Day 4- Muir Woods, Sausalito, and San Francisco

We woke up kind of groggy this morning after a long night in the Travelodge. We had a delicious breakfast and then drove to Castello di Amorosa which is a winery but it's a huge castle. It was so neat!! We didn't get to go inside because you had to pay $17 to just enter. We walked around the outside though and it was awesome! Around back there was a little barn area with chickens and a big peacock. It had its feathers all fluffed and was so pretty! When we turned around though, a big black chicken was right next to us- scared the crap out of us which entertained the other family watching the animals.
We then headed to Muir Woods. The GPS took us the most terrifying way possible, up this really steep road that was basically the most winding road in the world, it definately gave Lombard Street (most crooked road) a run for its money. Anyway the road was not only narrow, steep, and windy with cars parked on each side, it was also filled with tons of bikers who of course were not far enough on the side of the road so we were afraid to pass them but if you didn't pass them, the cars behind you would start honking. Oh and did we mention that since it was so steep and wacky, you couldn't see if cars were going to come around a bend going the opposite way and hit you if you're passing a bike. Not a fun experience. At one point we had to pull over just to regroup...and for Jen to do alittle stress relieving screaming in the car. We took a couple pictures of what we believe to have been Muir Woods, without being able to find any signs, visitors center, or hiking maps, we can only use our best judgement that we were in fact in Muir Woods.
After that lovely experience, we headed to Sausalito. At this point we hadn't eaten since about 9am so we were very ready for lunch. The ride to Saulsalito was our first experience on Route 1. This was basically the exact same as the ridiculous road to Muir woods except now we were on the edge of a cliff. Sweet. There was alot of construction going on so the traffic was pretty heavy but luckily on Rt 1 there are "pull off" areas every little bit so you can just pull over and let a car pass if its on your butt. We finally arrived in Sausalito and after driving around a bit to figure our where to park we headed to Le Garage- a restaurant Patti had seen online and we thought looked cute. It was also the only restaurant we could even find in the area of Sausalito we were in so we headed there. It was really crowded but as we approached the hostess, we were informed that the kitchen closed at 2:30..it was about 2:40. Damn. The area was very pretty though, you could see all these houses like built into the mountain and at the marina there was tons of adorable house boats.
We hungrily loaded back up in our car and headed for San Francisco. Jen conquered the Golden Gate bridge like a pro--we were alittle worried about that one because of all the traffic going into the city--but we made it over and soon we arrived at our Kimpton hotel. It was really nice and our room was adorable but we needed to eat asap. The concierge told us about 2 places to eat and we headed out. San Francisco was (much like the other places we've been in CA) pretty chilly, plus here it was very windy! We huddled together and began our journey. We walked down a ways to where the gay pride parade had taken place earlier in the day and took some pictures and then headed to the restaurants which were wayyy out of our price range. We ended up at this little pizza place called Bellini's which was delicious! We then basically ran back to our hotel because we were so cold.

Optimismmm:
-route 1 is terrifying
-the shoes Joanna bought for L.A. are nothing compared to the heels we saw this guy (who was obviously there for the parade) wearing, they were at least 5 inches tall
-any time you think you face adversity in your life, think about the couple we saw- not only were they gay but one was white and one was black
-putting signs up was apparently skipped in Muir Woods
-if you want to eat in Sausalito-arrive early
-don't rely on the concierge to actually tell you places that are cheap when you ask for them
-we have mentioned this many times before but California is COLD
-dog-friendly hotels are nice except when your neighbors dog won't stop yapping
-I guess those AAA stars know what they're talking about: going from the Travelodge to the Kimpton was like night and day

PS. A special shout out to Jen who did an excellent job driving today!!! :)

Castello di Amorosa

Muir Woods

After so much scary driving, Jen's foot began to hurt and she had to add more support



Cute house boat in Sausalito



About to go over Golden Gate bridge

Stress relieving drink after finally arriving in San Fran