Back from vacation

Well, actually I've been back for almost two weeks, but I was too lazy to get on here and write about it until now haha. Well, so I guess I'll start with the trip there, which was pretty uneventful. We went over to the airport in our city, and luckily, unlike last year, they didn't fool with our flights and make us go on more planes than we originally were going to. So, we got on the plane to go to Dallas as planned. We met my brother there, who was flying in from his city. To my delight, they had a Fuddrucker's in the Dallas airport, so we ate there for lunch. Seriously, they need to extend their locations a bit, because sadly there isn't a single one in my whole state. But anyway, after that we got on our second plane, which was taking us to San Francisco. That was the biggest plane I've been on. Instead of the kind that has three seats on the right side and two seats on the left, there were two seats on each side, but then three more seats in the middle of the plane. I ended up having to sit in one of the middle seats, which I didn't like as much since I like to be closer to the window. Well, I usually don't like to sit right by the window, at least during take-off, because it makes me feel kind of queasy, but I still want to be near it because I want to be able to see what's going on outside. lol But anyway, it didn't end up being too bad because I could still kind of see out the nearest window where other people were sitting. And also, since this flight was about three-and-a-half hours long, they showed a movie on their little TVs. For that I was thankful, because getting myself really into the story of "Inkheart" really helped me forget that I was thousands of feet in the air. lol. And, since I now have an iPod, I had my own headphones to use, so we didn't have to pay 3 dollars or however much it was to use some of the airline's headphones. So finally, we began landing in San Francisco. It was kind of weird, because the airport is right by the water, so it seemed like we were literally two inches above the water, and just when it seemed like we were going to go right into it, the runway appeared and we were on the ground! So that was kind of scary but cool too. haha. So we got to the airport and took a tram over to the rental car center. So we got the car and then went to our hotel, which was in a suburb called San Bruno. We had dinner at this little Chinese place there, which ended up being really good, and then went back to our hotel.
So the next morning, we got in the car and headed over to Yosemite National Park, which was quite a ways from San Francisco. But finally we got there, and met my uncle, who lives in California and decided to come with us. Since Yosemite is pretty big, we spent two days there. We stayed at a hotel in a little town called Mariposa (that means butterfly in Spanish haha) which was right outside the park. But yeah, Yosemite was really cool. We saw the big waterfalls there, and all the rocks and lakes. It was very pretty. :) We also drove out a little ways from the park to see Lake Mono, which was SO cool! It was a big lake which was surrounded by these weird looking rocks, which made it almost look like you were on another planet or something! lol. Here's a pic of it: http://www.pashnit.com/pics/road5/Hwy120/MichaelMaloney_MonoLakeTufa.jpg
Then, we went to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park, which was a little smaller so we just spent one day doing that. So, we saw all the sequoia trees, and also saw the General Sherman, which is the largest tree in the world! And it definitely was huge! http://innovatechurch.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/general-sherman.jpg
The next day, we left our hotel in nearby Visalia and started heading over to Monterey, which is a town on the coast. On the way there, we stopped in a town called Cambria to eat lunch, which was kind of what you might call "hoity-toity". lol. It was nice, but I lost count of how many "upscale botiques" and ladies carrying tiny dogs in their purses there were in the town. haha. Then we went to the Hearst Castle, which was a huge house and estate owned by William Randolph Hearst. We rode a bus up the big mountain where the house was. We got a tour of the guesthouse, which had guest bedrooms and a big dining room with a really cool ceiling. There were also two pools there, one outside and one inside, which was called the Gold Pool because it had real gold on the tiles. So that was cool! Then we drove the rest of the way to Monterey. I was wearing a skirt, since the weather had been warm in all of the previous places we were. In fact, it was quite hot at the national parks and in Mariposa and Visalia. But it's amazing how drastically the temperature drops when you get into a town right by the ocean. Because both Monterey and San Francisco were far from hot. lol. When I stepped out of the car in Monterey, I was freezing! Even during the day, it usually only gets in the upper 60s, and at night it's like in the low 60s or even in the 50s. I guess it probably felt colder to me than it really was, since it's so hot and humid where I live and I'm totally not used to cool weather right now. But anyway, since it was about evening when we got to Monterey, we ate dinner and then after it got dark, we went right up to the coast so my brother could take some nighttime pictures (he's into photography and has this special camera that can even take pictures at night). Luckily we had brought jackets with us so we wore those, since it was cool and windy. There wasn't a place to go right on the beach, but there were some rocks you could stand on and see the ocean from there. So that was fun, but my mom and I ended up going back to the car after awhile since we were freezing, and let my brother finish taking all his pictures.
