San Francisco California

 

The Groom has never been to San Francisco or seen the Golden Gate Bridge. Since Tahoe is only a few hours away, we decided we had to go see it. It's been years since I've been there so it seemed like a fun trip.

California drivers are the absolute worst drivers in the world. They just are. Are almost getting into an accident more then once from the hipster in front of us, we made it onto the bridge. Which was basically a parking lot. Our 3 hour drive turned into 5 hours. Typical of San Francisco. 

The downside is that because of the traffic we didn't make it there until 3:30 in the afternoon, which gave us very limited time to do much. It also happened to be fleet week, as well as a Blue Angels air show. It was pretty jam packed with people and craziness. 

We did walk along the piers down to Pier 39. We walked through the packed shopping distract to the back, where we got a good view of Alcatraz. We also of course had to make a quick stop to see the sea lions. I always LOVED going to Pier 39 and seeing the sea lion. They are like giant lazy cats of the ocean. 

We didn't have time to go out to Alcatraz, or see Fisherman's Warf which I'm bummed about. But we saw a few highlights. We then went to a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner right by the piers. I'm a snob when it comes to Italian food, but this place was actually amazingly good. Too bad I can't remember the name of it. 

After that we drove through the madness that is the city of San Francisco, crossed the Golden Gate bridge and got back to Tahoe about midnight. It was a long day, but very fun too.

Lake Tahoe - The Wedding

 

All of this geared up to the big day of getting married. There was a little drama leading up to the wedding (there is always drama) like the groom being in agonizing pain from a tooth that needed to be pulled, and the forecast the night before the wedding of snow and rain and a high of 38 degrees. 

But what can you do? We just rolled with it. Luckily the rain came in the morning. It was quite chilly, but the sun came out right before the ceremony and turned it into a beautiful day. Tahoe is always absolutely beautiful. We kept the wedding small, mainly just family and a few close friends. And it turned out just wonderful. Simple, but just right for us.

My bouquet - I love roses. Maybe that's a boring flower to like, but I have always loved roses. For the wedding we got a ton of roses in many different colors from Costco. 

Seriously, Costco is the best. We had all the flowers shipped to the house, then put them together myself. You just have to get them out of the boxes right away and get them in some water. But by the next day the open up and are just beautiful. 

For my bouquet I had always planned on just doing red roses. My mom passed away a few years ago, and the groom's sister had the genius idea to have e pick out a different colored rose, and they'd put it in the center of my bouquet in honor of my mom. So that's why there is the one yellow rose poking out of the sea of red. I never would have though of doing that, but I love it.

After the ceremony we had a dinner on the lake that night which was divine. Everyone was beyond full, And anyone who left hungry - well, that was their own fault. 

Beautiful day.

Reno

While in Reno we did make a quick stop at a park I used to go to as a child. They have done a lot of work in making it such a pretty place. Of course I had to stop at the rose garden. It was still in bloom and beautiful. The park runs along the river, which is almost totally dried up because of the horrible drought. It was a fun stop to make on a lovely October morning.

Road Trip - From Texas to Nevada - Day 2 Continued

 

As we got closer to Nevada, the wind and rain really picked up hard. It was a bit hairy there for awhile and even had some pretty intense lightening. But watching the stormy weather over those desert mountains was pretty cool.

I did want to stop at Hoover Dam. It was on our path, and it's always a cool place to stop. It is sad to see what a horrible drought they are in, and hopefully lots of rain is coming their way. But in the meantime it is a pretty cool stop to make.

  

We then got back on the road and got a good view of the Las Vegas skyline.

From there it was a pretty bring drive across the desert. That stretch from Vegas to Reno is very long and quite tedious. But we did make a pit stop at Area 51. The store had some fun memorabilia and cool t-shirts, but it was pricey. Needless to say we did not get anything. Also, there were signs everywhere stating to not drink or ingest or wash your hands with the water. Not a place I wanted to try the food at.

From there we moved on until we got closer to Reno. The sunset was pretty amazing.

Road Trip - From Texas to Nevada - Day 2

 

A few weeks ago I made the trek, by car, from Austin Texas to Reno Nevada. It was a very long road trip, consisting of about 30 driving hours each way. This is with only stops to get gas and use the bathroom. It's a very long drive. We broke up the trip into two days - two days to drive there, and two days to drive back.

The overall purpose of the trip was to get married at Lake Tahoe! Which went off swimmingly. In the meantime, we did see some fun things along our very long trip there and back. Of course with that much time in the car we had a lot of audio books and music to listen to. 

On the trek to Reno, we listened to some classic Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. You never have to convince me to listen to some Sherlock.

Day one on the road didn't get us leaving town until about 8am. As such, we decided to stop in Albuquerque for the night so we could get a good nights rest and hit the road early the next day. I didn't really take any pictures of Texas. There really wasn't much to see other than the usual fields and farms. Our drive took us up to Lubbock, and then over through New Mexico and Arizona to Vegas. Then from Vegas straight up to Reno.

We left Albuquerque by about 4am. The hotel we stayed in had the most uncomfortable beds ever, so we were ready to get up and moving early. That sunrise as we headed out of New Mexico was quite lovely. We did have mostly cloudy weather all day, until we hit Arizona.

 Once in Arizona it proceeded to rain the entire drive across the state. I don't mind the rain. It was nice to not have the sun beating down on you the whole time. And we even came across a bright rainbow. For the first time in my life I saw a rainbow that was the full bow, not just part of it.

 Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of the entire thing as we were too close to it. I checked, and there was no gold on either side.