Vacation photo of the day

These beautiful flowers were located at none other than Alcatraz Island. Most people associate Alcatraz with ugliness, crime, and mystery but there is a lot of really beautiful foliage there and awesome birds. I thought I would feature something beautiful there rather than start with the inside of the prison. Hope you enjoy!

Hey everyone. Anthony and I have been back over a week from vacation and I think we are finally caught up with our lives. We had such a great time on vacation and did the following things.

-- Drove the coast and took magnificent photos
-- Visited Hearst Castle and took a tour
-- Stayed in San Jose and toured the Winchester Mystery House
-- Went to San Francisco and stayed there for 2 days
-- Went to Palace of Fine Arts
-- Golden Gate Park
-- Drove across both the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate
-- Drove down Lombard Street
-- Spent a day at Fisherman's Wharf
-- Toured Alcatraz for several hours
-- Ate wonderful meals of fresh seafood
-- Went to Sacramento and toured the Capital building
-- Went to Lake Tahoe and saw beautiful sights
-- Went to Reno for 2 days and had so much fun
-- Saw the amazing Brett Dennen in concert which was AWESOME
-- Visited the Jelly Belly Factory and bought way too many jelly beans
-- Bought amazing fresh produce at a roadside stand

and various other roadside stops and fun times. I thought I would feature one of our photos every day and tell you a little about it.

I am in a very busy time in my semester called the END so I will only have time to post smaller posts until GRADUATION! Yes, in 5 weeks I will be done with my Masters degree!! Can you believe it? Enjoy the photos and keep in touch!

--e--

Hearst Castle and San Jose

So Anthony and I are now at our first of three hotels over the span of our vacation. We decided since we did not get to go on an official honeymoon that we would take a road trip over spring break. We started out at 2:00 am this morning and headed toward San Simeon to see Hearst castle. We took the route up the coast and enjoyed the beautiful view this afternoon. We arrived at Hearst castle at about 7 this morning and had a quick nap in the parking lot before our 8:20 am tour. The tour was absolutely amazing and I have included my favorite picture from it on this post. It was fabulous. The castle was originally owned by William Randolph Hearst and it has a lot of rich history, amazing pieces of art, gorgeous antiques, and just an atmosphere that was fun to take in.

At about 11 am we were all finished up there and headed to Santa Cruz to go to the mystery spot. If you have never heard of this, google it and learn all about it. We were really excited about this and even bought tickets for their 4:00 tour. Well, becuase of some traffic issues, we did not make our tour time so we didn't get to see the mystery spot this time around. We decided just to head to our hotel and get settled for the evening since we neither one had slept except in brief periods of the car ride. We got here just to discover that there was a problem with travelocity and their booking of our reservation. The outcome was that the employee that was running the front desk at our hotel was incredibly rude and did not solve the problem in a timely or professional manner so we have had a bit of a rough start here.

To make matters better we went out and got a nice italian dinner here in San Jose and then came back to relax. I got into a jacuzzi bubble bath and Anthony layed across the bed and snored. Now, I am blogging as he is showering and we are planning to turn in early for our big plans tomorrow. We are headed early in the morning over to the Winchester Mystery House. Again, google this if you haven't heard of it. Totally a cool place! After that we are heading up to San Francisco to check into our hotel and go sight see. Anthony has never been so it will be fun for him and I both. I will probably blog in a few days as our next hotel does not have free wireless and I don't want to pay. The third one in RENO does! :) We'll check in then. Have a lovely day and I pray that your week is as relaxing as I plan for mine to be!