San Francisco Trip

About a month ago my husband found out he was going to have a work trip to San Francisco this week. Since his birthday is December 3rd, he wanted me to come along and turn it into a vacation as well. I was apprehensive about spending the money for my flight to come along (his was covered by work), as well as the cost of the hotel, but once I realized I could also potentially meet L from Viva Carlos and Karley from All In on the day my husband had to work I decided to take the plunge.

San Francisco is different from any city I’ve every been to and once I got over the culture shock I really enjoyed it. There is a ton of authentic food from small restaurants, as well as some great permanent food trucks. Everyone was surprisingly friendly for the amount of people in the city, and the views from the piers were amazing.

One of my favorite photos I took on this trip

I will admit the trip had a rough start on Monday. The airline lost my bag and I found riding the BART really overwhelming between the sound and the people and the lack of clear instructions. Then my husband got the stop wrong, so we weren’t close to the hotel and ended up using Uber to get to the hotel. It was pretty exhausting.

Tuesday L was amazing and picked me up in the morning and we chatted while she drove us out to her barn in the pouring rain. Since my luggage was lost I wasn’t particularly dressed appropriately for the weather, so L loaned me a rain coat that I used as a hat (she’s little!) and I managed to squeeze in her Hunter rain boots (which were really hard to get off later but so comfy). We trudged out to get Ramone through the rivers and lakes that had formed. Ramone was less than amused by the new water feature in his stall, but agreed to come inside.

Feet stuffed in small Hunter boots.

Ramone wearing a shipping halter since he regular one was in a newly formed lake outside

Ramone said he was a cold baby and shook and danced around for a bit, but after getting tacked up and going for a quick lunge he got right to business for L. I really enjoyed not only getting to watch L and Karley ride their ponies, but listening to their trainer as well.

Pretty baby Ramone

I took some videos of L and Karley jumping that I need to send them yet, I only sent L her fail video she posted today so far. I did get some good stuff too, including a neat slow mo video.

Looking unsure

After everyone got done riding I hid in the barn while L took the big pony back to his stall. After that L and I went out to lunch at a tasty Japanese place. We stopped at a consignment tack shop after that which was really big but didn’t have any goodies we couldn’t live without.

Sitting trot

Karley & Henry sitting trot

L was nice enough to then take me to Target to get some ‘my luggage is still missing’ provisions. I stocked up on some shirts, underwear, bottled water, and toiletries to get me through til my luggage would hopefully arrive. We also found this gem:

Scrubby with horse attached?

The rest of my trip was a lot of siteseeing and way too much eating! Oh, and my luggage came Wednesday morning thankfully. We did a city bus tour which involved being on the second floor of an open bus and getting rained on going over the bridge. Brrr. Yesterday morning we rented a Zipcar and drove randomly south looking for cool places. We hiked at several cool places along the shoreline, and even met a woman with a wheaten terrier who we chatted with for a while.

Picture from one of our hikes

We had to get back from our drive by a certain time to go on a commercial bus that took us to Muir Woods. I thought we were going to die several times as the bus went through many switchbacks with big drops on the side. Obviously I survived, and the walk through the trees was beautiful.

Tallllllllllll trees

Today has so far been a rough travel day as well. Our flight out of SFO was delayed so much we weren’t going to make our connection (which funny enough did get delayed too and we would have made it), so we got completely new flights and have spent a lot of time sitting in airports. I’m currently sitting in the Denver airport and expected to get home after midnight tonight EST.

Chilling at the bridge

Can’t wait to get home to the three little furbabies tonight and get to see the horses tomorrow. Both boys have gotten good reports while I’ve been gone. P got ridden by three different barn friends this week, and my friend Christie suffered through sickness to take care of my pups and lunge Stampede several times this week. It takes an army to take care of my furkids!