And then there was wine...

Only in Napa Valley is it acceptable to start the day off with wine. I found a Groupon for a guided wine tour so to start off Day 2, we set off in the bus over the Golden Gate Bridge into Napa Valley.  After driving through rolling hills with rows and rows of grape vines, we arrived at our first winery, Gloria Ferrer Vineyards. 

 The vineyard specializes in sparkling wine as it was the first US vineyard for a major cava (sparkling wine) producer in Spain.  They had a beautiful patio overlooking the vineyard which was perfect for some pictures.   

 We both loved the shovels turned bird statues in the gardens (above).  After looking over the menu, we decided to start the day with a sampling flight of three of their more popular wines.  I will admit it was odd drinking wine at 10:30 am, but I guess when in Napa Valley......

 After taking in the beautiful vineyard and wine, we stopped inside the gift shop for a bit, and of course had to take a picture of these huge bottles of wine!!!  We were then off to the next winery.

After 15 minutes we arrived at our second winery, Domaine Carneros. The winery also specialized in sparkling wine as it was the US winery to the French champagne maker, Taittinger. The winery had a gorgeous chateau with beautiful landscaping. 

 Luckily we again got to sit on a gorgeous terrace overlooking the vineyards (and a bit of the highway).  It was not much more to buy a bottle rather than just buying samples so we decided to do that. However the winery was busy and by the time we received our bottle we did not have much time (especially after Kyleen's wine photo shoot) and we had to drink it quickly in order to get back to the bus.

 It was around this time that the bubby wine and small breakfast were getting to us.  We were chatting with some other guests on our bus and we realized that two of the women on the tour were a perfect example of Kyleen and Amy in 15 years. They were two long-time friends that now lived hours apart but met in San Francisco to meet up again with one of their husbands along for the ride.  They were chatting and laughing and having so much fun, while the dear husband entertained himself in between taking their pictures and reminiscing on past visits.  We arrived at the third winery, Sebastiani Wineries, which was the biggest that we visited, just in time for lunch. We both enjoyed a much needed, delicious sandwich on ciabatta bread. We decided to forgo the winery tour to try a sample flight of wine. This was the best deal for samples and we enjoyed the variety.  Also, it was the first winery where you sat at a bar with the bartender who gave lots of additional information about each wine before we tried it.  As much as we both loved the view of the outside patios, having a conversation about each wine was really interesting and helped educate us on the differences.   

 We then headed to the birthplace of California wine, Buena Vista Winery for our last visit of the day. We were not impressed with the small samples or crowded tasting room but the building was interesting.  Also, after sneaking away from the group, we were able to see some of the winemaking process.

 We then headed back to San Francisco and were dropped off at Fishermans Wharf. We headed to In-n-Out Burger (for a much needed snack) as I have heard so much about it. Kyleen has said she had been to In-n-Out growing up but that did not stop her surprise when I ordered off the "secret" menu and ordered my burger "animal" style. We both enjoyed the burgers and ended up liking the animal style better. When we finished eating, we then headed to the pier for our cruise to Alcatraz to be described in the next post.

San Francisco Day 1 continued...

Last we left off, we were headed back to the Fisherman's Wharf area on the ferry.  After dropping off our bikes at the rental place, we headed to Ghirardelli's for a quick chocolate fix and decided to split a brownie sundae.  It was so delicious!!  I kind of wish we would have had a brownie by itself to really taste the chocolate.  Instead, I had to scarf down my half before Kevin devoured the whole thing.  :-)

We then walked around Fisherman's Wharf.  I loved being right on the water, walking past the marina with all the salmon fishing boats and seeing the famous sea lions hanging out.  However, we were a little disappointed at how touristy the area was.  There were so many souvenier shops, tourist attractions like Ripley's, and people were everywhere!  I am still glad we checked it out, but we didn't spend a ton of time walking around there. 

 

After Fisherman's Wharf, we decided to walk back to our hotel so we could see the famous block of Lombard Street, the crookedest (most winding) street in the world.  Neither one of us thought about how steep the walk would be, especially after we had been biking all morning.  Oops!

