Clothing Optional

By now, you all know that 1). Matt & I travel alot and 2). We always have a story from our trips. So get comfortable and read on!

This week I have conference in San Jose, CA and we figured that as long as I had to fly all the way across the country, it would be worthwhile to add a little play to the work. So, we took a weekend to toodle around San Francisco and Napa California.

Our trip started on Friday evening with a quick uneventful flight from Daytona to Atlanta. After the first hour of our trip, things got interesting. We landed in Atlanta at 7:45pm at Gate C31 and departed at 8:10pm at Gate T8 (I tried to insert a picture of the terminals, but it wasn't working out so use your imagination and picture complete opposite ends of the airport). I discovered I've been training for triathlons for a reason as we sprinted all out across the airport in attempt to reach our gate in time. It actually worked! We ran up to the gate just as they were about to close the doors and we were the last people they let on the plane. It's gets better. As we were trying to get to our seats, this nice man saw us all winded and sweaty and gave us his bottle of water and then the stewardess told us that the plane was incredibly full so it would be best if we just sat in Row 2 instead of our assigned Row 43. Row 2 was first class :). Some dinner, a glass of wine, and a movie made the five hour flight a little more enjoyable.

Once our plane landed, we discovered that our luggage didn't sprint as fast we did and missed the flight from Atlanta. Ugh! (Just so you know, we are 0-2 in getting our clothes to make the trip with us on vacations this year).

And so, our vacation began on Saturday morning with a detour to Target for some clean clothes enroute to Wine Country. Napa and Sonoma are beautiful and led me to add road biking Silverado Trail to my life "To Do" list. And, I'm beginning to understand why people say they can tell the difference between good wine and cheap wine.

Sunday came early as we set off to run the Plate to Plate 5k (a San Francisco Charity that raises money for food for the homeless) through downtown San Francisco which was followed by a San Francisco Giants Baseball Game - No Barry Bonds Homerun. And since we hadn't done enough running and walking in the last two days, we walked back from the stadium to our hotel (it took us an hour and a half and throughout the entire city). After a little rest, we headed out again and explored Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 on Sunday night.

Monday morning led us on yet another adventure. A bike ride through the city and over the Golden Gate Bridge sounds pretty cool, right? It was definitely a good idea, but got off to a rough start when my bike chain fell off in the first 1o minutes of riding and I wiped out while crossing the cable car tracks just a few minutes later. As always, the fall looked and sounded worse than it really was (I don't even have any bruises to show for it) and we continued on our journey. The view riding over the Golden Gate was pretty impressive and it took us into the this little European Style town called Sauselito. A ferry ride took us back into the city and then it was time for Monday Night Football. Being the dorks that we are, we saw that the 49ers were hosting the Denver Broncos in the First Monday Night Football game of the year (pre-season) so we hooked up with some tickets on Ebay and cheered for no one in particular.

Tuesday morning we did our last little jaunt around town with a cable car ride down Hyde Street, a trip to the Farmer's market, a stroll down Lombard street, and our final stop at Trader Joe's (I will pay someone big bucks to open one of those near me). Tuesday night, Matt made his cross country trek back to Florida, and I started preparing for the "work" part of my trip that began this morning.

Two more things completed on the "1000 Places to See" list, a few stories to share, and a good time together - I'd say it was a pretty successful vacation :).