happy holidays

I hope that all of you who celebrate some form of wintery holiday at this time of year are enjoying that time with family and loved ones.

I have the very good fortune of playing host to a friend from England for the holidays.  She arrived the Wednesday before Christmas, and will leave the Wednesday after New Years.

We started with some average San Francisco touristy things, like the San Francisco Dungeons and the cable car ride from Fisherman’s Wharf into Union Square.  I introduced her to our family’s Christmas chaos, and then we went to Muir Woods where we slow walked in the woods with every other tourist in northern California.

Yesterday was a rest day, which is to say we went shopping.  And today, my visiting friend finally got to see the Winchester Mystery house in San Jose.  I say finally, because she has been trying to get there for 13 years, but something always got in the way.

Currently, we are comfortably ensconced in a hotel room in Santa Cruz as a starting point for our journey down to Monterey tomorrow.

It’s been fun, exhausting and pain inducing day.  It’s tough touristing like a teenager when you’re pushing fifty and have chronic pain issues!

Tomorrow should be more of the same because we’ll be visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Saturday we’re going whale watching.  By the time we get home, we should both be ready to sleep for 24 hours.

Whatever you and yours are up to, I hope it’s half as fun.

*Picture above is one I shot in the Muir Woods on Tuesday.