My friend Sarah from school is from Boston and had never been to California. She came to visit me for part of our spring break and we ended up seeing a cross section of California. Seriously. I live close to Sacramento when I’m in California and from there we went both ways on 80. Here are some pictures that we took on our adventures.
Our base was my parents’ house in Placer County. We hit In-N-Out because it’s mandatory and delicious. While there, we saw some guys who were wearing Wranglers, cowboy boots and one had a cowboy hat. This amused Sarah because apparently she doesn’t see these items worn without irony or as a fashion statement very often.
The next day we drove across the valley to the Bay area. Lots of farms and cows. It’s kind of boring but it’s where our food comes from.
We got lost in the East Bay for a bit due to some sketchy directions but we finally met our friend Kevin at the BART station near his house in Oakland. We took the BART over to the Embarcadero stop in San Francisco. We headed over to pier 39 with the help of Muni. We walked around down by the water towards the Fishermans Warf.
Many pictures were taken of things like the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sea Lions, and my personal favorite, Alcatraz Island. I love how creepy it is.
It was a bit bizarre to be wandering about in California with Kevin and Sarah because I’m so used to doing wandering around Washington with them. We made a stop to get bread at Boudin and crab at a stand by the water. Kevin decided he was not a crab fan so we went to In-N-Out again.
From there, Kevin realized that we weren’t too far from North Beach. We walked over to there and went to Cafe Trieste because Kevin likes their coffee. Sitting there, we decided Sarah should see Union Square and we walked over there. Then we decided to walk all the way down Market to the BART station we started at. Kevin and I had never walked that much in SF before. I think we walked around for four hours.
A couple days later, Sarah and I set out from my parents house with my mom, sister (who is back from LDN) and dog to see the Northernmost Redwood Giants. There is a grove of them in Tahoe National Forest. The road up is very windy and dodgy. I’m glad I wasn’t driving.
We were a few miles from the grove when snow started popping up in the road where there was shade, despite the weather being fairly warm. Eventually we hit a spot where the road was covered in five inches of icy snow. It hadn’t been plowed. We decided to turn around and go to Grouse Falls instead because it was a bit lower in elevation. Unfortunately the same thing happened. We got a few miles from where the trail started and the road was too snowy to drive without chains. Boo. We got out and walked around a bit because my fat dog was getting antsy.
Despite not getting to see some really big trees or a cool water fall, Sarah still had a good time because there were some great views. We stopped at a turn out to look at this canyon that a river (The American I think?) cuts through.
I love the Sierra Nevadas. They’re beautiful. Bean was fascinated by all the new stuff. My sister ran around with her on the leash. I’m sure the drive wasn’t fun for Bean but the area is definitely worth visiting.
There’s the West and East of Northern California for you. Other than seeing a cross section of the State, our only other spring break accomplishment was finishing season 4 of Dawson’s Creek. It was a pretty damn good spring break
The first 6 photos were taken by Sarah. Thanks for letting me use them.
Leave a Reply