 

To finish off our first day in San Francisco, we headed to AT&T Park for the Giants vs Dodgers game.  It was a pretty cool ballpark but not the best one we have seen.  Kevin says Fenway is still his favorite.  We had awesome seats pretty close to the field, and had a view of the bullpen area, so we could watch the pitchers warm up.  We were pretty surprised to see how packed the game was, considering it was the end of the season and the Giants were no where near playoff eligible.  They sure love their hometown team.  As far as food goes, there was a decent selection, including some San Fran specific fare (like a crab sandwich and garlic fries).  The stadium is right on the water, so we were able to watch the kayakers in the water waiting for a possible home run ball.

 

 

We left the game a little early since we had a jam-packed day and were exhausted!  We wanted a good night's rest since we were getting up bright and early for a Napa Valley wine tour the next day. 

We are going where?!?!

Kevin came up with a pretty amazing birthday present this year. I guess all my (not so) subtle hinting that his 30th comes after mine and I have a pretty decent memory worked in my favor. He told me we were going on a vacation, but all he would tell me were the dates we were going to be gone and a general idea of the weather (which could have been 60% of the US). I wasn't even supposed to know if we were driving, flying, taking a train, walking, riding a horse, hitchhiking....you get the idea. I say I wasn't supposed to know, because I did find out the day of because of the reminder emails from airlines to check-in to your flight, but had enough restraint to not dig any deeper. I guess getting old really does mature you because up until now, I have never been known to not ruin a surprise before I was supposed to (ha ha, stop laughing Mom). I didn't know until we got to the gate that we were headed to San Francisco! On the flight, I found out our trip included a bike tour, Napa Valley, Alcatraz, a Giants game, along with a few other sightseeing stops along the way.

 

When we got to San Fran, we took a group shuttle to our hotel. Even though it was a long day and we were not on California time yet, we decided to walk around and check out the local scenery. We ended up at a local bar, which happened to be a Bengals hangout on Sundays. Small world, huh. We didn't stay too long since we had a packed day ahead of us.

After first admiring the gorgeous view from our hotel balcony, we started the day off bright and early with a Starbucks latte in hand for a nice stroll along the bay. As tired as we were, I am so happy we did this. There were no tourists in sight and we were able to enjoy the scenery without anyone else around (as well as take some Pinterest inspired shadow pictures).

Next up was a bike tour through the streets of San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge and into Sausalito. We took a million pictures along the way (some even while peddling, you could say I am quite the dare devil), but I will spare you and only show some of the best shots. I would highly recommend touring the bridge this way. We got to see it from far away, and watch as we got closer and closer and it just got more beautiful and magnificent the more we peddled. It's weird to think that a bridge could be so beautiful, but I was just in awe the whole time.

That is, until we got onto it and had to dodge all types of tourists! There is a bike path and a pedestrian path, but clearly the pedestrians didn't seem to think they needed to stay in their lane. Luckily we had a fun little bell on our bikes, and I sure got my money out of mine. Sadly, it was kind of empowering and fun to ride up onto these tourists, standing around with no clue that they are in my way, and start ringing my bell and watching them jump to the side just in time. :-) I know, I know, I need to get out more....

 

 

 Once we got over the bridge, we stopped to take in the view from the other side before heading down to Sausalito. And I mean that literally. I guess I didn't realize the altitude we were currently at because next thing I know, we were expected to fly down these crazy steep hills, continuously turning every which way, all while staring death in the face. I definitely tested out those brakes the whole way down wondering if this was how it was all going to end. OK, maybe I am being a little dramatic, but I think that is exactly what Kevin was thinking. I just wish I could have gotten a picture of his face right after. When we finally got into town and I turned around to see him, he was slowly coming around the last turn (a little more cautiously than I took it) and looked as while as a ghost! Once in town, we secured our bikes and made our way to lunch (and a much needed drink).

After walking around town a bit, we grabbed the bikes, jumped on the ferry back to San Fran, and headed off to the next adventure... 

 

The creation of Casa de Ksquared...

Hey everyone! So this is our attempt at a blog to document our lives for our far away family and friends. We figured that this might be a better way to tell stories and show off pictures, whether it be from a recent trip, hanging out around Cleveland, or our latest attempt to be DIYers.  We have some posts lined up of past projects and trips so hopefully there will be lots of new posts soon.  Our goal is to update this often, but then again, we aren't always traveling or as productive as we should be, so we might not have much to say once we get past those initial posts.  If there is ever anything you want us to write about (or pictures you want to see), just ask!