San Francisco Trip

This past weekend (Super Bowl weekend) I decided to take a trip up to San Francisco to visit my friend Ashley. I flew up early on Friday morning and had a slew of meetings for work. 3 cab rides, several espressos, dim sum and a glass of red wine at the W Hotel later... I arrived at Ashley's house in the Lower-Haight area of San Francisco (pageandscott.blogspot.com). She lives in an adorable 3 bedroom classic San Francisco apartment building with a backyard garden.

On Saturday, we spent the day in Dolores Park in the Mission district. Every time I go to San Francisco, I am reminded of what living in a real city feels like. While LA is absolutely a massive city, in many ways it feels like and resembles a suburb, with lots of disparate neighborhoods. This is one thing that I love about LA, because you do have these tiny microcosms within the city - that have their own personality BUT - it does make it harder to discover new things, that you may stumble upon walking around the street with a friend. This is what I love about San Francisco.

I had been forewarned about Dolores Park. It felt like a hippie mecca, like the 1960s were still alive. We planted ourselves down on a blanket, with cold beer and fresh fruit and waited for the masses to arrive. By about 3 pm in the afternoon, the entire park was packed. Our blanket was surrounded on all sides and we were joined by more friends. There were drum circles, people grilling, hula hoop contests, soccer, dogs running around, music, incense, Chinese sound therapy... it was an interesting day to say the least. We soaked up the 70 degree weather and took in the sights.

After a day in Dolores Park we had dinner with friends and went out to some bars. On Sunday morning I made my way back down to LA, to make nacho dip, mini baked potatoes, guacamole... and to stuff my face with Super Bowl food.

It was a great weekend. :)

Griffith Park Day

Paul and I always like to try to spend as much time as we possibly can, outside. We have had an unbelievably warm winter that has given us 70+ days consistently for the last few weekends. This past weekend, we decided to go to Griffith Park - which is nestled in the Hollywood Hills, about 40 minutes Northeast of our house.

Griffith Park is an incredibly expansive park - over 4,000 acres of land. Some of it unfortunately was caught in wildfires a few years ago, but we didn't see any tarnished or charred land while we were there.

The one thing I loved about Griffith, aside from the view of all of Los Angeles and parts of the ocean - is the fact that there are a lot of different options for hiking - meaning if you are a beginner, or you want a moderate hike, your not walking at a 45 degree angle for an hour. Runyon Canyon - also in LA tends to be like that and can be a little intense.

We spent about 2 hours hiking. Riley throughly enjoyed attempting to catch lizards and snakes - which you do see on the sides of the trails - apparently there are even mountain lions - and he was exhausted by the end of the hike (success!).

We hope to get a group up to the observatory as well, as the views were gorgeous and there were a lot of people picnicking and enjoying the sunshine. Sending warmth and love to our family from CA!