A year ago exactly Levi and I decided to take a road trip to San Francisco! It was around his birthday, and seemed like a pretty good idea for multiple reasons. He agreed to do all the driving and I downloaded some books on tape. But what was the goal of this 6 day mission? (that's how long we were gone)

Note: Pardon my photos and various filters, these were taken using my phone, before the dslr times.

The Cruffin

My cruffin obsession is real. It's a croissant muffin, with a filling! Look at it!! I first found Mr Holmes on pinterest, just because the boxes and space is so well designed. From then on I stalked their instagram and the cruffin has haunted me ever since. Only available at their locations in San Francisco and Seoul. (Don't worry, I'm going to the Seoul one in September)

Go to San francisco, for many reasons, but also just for the cruffin.

Mr Holmes Bakehouse, 1042 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94109

Along the Way....

Diner pancakes in Oregon, Levi's first in-n-out burger experience out around Lake Shasta, this shrump salad in the middle of nowhere, and some corn bread for breakfast in Napa. There was a lot of strategic eating along the way.

Crater Lake!

Crater lake was one of the earlier stops we made, there was a fee to enter the park and once we got to the lake we saw the crowd. It was still an amazing view, but being int he before dslr times (just before I bought one on ebay) I didn't get photos that could do it justice.

Napa

Still being considered young adults, we naturally sought out the winery that's also shaped like a castle. Castello di Amorosa is legitimately a castle, again it was fairly crowded and even had grape juice tastings for the kids. It's like a wine theme park, they were even shooting some movie while we were there. How was the wine? Welp, I'll admit I have can't remember and that probably says enough. #notanexpert

We stayed in Napa instead of San Fransisco because we got to free nights there after Levi listened to a time share presentation, so it was a pretty good deal. They're super close. The entire time I was there I just kept thinking I should open a winery. Seemed like a real good idea at the time.

What about the llama? Well he's got a big job. Castrated male llamas are used to protect baby goats, see those two baby goats at his feet? We learned this at while waiting for a geyser to go off. They had a collection of goat friends there for us to pet and they kind of stole the show.

Old Faithful Geyser, 1299 Tubbs Ln, Calistoga, CA 94515

San Francisco

If I had more skills, you know, to pay the bills, I would live in San Fransisco. I think most of us would. That's why it's so crowded. Honestly though, it wasn't as crowded as people said it would be.

First stop was the cruffin, a line had already formed for them, we had to wait about 30 minutes since they didn't come out until 9am. From there we walked around, saw some sites, including the palace of fine arts of course. Dinner at Chambers eat + drink was fantastic, I mean, just look at it, up there. Super instagrammable restaurant with a light up "be amazing" sign above the bar.

Sadly we spent less than a day in San Fransisco, just enough to see a few sites, grab a cruffin, and head back. With a tight schedule to get back in time for work, we didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, downside of doing a road trip.

On the Way Back

a beach covered in sea glass that we didn't catch at low tide, a stop at confusion hill to see if it was in fact a confusing hill, visited the trees of mystery and stayed for the sculptures outside the gift shop, and fed an elephant at a drive thru zoo. A lot packed into very little time.

The beach wasn't as remarkable as we were hoping, but it was probably just the time that we got there or that all the sea glass had been picked away already by people like us looking for free souvenirs. Confusion hill was pretty fun, we didn't pay the $5 to go into the confusing part, but it was a good spot for a bathroom break and shots of a pinecone identification board. I'm not completely sure what the trees of mystery is all about, but they had a sasquatch, a bear, and blue babe statue as pictured above.

Portland

So close to home, but in need of a break. we recovered for a night and checked out the bite of oregon festival for a little bit before giving our bracelets to a couple of nice baristas and heading home.

It was a great trip! I'd never been to most of these places before, we ate a good amount of snacks along the way, including our stash of peanut butter, bananas, and berries as car snacks. Makes me wish I lived in California, especially this time of year in Seattle when the heat starts to subside and I realize my tomatoes never ripened. And my lemon tree has been growing the same lemon for the last year. Probably shouldn't have gotten a lemon tree.