The title of this post was going to be “cheeseburgers from heaven” when I had thought about writing it a few weeks ago. But it’s Mother’s Day today and the fact that I’ve been without mine for almost two years now hurts just a little more this weekend.

I had been thinking about my mom a lot one morning and on the way to drop off pup at the groomers, I turned on the radio instead of the usual CD. The next song played was “Cheeseburger in Paradise” by Jimmy Buffet, which I haven’t heard in years. I can’t say I like Jimmy Buffet all that much but I somehow know every single word from many of his popular songs thanks to my parents, specifically my mom. She always wanted to have a cheeseburger in a town called Paradise (there is one in Florida near I-75!) but we never made the detour on our many roadtrips together.

I found myself belting out the chorus with the windows open and just then, hearing that song at that moment, felt like a penny from heaven.

(Ryan, my dad, Lauren, me, and my mom in Oklahoma, probably 1984)

On a brighter note, I happen to be lucky enough to have three other women to celebrate this mother’s day—my gram, Tess, Eric’s mom, Susan, and my step-mom, Lynn. Having all of them in my life has made the loss more bearable.

Thank you all and Happy Mother’s Day.

One of the first things that Eric researched after we bought our plane tickets was potential waterfall hikes. It hasn’t rained in San Francisco for several weeks, so we knew the waterflow was going to be low, but we were hoping it was still early enough in the season to get lucky.

Once we were on the ground we decided to concentrate on the Laurel Dell trail near Alpine Lake because the hike paralleled Cataract Creek and there were bound to be at least some water flowing over the falls.

Compared to other people’s photos after a good rain, the water flow was meager, but we enjoyed the fresh air and gratification that a new waterfall every couple hundred yards brings.

Eric photographed ten cascades along this uphill hike… all the shots are in our San Francisco Flickr set. We’ll also have all the photos and directions up shortly on our waterfall database.

We didn’t have time on this trip to make it out to Sequoia National Park to visit the largest redwoods, but we still got to see some enormous coastal redwoods on a hike through Muir Woods near sunset.

The setting was almost surreal. We were surrounded by huge trees while shafts of light filtered through into the still quiet of the woods. I told Eric that if fairies suddenly appeared, I wouldn’t be surprised.

We took the Hillside Trail, the longest way around, and as the trail ascended, we quickly lost sight of most of the other people sharing the park with us. The two mile walk was a lovely transition from city to nature and warmed us up for the hiking we planned to do the following day.

While exploring downtown San Francisco (specifically Chinatown) was entertaining, this type of stroll is much more our scene. We would take hiking in the woods over hoofing it around a city any day.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been to San Francisco, everyone knows what the Golden Gate Bridge looks like. Admittedly, I was pretty darn excited to see this bridge for the first time.

We caught a glimpse as we drove up Lincoln Blvd on the western side of the Presidio, but the money shot is from the parking area on the south side of the bridge.

The sky was as clear as it was for our entire trip on Sunday afternoon, so the view was magnificent. We crossed over the bridge and got another shot looking back toward downtown San Francisco.

On Sunday afternoon, after braving the BART ride back to the airport to pick up our rental car, we stopped off at Golden Gate Park to visit the Japanese Tea Garden and the SF Botanical Gardens.

Eric remembered enjoying the Tea Gardens when he was there as a child, so we made it a priority to make it back.

We were able to find free parking on the street instead of having to park in the deck, so the $4 per person entry fee didn’t bother me that much. What did bug me was that the gardens were very crowded (not their fault) and didn’t seem very well maintained (definitely their fault).

The structures are lovely, however, and when you did find a little quiet way from all the people it was a nice setting.

Across the street, the SF Botanical Gardens were overall more impressive in terms of peacefulness and sheer amount of flowers.

The gardens are divided into regions sharing similar climates to Northern California—Chile, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Easily a great way to spend an afternoon.

We saw lots of plants familiar to us from our trips to South Africa as well some new specimens, like this “big red” anigozanthos and marmalade bush.

Riesling is happy to be home!

We started this blog about a million 8 years ago in preparation for our wedding. We wanted a space to share the planning and excitement of the upcoming event with our friends and family who lived nowhere near us. Since then, it has grown into a healthy snapshot of our life together through multiple moves, home improvements, a mini schnauzer rescue, and extensive travel photos.

And perhaps unexpectedly, I’ve made several online friends whose blogs I’ve been reading for years; None of whom I’ve ever met in person.

One of the more surreal (and flattering) experiences I’ve had was this post. Her incoming link was how I found her blog a few years back and I’ve been hooked ever since.

So, upon planning our recent trip to San Francisco, I contacted Leah of agirlandaboy.com to see if she (and Simon!) were free any of the nights we would be in town. They met us for dinner in Oakland on Monday night and although we were all exhausted from a busy weekend—birthday partying and visiting with friends for them and us hiking and driving around—we had a wonderful time at dinner. We felt instantly comfortable with them (the glass of wine may have helped on my end, hee!) and there was never a pause in the conversation.

I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to travel as much as I do, and when it gives us the chance to finally meet people that we’ve technically known for several years, well, that’s a pretty sweet chocolaty icing on the cake.

Thanks again guys for the lively company and a very tasty restaurant suggestion! :)

After spending a lovely night at the Sir Francis Drake on Saturday night and a hearty (but overpriced) breakfast across the street at Sears, we spent Sunday morning walking around Chinatown.

It was still early, so the streets were free of tourists. I loved the ambiance, smells, and artwork that filled the windows on Grant Street. There was also the liberal use of lanterns.

I picked up some ginger tea at the TenRen tea shop and we also bought some freshly-made fortune cookies (with naughty fortunes!) at this tiny factory in Ross Alley.

She was nice enough to pose without me asking, I guess she’s used to silly tourists. :)

We have been going non-stop for two days and are completely exhausted. We haven’t even reviewed all our photos!

So, in the meantime, here’s a shot to prove where we are…

It was the first time I’ve seen it and the Golden Gate Bridge is absolutely as spectacular in person as it is in photos.

We are on our way to San Francisco, and pup thinks she’s going - really, she gets to stay at Camp Bow Wow.