The Russians are Coming, or are those just Really Big Trees?

Tuesday was supposed to be a more relaxing day where we got to take a break from going going going in San Francisco and relax.  We took it easy and didn't try and get up too early.  This was really the first time we really had a chance to see our resort in Windsor, CA.

We headed west from our resort in search of the famous California redwood forests.  It's hard to believe trees this big exist, and even crazier to think we would be visiting even larger trees a few days later.  We stopped at Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Preserve to see a famous California redwood forest.  These trees are very tall, but lack the width (and therefore mass) of the Sequoia trees down south.  However, they are taller, and very impressive.

These roots of a fallen redwood give you a feel for their size.  I'm not sure how Erin always managed to take the pictures and not be in them.

 

The largest tree was the Colonel Armstrong tree.

Lyndsee had a really good time running around on the trails, but she insisted on being very independent.  More than once we found her a couple of hundred yards ahead of the group around the next bend.

She also enjoyed some daddy time.

There were several redwoods that were charred remains as well.  This tree looked especially cool to me.

There was one down tree that made an excellent slide.  Based on the shine of the wood, we were not the first group to enjoy this natural playground.

We found some trees to climb on top of.

And some trees to crawl underneath.

All in all, the trees were a lot of fun.  Given the chance, I think Lyndsee would have run right on back into the forest.

After playing amongst the trees, we stopped in the town of Guerneville for lunch.  After trying to get our small group of 11 into a couple of quaint little restaurants, we headed back to one of the larger joints on the main street through town.

After lunch we headed west to the Pacific Ocean and drove north along the coast to Fort Ross.  Fort Ross was the attempt by the Russian Czars to control the American continent, and was manned by the Russians from 1812 to 1841.

The fort was a very nice sized community that could house a sizable community.

 

The kids loved the church bell.

Canons are always cool.

A nice view of the ocean from a watch tower window.

The whole day was great for the kids, but it might have been a little too much for dad.

Erin worked on getting her kite up on the windy coast line.

Always trying to do things my own way, I had unwound the kite string to make sure it was tied to the spool since the kite store had mentioned it might not be.  That was first thing this morning.  I had worked on it in the car everywhere we had gone throughout the day.  However, I was still dealing with a major mess late in the afternoon as my kids cried because we couldn't use our kite.  It wasn't until 10:30 or so that I finally got the mess straightened out.

After playing with the Shiflett's kite, we headed back to our Condo for a relaxing evening together.  It seems like we just got to Windsor, and yet we will be packing up again in the morning and heading south.

San Francisco Part I

Monday was our first day in San Francisco.  I have to admit San Francisco was entirely for Cydnee.  I didn't really have any desire to go to San Francisco.  Maybe it is the headlines they are always making on the news with their politics.  But San Francisco had a lot more to offer than I expected, and we had a pretty good time.

We got up early and headed to the Larkspur Ferry to travel to San Francisco.  The kids always enjoy a good boat ride.  We got there early and got a seat on the back of the ferry outside with a great view.

It was really foggy around the golden gate bridge which made it kind of cool.

I wanted to drop the kids off at Alcatraz for an extended stay, but Cydnee wasn't down with that.

The ferry ride started out nice and calm, as you can see with Erin basking in the sun.  However, once we got moving, it was a little more cold in the wind, and some people had to bundle up, and the kids fled inside.

Lyndsee was obsessed with water bottles our whole trip.  She was especially interested in a drink on the ferry.  While all the kids were running away, she couldn't be bothered to move as long as she kept getting drinks.

Finally we rounded the corner and pulled into San Francisco.

 

 The kids really had fun playing around this sculpture in the square in front of the ferry house.

We hitched a ride on the cable cars to get around town.  The funniest part of this picture is Will's smile.  This is how he thinks you are supposed to smile for a picture.  I relate with Will because when I was a kid I always tried really hard to smile right for pictures, and it always turned out wrong.  So when Will says, "I am smiling good," it reminds me of me as a kid trying as hard as I could to smile right and never doing it.

Our first stop was the cable car museum.  It was fascinating to see the big cables turning that pulled the cable cars around town.

After the museum we walked up and down some very steep streets looking for Chinatown. 

Cydnee had read about a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown called New Asia that was supposed to be really good and good for children.  We had a lot of fun at this restaurant.  I am pretty sure we were the only white people in the whole building the whole time we were there.  And it wasn't a small restaurant, there were at least fifty tables in the restaurant, and it was packed.  We waited over 30 minutes to be seated.  Once we were seated, there were carts that came by every couple of minutes, and you picked food from the carts.  The fact that we did not speak Chinese and not many people in the restaurant spoke English made it even more fun trying to find something to eat.  But we tried a lot of interesting and new food, and even posed for a few celebrity shots with our wild kids.

After lunch we took a cable car down to Ghirardelli Square.  This time of day the cable cars were pretty busy, so we had to split up into two groups.  Cydnee and Erin went first with half of the kids, and Adam and I went second.  On our trip, the cable cars broke down right by Lombardi street.  After waiting patiently in the cable car for about 15 minutes so we didn't lose our place, we decided it would be faster to just walk.  We got out and took advantage of the opportunity to check out the world's windiest road.  Just then the cable cars started back up, but we had lost our spot, and all the cars coming by were full, so we got to walk down the street anyway.

Once we reunited, we stopped for some Ghirardelli ice cream since no one seemed to fill all the way up at lunch.  And, oh yeah, it was delicious.

After ice cream we walked around the square, and the kids got nice and wet playing in the water fountain while everyone cycled through the restroom (one of the most interesting and challenging tasks a family of four encounters on a trip to the big city).

After the square we went down to the pier and explored the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.  One of the piers was full of old, restored ships that you can walk around and explore.  This was a definite highlight of our trip.

After the boats we wandered down the shore line to find some dinner.  We ate at Boudin Sourdough Bakery and Cafe.  It was really good food in a fun atmosphere.  They had baskets on an overhead conveyer system that brought out the bread from the bakery to the cafe.  It might had been a little fancy for the kids, but we really enjoyed our food.  We then wandered down to Pier 39 and checked out some of the stores.  We also stopped in a kite shop and got a kite for the beach.  

We split up with the Shifletts and headed to the ferry house to head back and get some sleep.  Our kids were getting real tired, and I was exhausted.  We planned on taking a street car the long way back so the kids could get in a good ride and we could relax.  We waited forty minutes until we decided that no more street cars were coming.  We debated waiting for a bus or running for it, but since we hadn't seen any buses go by and all of the lines were getting long, we decided to hoof it.  We had to bribe Will with the promise of a treat on the ferry, I carried Reagan on my shoulders, and Cydnee pushed Lyndsee in her stroller, and we ran so that we didn't miss the ferry and have to wait another hour or so.  We finally got to the ferry about four minutes before it left.  The Shifletts took a bus and made it just as they were about to close the gate.  The kids all got some candy and had fun playing together on the ferry, and then we headed back to our condo in Windsor.  We will all sleep well tonight.