San Francisco

When we were planning our trip to Georgia, my mom and I talked a lot about adding a stop over to San Francisco on to our plans. My mom was born there and grew up in a city close by and my dad had also lived there in his younger, hippie days, so we have family and good friends there. I spent a lot of childhood vacations there, sometimes we drove all the way down the coast, and a couple times making the further drive to Disneyland. But mostly I remember staying in my grandpa's house on a hill in the suburbs where I would go and pick oranges from the trees in his strange, steep garden, having family barbeques, swimming in the ocean, and smelling the sweet scent of eucalyptus everywhere. Then staying with our friends in the Sunset area of the city, where the fog from the ocean would roll over the pastel coloured houses, and we would go visit my parents' old tie dyed stomping grounds around Haight-Ashbury and all the sights in Golden Gate Park. I hadn't been since my grandpa's funeral almost five years ago, and we figured it would be too much added expense and time to make it this trip. But when we got to San Francisco from Atlanta to catch our connecting flight back home, we saw that our flight had been cancelled and we had a surprise stopover for a couple of days before they could rebook our flights. What luck! I was thrilled. Growing up, I had always thought I would end up in San Francisco and although life has taken me to another place, it still holds a special place in my heart. And I'm so grateful we were able to spend time with more of the people we care about - my aunt, uncle and cousins, and good family friends. We were also able to visit a couple of favourite spots, although there are obviously lots more. One is the Musée Mécanique in Fisherman's Wharf where I would always go to get my fortune told, picture taken in old photo booths and play games on old board walk machines. 

The middle picture is from a quick detour up to Sacramento, in the old town, where we met up with my aunt and her family.