Then the next day, we did the 17-mile drive which started in Monterey. You just drove all along the coast for 17 miles, and there was all this stuff you could stop and see. You could see the beach, and there was one place where you could see seals and sea lions on this big rock out in the distance. We also stopped at the part in Carmel, which had a beach that you could go on. My brother and went in the water even though it was freezing! lol. So that was really fun too! And then that night we ate at a place called California Pizza Kitchen, which again, is a chain restaurant, but we don't have any in our state. We got pizza, of course, even though they had pasta and stuff too, and we quite enjoyed it.
The next day, we drove through San Francisco and briefly stopped there. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was cool. It's so big! We also walked around downtown (and had to wear our jackets of course lol). Like any big city, it was extremely crowded, so I think it was a cool place to visit, but it would probably drive me nuts if I lived there because of how crowded it is, not to mention the fact that you're shivering in July. lol. So yeah, we finished looking around San Francisco and then drove the rest of the way to Santa Rosa, which thankfully was further away from the ocean, thus it was quite a bit warmer than San Francisco. There wasn't a whole lot to do there, even though it's a pretty decent-sized city. The reason we went there was to look at a school that I'm thinking about attending, which is specifically for people who want to train assistance dogs. So that was pretty much all we did there, besides eat and go to the mall there. lol. And I LOVED the school. Everyone there was so nice, and it looks like such a fun place to go. Plus it's a pretty small school, so you get more one-on-one classes and stuff. So that's definitely staying on my list of places I might like to go!
And then we drove back to San Francisco since that's where we were flying out to go back home. That day we actually walked across the Golden Gate Bridge instead of just driving over it. Well, all of us except my mom, because she hates bridges. I guess she has a fear of it falling or something. lol. But anyway, yeah, the bridge was really awesome, but again, it wasn't too comfortable unless you were wearing a jacket. It was so windy that by the time we were done my hair was all over the place! lol.
So then the next day we flew back home. This time we got the long flight over with first, when we flew from San Francisco to Dallas. Since they always offer drinks on flights, I stupidly made the mistake of drinking a whole can of Coke. I started needing to use the bathroom but I figured I could just wait until we landed. But soon I just didn't think I could wait any longer and we still had an hour and a half left. But I really didn't want to use the bathroom on a plane. I'd actually never even done it before, but I didn't think I'd want to go in that cramped thing. But now I pretty much had no choice. So, I stood up, and started walking to the back of the plane. This of course felt really weird while the plane was moving. I have no idea how the flight attendants move around throughout the whole flight like that. So, after I managed to walk back there without falling over, I went inside the tiny thing. It was seriously the most cramped place ever, so any claustrophobic person could never go inside. And for some reason it felt even bumpier and more turbulent in there than it did in the rest of the plane, so I really made it quick so I could get the heck out of there. Moral of the story: Don't drink a whole can of soda on a long flight. haha. So we finally landed in Dallas and ate dinner. Then, as we were waiting to get on our plane home, they suddenly announced that the plane that just landed, which was supposed to be the one we were going to get on, was having problems and couldn't be used. Of course, everyone groaned. It was going to take them forever to find us another plane. My brother was supposed to leave to go back to his home after us, but of course he ended up leaving before us because of our delay. They told us it might only take 30 minutes, but of course, they lied- 30 minutes later, they announced that we could go to a different gate, but still, the plane had not arrived. So, we took a tram and went over to the other gate, and then waited about another hour before the plane FINALLY got there. Then they finally boarded us and we took off. By then, it was almost dark, and it got completely dark while we were in the air. If we had left on time, we wouldn't have had to have flown in the dark, which I don't like, unless we're landing in a big city, because all the cool lights provide a good distraction from the fact that I can't see anything else or see what's going on. lol. But anyway, we finally made it home! It was really late, after 10:00, when we finally made it back, but we were still so glad to have finally made it. And of course, I was very thankful that no problems had occured while we were 30 thousand feet in the air and we made it back alive. haha.
So yeah, that was basically the trip! It was a lot of fun! Definitely one of the biggest highlights of 2009. =]