Napa Valley & Alcatraz- last photos, I promise!

Ok, I think this is finally the last batch of photos from our trip! We spent one day in Napa Valley, it was so gorgeous! We both liked it more than we thought we would and would love to go back and go to more wineries (who's coming with us?!?). We chose to go to one winery, Mumm, because they do sparkling wine (Champagne). It was really fun!

Our tasters at Mumm. We had 6 different sparkling wines to try. My favorite was the 2003, more crisp than the 2001 and the rose 2005. Don't I sound sophisticated? :)

We spent our last night in San Francisco because we figured we'd try to get out and see Alcatraz (it was all booked up on our first trip through SF). In typical San Francisco fashion it was pretty cloudy and a little rainy on the boat ride out to the Rock, but gorgeous on the way back in!
Here's one of the cell blocks. It housed such infamous criminals as Al Capone, Machine-gun Kelly, and Robert Franklin Stroud-the "Birdman".

A typical prison cell. Very small!!
The Rock. They let the prison go into disrepair when it closed in the 60s. I think it makes it look much more ominous...

The Redwoods

The redwoods were one of our favorite parts of the trip. We spent the night in Fortuna and drove down the Avenue of the Giants the next day on our way to Napa Valley.

This one just tipped over, it was huge!!

Inside a hollowed out tree.
Drive-through tree!
Tree hugger :)

San Francisco

It was sunny and clear the day we arrived in San Francisco so we headed straight to the Golden Gate Bridge!!

view from the top of Coit Tower
Lombard Street!
Coit Tower- Ryan remembered it from the Amazing Race
view of SF from Twin Peaks
the "Painted Ladies" off of Alamo Square in SF. I was surprised how many houses actually had this type of architecture, they were everywhere!
Ryan enjoying his crab at Fisherman's Wharf :)


The cable cars! We rode one from our hotel to Fisherman's Wharf.

Big Sur and Monterey

The middle part of our trip was on the Pacific Coast Highway at Big Sur and in Monterey and Salinas.

This is the house in Salinas where John Steinbeck grew up (Ryan's favorite writer/author)
This is outside the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is in an old cannery. We saw sea otters playing out in the kelp beds!
The aquarium has some sea otters and this is Rosa, she's playing with her fake kelp. The otters were so cute!!
Cannery row in Monterey. They used to fish for sardines and anchovies in the bay and they were all processed and canned along this row (hence the name). Now it is mostly touristy with shops and restaurants.
Gorgeous Highway 1, the Bixby Canyon Bridge, built in 1931.
Highway 1, just south of Big Sur.
I cannot get enough of this scenery!!

Central Coast- Hearst Castle

Central Coast

We took a ton of pictures on our trip, so I'm going to upload them in parts... This is from our time in Santa Barbara and at Morro Bay.

This Solvang, we just stopped in quick to check it out. We got some Danish abvelskivers (?) and just walked around. It was like being at Disneyworld!

These are pictures from the Santa Barbara Mission. It was founded in 1786.

Big Sur