A good deal of my energy has been spent on loving my little people over these past 3 years, and especially over these last 10 months. Not only was this mama ready for a little getaway, but I thought it’d be a perfect time to spend with someone I love and don’t get to love on very much any more – MY mama. She’d mentioned before that she always wanted to see the California Redwoods, and I knew she hadn’t been yet. I have my own bucket list of things that I think would be cool to experience. So, we decided to do some of them.

It seemed like a good idea to set our adventure expectations pretty low and just enjoy our time together, whatever happened. Our first evening in Saratoga was beautiful. We arrived in time to check in to our quaint hotel on the cutest little town strip of restaurants with every kind of food you could imagine. We chose Turkish. The next morning we headed for Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The drive was full of hair pin turns and the trees got bigger and bigger. We were amazed by the size and texture of the massive redwoods in the park. We chose a 4 mile hike through the forest that took 3 hrs to complete, and we picnicked for lunch on the trail. It was even more impressive than we thought it would be, and it smelled amazing!

Our afternoon included a scenic, winding drive down to Santa Cruz, an early Italian dinner al fresco, and a walk to the beach. We visited the Boardwalk, the pier, and saw the train track bridge that were all a part of The Lost Boys movie filmed 30 years ago. Wow! I feel old. The next morning we drove up Pacific Coast Highway, stopped at a lighthouse to explore, and watched as surfers caught waves on our way to San Francisco.

As we turned into town, we started seeing trolleys right away. After driving California, Hyde, and down the famous Lombard Street, we headed to park the car. The Alcatraz tours were full, so we settled on a ferry around the bay that would get us close to Alcatraz, past Angel Island & also take us under Golden Gate Bridge. We ate and shopped at Fisherman’s Warf and saw the seals (or sea lions?) at Pier 39. With time to spare we headed to Ghirardelli Square, but it was packed! No parking & huge crowds changed our minds, so I decided to take mom to Chinatown. I’d been there once already – before I’d been to China – and I was curious to see just how much like the ‘real thing’ it was. We began looking for my favorite Chinese snacks, dried sweet potatoes. Found ’em! And then I saw some huge dumplings & buns. We have to get one of these! “Do I have to eat this? here?” mom said. “Yep!” I said. She was scared. It was only a sweet bean bun, but she didn’t know what to expect. All the stores had a fishy smell to them, various dried “ingredients” for sell, or cooked whole chickens (heads included) hanging in the windows by their necks. The fruit and veg stands were much more comfortable for her, and she was excited to get a full container of blueberries for $1.50 – the only bargain we’d found in California.

Finally, our trip ended with another first. Mom had never eaten Thai food, so we had Pad Thai and Thai Green Curry for dinner on our last night. Over the past few days we’d wished our stomachs were bigger as we’d had to pass up chances to eat so many different kinds of food (except for the stewed chicken feet in Chinatown which we were glad to pass up). Driving, hiking, eating, boating, and lots of talking & laughing. It was quite an adventure!