GlobeToddles

Ah, San Francisco - I wouldn't quite say I lost my heart there as the song goes, but I now have a lot of affection for this wonderfully varied and extremely liveable (and yes, incredibly hilly!) city. I thought I'd be bored by month two in San Francisco. I thought I'd be more than ready to move south, with the late afternoon fog and just-too-cool ocean breeze finally becoming a nuisance by the time we got into October. Truth be told, when we planned this whole trip I didn't expect to like San Francisco anywhere near as much as I did - after all, I'm a southern California girl at heart, with my first introduction to the golden state being San Diego (which is pretty much as far south as you can go), right? I'd visited San Francisco a few times before, and after Alcatraz and the sea lions at Pier 39 (oh yes, and a couple of interesting bridges), I thought I'd be pretty much over the place. But I was blissfully wrong. When the time came to leave I waved farewe...

There is a LOT to do in San Francisco. Before we came here I wondered if two months might feel too long, but to date we've only managed about half the day trips we plan to do, and then last weekend the glorious city very generously put on a three-day airshow for us right in our neighbourhood! So, to recap what we've been doing since my previous post: let's start with the blue fish. We decided we could manage the two-hour drive each way (given we planned to drive back in the evening and let the kids start their sleep in the car) and took a trip down to Monterey, a picturesque little town a bit further down the Californian coast. It's hard to believe the quaint, touristy Cannery Row was once a bustling, whiffy sardine-packing epicentre, but the John Steinbeck bust and fondly restored machinery remind you that this is not just a sleepy seaside town. We found a quiet little spot for our picnic lunch which gave us all a chance to stretch our legs before we made our w...