Californication

My friend Jaci says that I vacation like a retired person. And I can't say that I don't. Most of time, Max and I go with my parents and Greg stays behind to work. Poor Greg. Check out how Max helped me get ready.

One of these such trips was to California to hit some tourist spots in San Francisco and to see my brother and his family. My sister and her 2 boys happened to come along on this trip. On the way down, we stayed at Circus Circus in Reno. Max's favorite part of the ENTIRE trip? This cheesy tram at the hotel. It was maybe 5 minutes long. I heard about the "ram tram" for months after this. Sometimes I still hear about it. Usually Max is whining something like, "I want to go on the ram tram, Mom. Plleeeasse!"

On the way out of Reno the next morning, we took a little detour to find the temple. It's a small temple, but very pretty and the view is amazing.

We tried to go to the Jelly Belly Factory on that leg of the trip, but we got there at 4:50 and the place closed at 5. Awesome. We did go another day, but the factory was pretty much closed, so while you got the same tour, there was nothing happening. Every so far you have to stop to watch a little video about the production of Jelly Bellies. Max was completely bored. Let's just say, it wasn't the best part of the trip.

So, if you could only see the first half of the sign on this door, would you not think it looked exactly like the sign from the "Sizzler" restaurant? I did. Obviously, it wasn't. I spotted it across the street (from an angle) and I never heard the end of it. My redemption was that the food was amazing (better than Sizzler).

After a fun night of swimming (after hours) in the motel swimming pool, we went to find ourselves some dessert. The first place we found was a Jack-in-the-Box. Of course, that wasn't good enough, so we kept driving. Miles down the road and some time later we ended up at...a Jack-in-the Box.

We rode a steam train (which was a re-created logging railway) called Big Trees Roaring Camp. Max loved it. I kept waiting for him to fall asleep, because typical of these train trips of ours, he was so tired by the time we rode the train, but he surprised me and stayed awake. In the picture below he is modeling his souvenir.

I love this picture of Max, because it is so typical of him. All of the cars are all aligned along the edge of the table.

We went to the beach, but there weren't any pictures of Max without me in them, so we'll skip the picture part of that story. So fun. So cold. So different than the beaches in Hawaii!

Now, I know when most people take pictures of San Francisco, they are not standing in front of the toilet, but we had to have this picture because it was quite an ordeal trying to use the self-cleaning toilets. They have to run their 1 minute cleaning cycle between each use; doesn't sound like a lot, but it took a half an hour for 6 of us to use the toilet.

We went out to Alcatraz. I had never been before, so I was really excited. I thought it was really cool; I like history, especially when I can explore it. Max spent the time on the island in his stroller. Again, not his favorite part of the trip. But he did love the boat ride there and back. The smarties may have helped win him over.

We walked around Fisherman's Wharf, and up to Ghiradelli Square. And though it's not worth the money, or the wait in line, we love to ride the cable cars in San Fran. Hence, another souvenir for Max:

We also rode a street car after dinner to get back to the waterfront. It was very old and very cool.

Even though it was late, we drove up to Croit Tower and tried to see the Golden Gate through the fog. We couldn't, but we could see the Bay Bridge all lit up. It made quite an impression on Max; he was constantly asking me if everything was the Bay Bridge for awhile.

The next day we went to the Golden Gate Bride. Right next to it is a park with old ramparts of San Francisco. I had no idea they were there and we climbed up on top and looked all around. I found it fascinating.We walked over to the Golden Gate, and out a little ways, intending to walk back to the car. Then, my nephew Boden (almost 11 at the time) says to my father, "Hey, Papa. Can you drive the car across and meet us on the other side, and we'll walk over the bridge?" My father says sure, and turns around and walks off to get the car. And we set off across the bridge. Now keep in mind, my other nephew is 6 and Max is 3. And we walked about 2 miles. No, I take that back. My mom, Boden, my sister and I walked the 2 miles, and my nephew Taesh walked some and rode piggy back some, and Max walked a little and I carried him in my arms the rest of the way, as he slept. It was cool that we walked across the whole thing. It was not cool that I did not think to get the stroller first.Even though he slept through half of it, Max loved the Golden Gate. Just today he arranged something he was playing with and said to me, "it's the Golden Gate Bridge for the cars. Now they can drive through it!"After all this crazy fun, we finally made it to Folsom. We spent a day in Old Sacramento. First, we took the Lite Rail in and hit the train museum. Max absolutely loved being the engineer in the cabin forward engine.More souvenirs. (I know he's spoiled; but look how cute he is!!! How can you resist that face?)Another of our traditions: salt water taffy from the candy store. Actually, Max and I hate salt water taffy. But Max and I had fun picking out wacky flavors to bring home to Greg. These are my twin nieces: Courtney and Aubry. So cute.We wanted to go swimming with the in their pool, but I realized I had left my and Max's suits at the motel. I did have a swim diaper with me, though, so Max went European style.How do I know when we've had a fun trip? When Max is so tired he sleeps like this on the way home: