I adore traveling and exploring new places. When I travel I want to experience as much as I possibly can no matter how much time I have. Running marathons has provided me with an excellent excuse to travel. When I got word I had been accepted into the Big Sur International Marathon I figured we could work in a visit to San Francisco.

I do my best to get to know what might be of interest in the area we are traveling to, but I rarely go so far as to plan an itinerary. Traveling with a young child and two adults with very different interests does not lend itself comfortably to a nice neat travel itinerary. I have learned to embrace spontaneity especially after having Carlos. We might not do every museum, aquarium, or attraction, but we try to do something that makes each one of happy along the trip.

We landed in San Francisco around 10AM, collected our rental car, and hit the road. Our first few nights would be spent near the marathon. We stopped in Palo Alto for lunch. The weather was gorgeous. YELP guided us to Tender Greens at an outdoor mall. It’s a chain restaurant, but it had something for all of us and we were able to sit outside. I had the Happy Vegan salad. It was excellent.

With no plan in place, I looked at the map and decided since it was a beautiful day and we had spent hours on a plane we should go walk around somewhere outside. We found the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park and saw our first redwoods.  But before we got to the park we stopped for a coffee at the White Raven Coffee & Tea House in Felton, CA not too far from the park. I’m from Massachusetts, but nowhere near Boston. There are people in Mass that have no clue there is west of Worcester. Yet here in this café in a small town in Northern California we met two women who had lived in even more remote areas in Western Mass and they didn’t know each other. One had spent a summer interning at a farm in Shutesbury, MA which is home to my favorite little lake, Lake Wyola. The other was from Heath, MA, a very small town even further west. It was a fun irony. We enjoyed chatting before moving on to the park.

We parked on the street and hiked into the park. Once we found the loop of redwoods we walked around the park in awe. The redwoods are so much more unbelievable in person. They seem to go on forever.

Next stop…the beach, Carlos’ happy place. We walked along the kitschy Santa Cruz boardwalk and within minutes Carlos was in the water.  The water was freezing, but he didn’t care.

Dinner was another YELP find, Earthbelly Restaurant in Santa Cruz. Orlando and I enjoyed the black bean bowl.

We spent our first night in Salinas, CA because I accidentally forgot to reserve our hotel in Monterey for that night. The hotel was nothing fancy, but it was fine because we really just needed to sleep. It was a great first day in California.

Big Sur International Marathon recap is already up here.