Day 6 – Golden Gate Park – Highway 1 – Oakland #travelwithbaby

I feel like today is a good day to document the final day of our trip to San Francisco.  Baby fell asleep early, daddy is working, and since we’ve created a monster and let her sleep in her bed, I cannot do anything, but sit and watch her sleep.  Her new, hot weather sleep pose is too funny not to share.

 

 

 

 

 

My husband is not a planner and not only does he not plan, he doesn’t enjoy himself as much if he knows that I am even considering plans in my mind.  I am learning to be very flexible, but I am also learning when to keep silent about my ideas and plans and when to share my ideas.

I think he was able to feel like this trip was full of rest and spontaneity and I was able to feel like we fully took advantage of our time and our trip.  Of course, this has meant I have greatly altered my definition of taking advantage of the time, but I really think this is a change for the better.  Late mornings, early evenings, sitting on a bench, and rest can all be good uses of time.

I’m in the middle of a whole series of books about time management by Laura Vanderkam and in her book about what successful people do on weekends, I felt like my old self was reaching out from pre-marriage and speaking.  But, I have learned that some people get to the end of the weekend having done nothing and they are exceedingly pleased.  I don’t think that they just need to be taught a better way.  I think they have a different way.  Learning to make different ways work together is what marriage is all about.  (OK, maybe its really about a lot more than that, but that is part of it).

So last day comes and we start talking about what to do.  Our host recommends Napa Valley.  We consider doing Chinatown a little more and doing more in San Francisco.  We consider driving all the way to Montery, despite the fact that we are not leaving early and have to be back for dinner with friends by 6:00.

We settle on Golden Gate Park and then a drive down Highway 1 on the coast. Wow, we definitely chose wisely.

We walked through part of the park and actually paid to go in the Japanese Gardens.  Ever since we watched The Last Samurai, anything that shows Japanese nature and gardens has been on the top of my to see list.

The top of my bucket list, since I’ve been able to cross Istanbul off that list, is to visit Japan, but skip Tokyo.

Then we drove along the coast, ate lunch at an old prohibition time distillery along the rocky California coast, drove a little more, drove a little more, and then finally returned to Oakland.  Another bucket list item is now to drive all the way to Los Angeles along the coast.  Every mile is a new wonder.

We had a lovely final evening with our friends, wandered around the revitalized Oakland, and got ready to come home.

Zoya, who was insanely perfect the rest of the trip, had a pretty fussy afternoon, until we realized she must not be feeling good and stopped and got her some baby Tylenol.  I don’t know if she was teething or if she had the little fever that I had two days before.  She already has 10 teeth the last time I counted.

But once she was feeling better, she was all smiles and love for the white haired man.  She is so cautious around new people, but she took to him right away, just like she took to my dad last weekend.