We decided to send summer out with a bang with a quick weekend getaway to San Francisco. Tom had a work meeting there so I decided to tag-along and make a fun trip out of it. I’ve never really been to San Francisco before and Tom has only been there for work, so we enjoyed being able to sight-see and really get to know the city!
We flew out of Salt Lake on Thursday night in order to be there Friday morning for Tom’s meeting. It was our first time flying together (which is shocking since we’ve traveled quite a bit) so we were pretty excited about that! Our flight connected through LAX, which wasn’t too bad as we were able to stop at one of my favorite restaurants, Lemonade!
While we were later on the connecting flight from LAX to San Francisco, the sun was setting and it was absolutely gorgeous! You don’t often get to see the sun setting from on top of the clouds, so it was quite the experience and we were really glad to have window seats!
The next day (Friday) after Tom’s work meetings were over, we grabbed some lunch at the Nourish Cafe near our hotel. It was an incredibly hot day (we later found out it was record-breaking heat in San Francisco this weekend) so all the restaurants were very warm inside. Nourish wasn’t too hot thankfully and we were able to get some refreshing and healthy food, so it gave us a great start to the day!
After lunch we went to the Oakland temple. It was beautiful! Unfortunately the San Francisco traffic made it so it took us nearly two hours to get there, but that was all we had on the agenda for the day so it was just fine. We did an endowment session at the Oakland temple and then walked around the grounds. It was beautiful and peaceful and visiting new temples is one of our favorite things to do.
After the temple, we went down to Fisherman’s Wharf and walked around. We had dinner at Cioppino’s and then went to Ghirardelli Square. There’s such an energy to this city, even at night!
The next day (Saturday) we spent time sight-seeing around the city. We started with breakfast at The Crepery, and it was super yummy! Then we walked all over the city and eventually made it back down to the pier.
There are so many fun things to do around San Francisco and I’m pretty sure that we did darn near all of them!
Walking down Lombard Street…
Visiting Union Square and the biggest Tiffany’s I’ve ever seen…
Having lunch at the Cheesecake Factory on the top floor of the Union Square Macy’s…
Walking through Chinatown and Little Italy…
Random sight-seeing from our tour bus…
And of course, the Golden Gate Bridge! It was actually pretty awesome in person and we were glad we’d made the trip to go see it. We even walked across it, which was neat!
In the early evening, we decided to walk up to Coit Tower to see the sunset. Our bus driver said it’s over 400 steps to get up there, and we definitely felt every one! It was so incredibly beautiful though and definitely worth the jaunt.
Our last full day (Sunday) we woke up early and drove up to Rohnert Park to go to church with Tom’s brother, Mike. He was even teaching Sunday School that day so it was neat to be there and hear from him. We rented a Smart car for the trip, and let’s just say that it was actually pretty fun to drive!
After church, Mike took us up the Armstrong Woods where there are tons of coastal redwoods. It was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking and there is such a reverence being there in with these majestic trees.
When we got back to the city, we decided to take a drive over to Alamo Square, which is where part of the opening sequence for Full House was filmed. We also drove to the home that they use as the Full/Fuller House show, and it was pretty exciting to be there! I grew up watching that show and it was cool to see the places in person, even though it’s obviously not actually where the show is filmed. 😉
The next morning (Monday) when we woke up, there was a gorgeous sunrise that we watched from our hotel room. We had an awesome corner room with windows that gave us a great view of the city… It was so pretty!
Our flight home was early in the afternoon, so we headed to the airport and thankfully the return flight was direct. When we got back to Salt Lake, our gate was right by the Pinkberry yogurt stand so of course we had to get some. It was delish and a great way to end what was an incredibly fun weekend getaway!
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