California Trip 2016

Me and Austin went on a two week vacation to California to celebrate having been married for 5 years in October. I don't have to tell you that it was amazing because, obviously, it was. In fact, I wish I could go back in time. I digress, these photos are more or less in the order from which they occurred. While the photos aren't nearly as cool as what Christina would shoot (she wasn't there! I did my best!) hopefully you will still get a pretty good idea of what it was like to be there along with us (just kidding. it's impossible. too much natural beauty for an iPhone to capture.) If you recall, me and Christina and our husbands took a trip to Cali in 2015 which you can view here and here if you want, just for fun. 

Me and Austin's trip went roughly as follows: 

We began in LA where we stayed with my sister and her family. Any photo you see of me and Austin that isn't a selfie was taken by my brother-in-law Nathaniel Calnin -FYI. While in LA we went to Disneyland, BeachGoth music festival and then dinner at Son of a Gun, Abalone Cove (you know, nature), shopping/brunching in Silverlake where we had the most delicious meal at Sqirl. We also had a really fun time at the beach featuring s'mores and a bonfire which I thought was an experience reserved only for teens in movies. I'm jumbling this up but we also shopped on Abbot Kinney and hit up the Grand Central Market in DTLA where we ate chinese food, drank coffee from G&B and played Battleship with my nephew. 

From LA we went to a very small and secret town called Los Alamos (I'm exaggerating but it seemed like everyone we talked to about it hadn't never heard of it). It's more or less a ghost town but somehow has the coolest shops and restaurants along the main drag. We stayed at a motel called The Alamo which was so cool and we ate an AMAZING meal at a place called Pico. 

From there we went onto highway 1 towards San Francisco and saw the usual sites, you know, glorious mountain ranges and ocean cliffs. 'Twas amazing. I will never forget the smell of Big Sur. It was like a combination of sea mist, eucalyptus and juniper. I wish someone could replicate it and bottle it up. 

Once we got to SF we headed to our little airbnb studio which was in the Richmond neighborhood. It was within walking distance to Baker Beach and Golden Gate park. Great spot. We liked our studio so much that we ate in that night. Lol. Two introverts out on the road. After a little recharge we went to Plow for brunch which I would argue to be the best breakfast ever. Then we hit up SFMOMA which was too good for words. We went to the Ferry Market and generally did a lot of walking, hiking, and drinking coffee. I think we averaged about 20,000 steps a day. Our airbnb spot was also in walking distance to many great restaurants. It was fun to chill and live like a local for a few days. We also made the mistake of going to Union Square. haha. 

Before we made our way up to San Francisco we made a stop in Sausalito for lunch and then went to Muir Woods/ Muir Beach. Muir Woods was other worldly and Muir Beach was oddly the best beach we went to all trip long and we went to many, many beaches. 

 We stayed at the Fairmont Mission Inn and Spa and pretty much just tasted wine and chilled in the hot springs for two days. It was the perfect way to cap off a perfect journey. Vineyards we visited: Mumm, Cuvaison, V. Suittui, and Artesa. Oh, and we had the BEST Oaxacan food at a very unassuming spot in Sonoma called El Molino Central. 

I'm sure I left some stuff out. We did so much stuff that no one even has the attention span to listen to us list it off. What a fun time we had. 

Abalone Cove (Photo by Nathaniel)