A few months ago Shai told us he was going to be in San Francisco for a work conference and with us being under four hours away in Paso – fuhgeddaboudit – it wasn’t even a question that we’d be headed back up to see him.

Also, thanks to Facebook, we realized that Kay-D lived in San Francisco and seeing my former roommate from FL was an absolute must.  Yeh, this all came together nice.  Katie, brought her boy Josh and we met up for a tasty/authentic dinner at La Fusion – along with multiple bottles of wine – and then headed out for drinks.

Great picture right?  Aside from all the beautiful people, the Russian couple that shot this were definitely pro’s.  The girl was shining her iPhone light on us and the guy snapped away till he got the perfect pic.  Thanks cool random people!

Katie: Calling you out girl – hope to see you and Josh for some primitive camping at Big Sur in May!

PCH & Redwoods

The next day was for us and Shai.  We were resolved to give Shai a taste of our adventure which started heading south towards Santa Cruz via Pacific Coast Highway; the scenery was of course gorgeous!

San Gregorio

We stopped off at a number of spots including Half Moon Bay:

San Gregorio State Beach:

Which was incredible!

Buuut, walking back down was tough!  How do you muster the strength to leave a site like the one above?

Well leaving only sucked until we got to the next place.

Shark Fin Cove:

As you drive down PCH there are a ton of spots to pull off and take in the beautiful vistas so you need to be judicious, otherwise you’re stopping every 2 minutes.  We almost blew past the place above, but we all saw how official it looked, pulled a quick u-turn, and doubled back.

Once we parked  and got to the trailhead leading down to the cove, we knew it was worth it.

While there, the tide was rising and we couldn’t resist the temptation to take this series of pictures.

Shai and Amy got a bit wet, but who cares!  Look where we’re at!

Couldn’t help but post this video.  Really gives the whole picture.

After peeling away from this magical place, we drove through Santa Cruz and cut north up route 9 heading to Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

Seeing Redwoods is always a pretty awesome experience.

We took about a 3+ mile hike on a fairly empty trail enjoying these centuries old monsters.

After a long day we rested and cleaned ourselves up before heading out to see Ran.  We met up for a bomb Italian dinner at La Briciola and, of course, Ran hooked it up by getting us in VIP to some fancy club in SoMa.

Yeh, needless to say we had a fun time.

On our last leg of a full on fun marathon we met up with Aloy and Erik.  I think last time Shai and Aloy saw each other was in our teens so that’s cool.

It started off by Erik and Aloy taking us up to Mt. Davidson.

This place is awesome.  It’s the highest natural point in San Francisco and has an amazing view of, well, everything!

We had more outdoors activities planned, but we got rained out.  So, what do you do?  Only thing you can do: drink beer at an awesome brewery.

If you know don’t know 21^st Amendment by name, it’s the place that brews Hell or High Watermelon.

They even give you a slice of watermelon when you order the drink…nice touch.

There were so many yummy looking beers on the menu we couldn’t choose, so we each got a flight.  Makes sense, right?

We ended up hanging out there for a couple of hours shooting the breeze and just like that, it was time to take Shai to the airport.

Well, all good things come to an end…till next time that is.

Thanks to our family/San Francisco crew for making this trip sensational!

Having two weekends in a row to ourselves, we decided to take in all the amazingness the Central Coast has to offer…aaaand it’s a lot.

Since we arrived, we’ve been itching for a nice hike with beach vistas and fortunately for us, Avila Beach was under an hour drive.

Yup, just jump in the car, take an incredibly scenic drive south and you end up here.

There are a bunch of similar hikes in the vicinity, however surprisingly many of the public areas in CA are not dog friendly and no way Chica doesn’t roll with us.

So we found Ontario Ridge Trail and multiple connectors that allow for a nice 4.5-5 mile hike that begins at a gorgeous meadow.

Immediately upon arrival you’re tasked with a super steep climb.

And are rewarded with insane views!

The entire hike runs along a ridge parallel to the surreal beauty of coastline.

What an incredible day!

Glimpse into the Daily Routine:

As we labor on the phones between awesome weekends we’ve been making sure to enjoy the longer days with bike rides through the wineries along Linne Rd after work.

We’ve enjoyed the 16 mile round trip ride from home to Cass Winery and back.  3-4 of these so far and it hasn’t gotten old yet.

Of course, after we exercise, Chica gets out to the empty field by our house and gets to play too.

Wine Tasting:

Our second free weekend in a row was dedicated to sampling more wine and Halter Ranch came highly recommended.

We weren’t disappointed, the property was perfectly situated and the grapes were tasty.

In a nice turn of events, we met this group of amazing people that invited us to join their wine feast.

Definitely seasoned wine pro’s, they schooled us on how to properly prepare for a day  of tastings with yummy meats, cheeses, pasta’s and wine prepared ahead of time.

Not sure the day could have gotten any better…but it did!

On the way home we were passing by Adelaida Cellars (one of the wineries we really enjoyed on a previous foray into wine country) and had to get back to buy another couple bottles of their table wine, Recessed Red.

Really love the tasting experience at this place.

Life is good!

Yes! We work, promise.

Being 4 hours from the Bay Area we definitely took advantage of the RSA conference being held in San Francisco.

And hey, if we’re going to San Francisco, might as well go up early and spend the weekend.  Couldn’t have worked out better.

After posting up at our last minute accommodations in the Marina District, we had a long overdue beer before meeting up with Ran and Rinat for dinner.

As expected, Ran chose a delicious Peruvian restaurant, Parada where we enjoyed amazing seafood.  Pretty great seeing Ran and Rinat…just wish we didn’t forget the picture!

Our next free day we met up with Aloy and Erik for a trip out to the Muir Woods National Monument.

We took about a 7 mile hike (round trip) up the Redwood Trail that leads to Panoramic Highway.  The climb was awesome and once you elevate above the tree line it was gorgeous.

Right on the Panoramic Highway we found the Mountain Home Inn which THE perfect spot to grab a beer and snacks before the climb back down.

View was insane!

From there Aloy and Erik trooped it out and took us to Fisherman’s Wharf.

This place is super touristy, but glad we went; the viewpoints  are awesome with the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge’s on each side with Alcatraz and the surrounding hills in between.

What a great day!

Oh yeh, we came for work too!  Here ya go:

Even that was a great time.  It’s awesome meeting people you’ve talked to on the phone for years.

We continued our exploration of CA by getting on our first “legit” hike in the area, Bishop’s Peak.

This is a super steep climb of about 950 feet in elevation over 3.5 miles.

It was cool to see so many people out and active whether it was hiking or rock climbing.  We can see how the views make it hard to sit in the house though.

Doesn’t hurt that it’s 70 degrees and sunny in February either.

At the top we took a few minutes to lounge and take in the beauty.  We could even see a glimpse of the coast over the hills in the distance.  Amazing!

After we finished our hike, we figured it would make sense to do some wine tastings.  It’s kind of hard not to when you have to pass by hundreds of them everywhere you go.

The next day’s weather proved to be perfect, again, so… lets just take an incredible 40 minute drive to the beach.

Now it just so happens, a stretch of beach near us is a dog beach.  Needless to say Chica was pumped.

This whole idea of us sitting out there, in the middle of February, on what could be considered an exotic beach is pretty sweet.

Everybody enjoyed and had a great time.

And of course on the way home, we passed countless wineries and decided to sample more of the local grapes.

Yup! Central Coast is official.