic juices in any random convenience store and Walgreens as well. Super impressive. Monterey was amazing and it was so cool to walk around and see everything from palm trees to sea otters and sea lions laying on rocks - and it was just the cutest little community on a gorgeous bay. Driving up the coast was one of my favorite things we did b/c you really got to see so many different landscapes - farm, mountains, beach, cliffs, wetlands - all within the same little area. We can't say enough great things about San Francisco either - it definitely met all our expectations of being fun, beautiful, and interesting. We walked everywhere and saw little parks and gardens, we went to a Giants game at their amazing stadium on the Bay, we took a very cheesy but very fun tour using "Go Cars," where we got to see the Grateful Dead house and the Painted Ladies Houses, visited Alcatraz, people watched at Fisherman's Wharf and saw the sea lions at Pier 39. On our way to wine country, we stopped by Muir Woods and saw the most beautiful trees and forest ever, and even visited the Charles Schutz museum! We did tastings at several big wineries and a few small wineries to get the whole experience - we visited Ledson in Sonoma; Robert Mondavi, Coppola, and Peju in Rutherford; and Domaine Chandon in Yountville. After that I believe I have been super spoiled and the ole Yellow Tail didn't taste quite as good when we got home...maybe it needed to open up more haha (just a little wine tasting humor). Anyway - it's good to be home too - we missed Tyndell like nuts the whole time and I need to definitely thank my parents for house sitting, dog sitting, and child caring while we were gone. We really needed a break and they made it possible to leave and actually relax. This was the first vacation that Jeff and I had taken by ourselves in over 3 years and I have to say that it was worth the wait!

One last note - regarding Jeff's favorite new hobby (visiting all the obscure sites from his Roadside America application on his iphone - remember my barefoot mailman statue post?), we knocked off about 20 while we were out there and I will have to do an entirely separate post on them. Many of you will appreciate the extreme strangeness of some of things we saw! Read: goblins attacking children, dinosaurs in Spanish Town, and a geyser with goats!