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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

DAR Presidio Chapter



I can't deny that I'm a joiner...I joined Phi Mu in college, I joined Junior League when I moved to San Francisco and now I've joined DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). Well, I joined DAR in DC, but never ended up doing anything with them.  When my friend Lauren here said she just joined DAR....I remembered that I had joined before!  I figured, what the hell, I need to make new friends here in SF, so I'll give it a shot.


We had our meeting at the beautiful St. Mark's Lutheran Church 


They made the meeting really fun and interactive and even had FOOD! You clearly know the way to my heart when you offer food, AND make them theme appropriate!!

Monday, September 28, 2015

Capitola, CA


While in Santa Cruz, we decided to go exploring and ended up in Capitola, CA.  That's where the B Man's boss lives and we were going to meet up to go to lunch.  Little did we know that it was the annual Capitola Begonia Festival and the place was PACKED.  Lots of people, sand castles, flowers and floats were everywhere.  Capitola was a cute little town with several restaurants around the water. I don't think I'd make a second visit because I'm not a beach town kind of girl, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who are!


It was SO weird for me to see people swimming in the ocean with full on body suits!  Guess I'm too used to the East Coast where the water is warm.  I can't imagine how cold the water was! NO THANKS!


Pretty cool sand castles!


Some of the boats out in the water


The view from the end of the pier


I just thought these kayaks' colors were so beautiful!

Friday, September 25, 2015

Santa Cruz, CA


After driving down US 1, we arrived in Santa Cruz!  I had been itching to get out of the city with the B Man because I'm getting worried we may have to leave next summer and I don't want to miss anything on my bucket list!  Well, technically, I wanted to go to Monterey but he won out with Santa Cruz.  Oh well. Compromise, right?

So we arrived in Santa Cruz and immediately set out to explore.  The picture above is from the pier. From their website, "The family-operated Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has been entertaining guests by the beach since 1907.  One of the last of the classic seaside amusement parks in the United States, the Boardwalk is considered one of the best seaside amusement parks in the world."


SO MANY SEA LIONS!!!

This one is straight chillin! I guess they can jump pretty high to get up on that beam (you can't really tell how far away the water is)

More views from the boardwalk. That tall thing in the middle is a ride where they take you to the top and let you drop...NO THANKS.


Hidin out!


There's even a train! The Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific train "operates passenger and freight services on one of the oldest and most historic lines in California. When the route opened in 1875 it carried lumber as well as picnickers and tourists to the Big Trees and Santa Cruz. Today's Beach Train passengers can start their roundtrip journeys from either Roaring Camp in Felton or from the beach in Santa Cruz."

They have several fun rides along the boardwalk

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Driving down US 1


The B Man and I decided that we should take advantage of the long weekend and take a drive down to Santa Cruz.  We decided to take the scenic US 1, also called the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and enjoy all of the beautiful views of the coastline.

PCH was built in 1034 and covers pretty much all of the coast of California.  It cuts in and out of the mountains....

And you pop out and see these amazing views...


And the waves crashing against the coast



And then we came up on Big Sur




Lots of surfers out there!





Friday, September 18, 2015

Wine Country (A-G-A-I-N)

Its a hard life, but someone's gotta do it.   I mean really, its hard. Just look how hard it is!  My bi-monthly champagne order from Domaine Carneros and because we wanted to kick the long weekend off with some bubbly.  And because I'm a club member, we got to sit on the private terrace.  I'd suggest you make a reservation because this place gets PACKED. Its pretty much the first stop on the path to Napa.


Annnndddd got a F-R-E-E tasting! You can't beat that! And Laura, our server, was amazing!  She may or may not know the B Man's uncle who has been coming for the past 5 years or so.

I brought the B man along, mostly because he drove us. And he's pretty cute.  It was a lovely sunny day on the patio.  We soaked up the sun and bubbles and decided to make a second stop while we were in Napa.

Next up was Domaine Chandon!  I mean, you can't top Domaine Carneros, but Chandon was pretty good. We didn't do a tour, but we did do a tasting. I did the Rose tasting and the B Man did the classic. We didn't make a reservation, we just walked in, we just walked in, enjoyed the champagne and took in the great views.



Mmmm....

I'll take the bottle please!

 You could take a bottle outside and sit in the sunny grass.


And on the way home I always get so excited to see the city emerge and take in the breathtaking sites of the city!

Just LOOK at that skyline!


It never gets old....

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

SF Street Food Festival


The B man and I attended the SF Street Food Festival at Pier 70 in the Dogpatch neighborhood.  Basically, you could find any local restaurant selling their food to the hungry people.  I think there were over 100 owner-operated food businesses....lots of YUMMY FOOD!

I found a lot of cool information about Pier 70 from their website.


Pier 70 is such a cool area that they are trying to rebuild into a multi-purpose area. In the future, they want to see repairs to the buildings and even add in zoning for small

Right now, only building 12 is being re-purposed and hosts a wide variety of open air festivals and events such as the street food festival.  It has a long standing history since the 1800s and will hopefully be revived to its glory! At its peak of activity during WWII, more than 1800 people worked at Pier 70 each day!

It will take quite a while, but here's a timeline of activity:


Now let's get to the actual FOOD.  It was super hot outside and I may have been a bit hungover so I really wasn't feeling any food for the first hour or so. But the B man surely was. He wanted ALL OF THE FISH TACOS!


Which was should we go?
First stop, Tacolicious. I've been to their brick & mortar, its pretty good!

B Man SUPER happy with his tacos!

There were plenty (maybe at least 4 different tacos and dim sum and tuna tartar) of food eaten by the B Man.

I finally got my shit together and ordered some food from Magnolia BBQ....OMGeeeee this is AMAZING.  I've been to their brick & mortar store in Dogpatch and its delightful! So much so that you kind of get the meat sweats (this girl's paradise).

Monday, September 14, 2015

Sentinel Building


Right next to the iconic Transamerica Building is the Sentinel Building.  Its San Francisco Landmark #33.

This building was built in 1907 and is also knows as the Columbus Tower and Coppola's Cupola.


The Sentinel Building is located in between Little Italy, Chinatown, and the financial district so there are plenty of great restaurants and stores nearby.  Cafe Zoetrope is currently on the ground floor of the Sentinel Building.


I love this city, you can turn the corner and see such cool buildings as this!


Columbus Tower
916 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA