Tuesday, April 5, 2011

California

Last week we went to California for spring break! Starting at waking up at 4 am last Monday here's how our vacation went. Well we woke up at 4 am tired obviously and went to the airport. We took a plane to the Chicago airport and tried to get on the flight to San Francisco. We missed the 1st flight ughhhhhhh but luckily got on the second one.:D The plane ride wasn't so great. Four hours with no food but gobstoppers...ew. I did however get some reading done. Anyway when we got off the plane rented a car and began the...grumpy drive to the the town. Yes, grumpy but we hadn't had food for 5 hrs so it makes sense. Since our grumpiness started making the ride miserable we stopped and got pancakes:) Pancakes make everything better in my opinion. After eating we began driving up a mountain on curvy roads. I do not do well on curvy roads but lucky for Gabe and Amelia I didn't vomit. After 15 minutes of curves we arrived in the little town Bolinas. The house we stayed at was only a 5 minute walk from town...niceeee. Once we got settled in Gabe and I walked into town to see if they had a coffee shop. We saw a cafe but it was closed so we just went to the grocery store. After we had $80 worth of stuff we found out they only took cash. They had an ATM but the card wouldn't work! We had to call our parents to come down and tell us "we changed the password" yep. The next day mom and dad wanted to see the town too so we walked down and found this awesome book store! Nobody worked there so you just walked in and if you found a book YOU decided how much it was worth. It was pretty cool;) After that we decided to go look around for a coffee shop too and instead found a smoothie place! They had awesome smoothies and internet. Amelia and I got bored after a while though and decided to go find the beach. Once we found it we mostly just sat on the big rocks they had there. Later that day we went for a hike at this bird place. They were supposed to have tons of birdies. We didn't see a single bird but that was fine with me...until we got to the muddy part of the hike. We walked around it for awhile only to find out there was a stream we had to walk through. Gabe about had a panic attack when he saw that I think:P After that lovely hike we went on another hike down to some tide pools! Not only was the hike beautiful the tide pools were awesome. They had starfish, these squishy things we couldn't identify, and shells. Fun day! The next day we went to Muir Woods. It was really cool there too they had huge red wood trees. You would need a loooong ladder to get to the top of those. After the hike we got food. So I'm eating and out of nowhere comes the cutest chipmunk thing ever! It looked like a chipmunk only mini:D The people there must have known how cute they are because there was a sign that said DON'T FEED THE CHIPMUNKS! aww. On Thursday we went on an 8 mile hike. It started out really nice with an awesome view but about 2 miles of hiking up a curvy mountain later I was tired! It was pretty muddy in some places and just as I thought is this worth it? we saw the sign saying .5 miles to go. YAY! At the end of the .5 miles we saw the waterfall we hiked 4 miles to get to. So pretty! We had to go down a little steep hill to get on flat ground and that's where I got scared. We had to jump over a rushing river ( only 4 ft ) that led down a 50 ft cliff into the ocean! EEK! I made it but my heart was pounding after the jump. We found a place to sit on the Cliff and ate chips while Amelia and dad went down a path to the ocean. On the hike back it didn't seem as tiring. Just as we were about to get back some nude guy ran by! AND he had pants! He just wasn't wearing them. Freak. The next day we didn't do much just hung out and went to the beach. Saturday however was busy and fun. We had to go down the curves again yes but a day in San Francisco was worth it. First we walked over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a pretty view over the ocean and you cold see Alcatraz. Then we went to Japan Town! My favorite. We went to the mall there and shopped! They had good ramen noodles. Lastly for Amelia we went to Berkley. We looked around the campus there and got frozen yogurt. That stuff rocks:D Another awesome day! Our last full day in California was spent mostly hiking. This time the hike was flatter and less muddy. It was by a river mostly and finished out on a huge rock cliff with a river flowing under it. The water was amazing looking it had different layers of blue. That night we decided to make smores. Cause what better way to end a vacation then eating smores!? They we pretty good:) That's how our vacation went mostly. It was the coolest vacation ever! Bye Bye!