San Francisco, CA, USA

We drove on the right this time as we left the San Francisco airport and headed out to our Marriott. We watched the Olympics and enjoyed fast WiFi and appreciated all the touches of being in the US, like free drink refills at the Red Robin. The next day, we headed out to Yosemite...and found our reservations that night were for Big Basin State Park instead! Since it was President's Day weekend, reservations in both Big Basin and Yosemite were hard to come by, so we headed to Big Basin State Park, home of California's coastal redwoods. We stayed in a platform tent, set up with a kit of sleeping bags and cookware and a wood-burning stove. It was chilly and we

appreciated Scott's Boy Scout skills in building the fire. We wandered among the big trees the next day, some over 300 feet tall and 50 feet in circumference, and felt very small by comparison.
After enjoying Big Basin, we drove out to Yosemite BUG, which is a really unique rustic mountain retreat on the western edge of the national park. It has family rooms, dormitory rooms, climate-controlled tents, and unheated tents in various buildings scattered across a forested slope. We stayed in a platform tent again, but this one was missing the cute woodstove, and outside the low plummeted to 22 F that night. Some might argue we were preparing for our re-entry into Minnesota in February and others might just think we were a bit crazy; both may have their points...the next night we scored a heated family room and appreciated the luxury. The BUG featured an excellent chef and I think some of the best meals I've eaten in quite a while I enjoyed at the BUG.
While the crowds in Yosemite are definitely a lot lighter in February than the summer, there are a few considerations during one's enjoyment of the park: chains are required for all private cars wishing to enter the park during the winter, so we rode the bus into the Yosemite Valley. We enjoyed some of the small hikes around the Visitor Center and managed to point out the Half Dome to our kids before the snow moved in, but when one can't even see the rock formations in Yosemite because the snow is so thick, you know it is time to go back to the BUG for an excellent dinner from that chef again.

On our way back to San Francisco we stopped at several places in Silicon Valley, including Apple Park to see the new Apple headquarters and Google headquarters. The Computer History Museum was closed that day, and apparently the only thing outside Facebook is a giant thumb, so we continued to downtown San Francisco. The next day we rode through the waterfront, past the Presidio and the beautiful San Francisco Arts Building, and over the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito. Scott and I agreed we could definitely retire in Sausalito, but I think he better get a job first for a little while. We took a ferry back to the Fisherman's Wharf and visited the Ghiradelli Square and Lombard Street before calling it a day. And a trip, because the next day, we were headed...home. Minnesota home.