First Day

We made it! Both of our flights went really well. We arrived early both times. We also had seats in the exit rows both times, giving us extra leg room. Our friend Kathleen picked us up at 10am PST, so we had a large part of the day left. She brought her 2 dogs with and took us straight to Fort Funston, "the happiest place on Earth". It's a dog park on the beach. Sunny, warm, ocean and dogs as far as the eye could see: we were in heaven. It was my first time at the Pacific Ocean, and I loved it. Everything here is so different in look from Iowa. Different from anything we've seen. The architecture is pretty, houses on hills, winding streets and the plant life is very different too. It's gorgeous here.

After the dog park we took a ride on Highway 1, the scenic ocean drive. We stopped for lunch at Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay and ate some really good seafood sandwiches. The food was good but the best part was sitting outside with a view of the ocean. Early January and we ate outside, too warm in our jackets when the sun beat down. Also, in the Midwest we had been told that San Fran might get snow about once every 5 years, but Kathleen says she hasn't seen any here in here 21 years of bay area living. Yaay!

After lunch Kathleen drove us through the city centers of several towns in Silicon Valley. This area is very similar to other suburbs in that the only divider between the cities is one street. Without Kathleen, we would have crossed those streets without realizing we entered a new town. Each of these downtowns were "quaint" or maybe "hip". They are full of shops and great restaurants, a movie theater and such. Today or tomorrow we will look at the towns between Silicon Valley and San Fran, and get a San Fran tour from Kathleen. 

Kathleen and her family have been really nice and helpful. They leave at midnight on Saturday for a week vacation, and Nick and I are watching their house and dogs for them. We are lucky to have this place to stay while we apartment hunt.

I am writing this from my phone because I can't get my laptop to connect to the internet yet, so any grammatical errors or errors in punctuation or spelling I ask that you forgive.

Here are 2 pictures from the day. The first is from the dog park, and the second is our view at lunch. Stay tuned for more in the next couple days! For now, I'm off to the gym with Kathleen! 

Cheers!