San Francisco! (& San Jose & Santa Cruz!)

I originally wasn't going to do a post for this trip cause i didn't think i took enough pictures to justify one but last week i spent all of Friday & Saturday going over ALL OF MY PICTURES that i needed to edit so that i can print 'em out at Costco and it turns out, i sorta did have enough!

(side note: i haven't printed out our pics since July....so it was a lot!) 

anyway.....we had an open weekend, so i tricked him into going. hehe

he's been wanting to go to that damn Winchester House FOREVER and as usual he kept talking about it but not going through with it. 

so i told him that i had bought the tickets for the tour and that we were going; all he had to do was book the room. 

he got sooooooooo excited. 

i hadn't booked shit. lol. 

i had to make him admit that he did want to go and that the drive was worth it so i could get the wheels in motion. 

after all that, we got the tour tickets and booked the hotel. 

I'm always down for a 1 day trip, i don't care where. but this time i convinced him to leave on Friday night so that we could have all of Saturday in San Fran. (we booked our hotel in San Jose like 5 mins away from the Winchester House). 

my idea worked out great!

Saturday, we drove to San Francisco, which is about an hr and some minutes away and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Ive been to SF before but with family so we mostly did the touristy stuff and then headed to Oakland and the last time i went years ago with friends, i apparently did not do SF right. 

anyway, we drove to the bridge, got off walked around took about 1000 pictures and then as we were getting ready to leave, this bus pulls up. you know those buses. the ones that total tourist do! that you swear you would never do in your own city.

we did the damn bus. 

AND IT WAS THE BEST FREAKING THING EVER!!!!!

apparently, if i would have crossed the bridge ($7), i would have been going away from SF into Sausalito. which i should have know but...i didn't. 

so we get on the bus, it crosses up to Sausalito and it. is. so. beautiful!!!!!!!!!

i wish we would have gotten off and walked around but we were on a time restraint so we stayed on the bus and headed back to SF to see the rest. 

ahhh! <3 <3 <3 <3 

i just want to remember that we were sitting on top of a double decker bus hauling ass on the freeway dodging branches about 90% of the time. 

it was the best! lol 

from there, we got off that bus and jumped on another bus that took us all over SF and honestly, that place is soooooo much bigger than i even thought it was. 

we're definitely going back and doing an entire weekend. 

he was so amazed that he wasn't even on his phone and honestly, i think that was my highlight!!!

since we also didn't really know how the bus deal worked (i mean, we sorta did),we just stayed on and did the whole thing by bus and honestly, good freaking call because we saw WAY MORE than i would have ever been able to show him had i driven (and we didn't have to look for parking like crazy.) these were just a few of the spots...i wish i would have gotten a lot more pictures because there was soooo much! 

after it takes you everywhere it ends up i guess at the beginning of the tour (not even sure where that's at tbh). we got off at Fisherman's wharf had some drinks and then had a late lunch. i regret that we didn't hit up Pier 39 which is like a 5 minute walk from where we were at but i wasn't even thinking about that then. 

wherever you get dropped off, you can jump back on the bus and do the tour all over again. but we wanted to get going so we just got a lyft and apparently we were only about 20 mins from where we had originally started.

we left around 630 so we were right on time to catch the sunset and...all of the heart eye emojis!!! 

 

we pulled over on some random street that leads you out of the bridge area to head back to San Jose and that sunset was sooooooo beautiful! i can't even begin to describe! 

San Francisco, we love you and we WILL be back!!!
from there, we left back to San Jose to do what we headed out to do; go to this damn house. I'm a huge chicken shit so...ya know.

you wait out here before you get called in to go in with your group. 

the entire reason we went on this trip was this freaking house and if I'm being 100000% honest, it blew.
a) its pricey AF. it was like $90 for the both of us to do the Halloween tour at like 11pm. 
b) the actor we got was cool but just, too much.
c) everything is freaking closed off so you're basically just going in a straight line throughout the house. 

I'm going to assume that you can just google the story if you want to know what's up with this house. 
but quickly, home girl built this house after her husband died because someone told her something about some spirits getting her. she had construction going on for years until she died. (google it because who even knows if I'm right) i think home girl (our tour guide) said that the house was once 7 stories tall but that there was an earthquake not that long ago that knocked down the top 3 so now there's only 4 (but only take you to the first 3).

they walk you all over and tell you stories of said rooms and then they randomly have people in each room doing, idk, bits for you. 
example: there was a tarot reader and she'd put these cards in a cup and the cup in the little replica of the house. she'd then close the house and the cards would levitate to give her answers to her questions. 
we were to the left of her so we could see her making the motions in back to get it all moving. 
i mean, everyone had to have known it was fake. but like, you know. 

other than that, because its all mostly windows and half walls, you can see the actors hiding so i was able to catch them early enough so that they wouldn't scare me but someone else. lol.
i mean, don't get me wrong, the entire time i was chanting "i do not accept you" just in case a spirit wanted to come back with me. lol. I'm not kidding. but it wasn't really that creepy at all. 

i think the Halloween tour was a bit TOO much but apparently a friend of mine did a regular tour and he said that it wasn't that great either.  

the house has also been touched up, i mean of course given the age of the house but nothing about it felt malicious. i was more scared at Hearst Castle than I was here and that i am aware of, nothing bad happened over there. 
i also think that it doesn't help that its on a main street. so right in front of this house is, i think a hotel or something.  i mean, don't get me wrong, i wouldn't go into that house by myself with a flashlight, you couldn't pay me enough, but it just was not what we were expecting. 
personally, i didn't care and i was kinda glad it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be but he was pissed. bahahhaha. oh well!
we were beat by then (id only slept like 6 hrs total in the last 3 days) so we got in&out and passed out. 

gold member boyfriend <3 // he's making fun of me for protecting that little muffin. 

it was SO good!!!

on Sunday, we check out and i decided that we should go to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. 
I've seen it on IG and I've always wanted to go so i looked it up. 
and for some reason, it said there was no route so i googled for something else to do. 
and we got The Mystery Spot!!!

let me tell you though! THAT DRIVEEE!!!!!!
best freaking drive ever! 
its just you in the forest and its the bestttt!!!

its up there with that drive on the 1. 
UGH!!!! i want to go back!!!!!!!!

we were going to go into the mystery spot and do the tour but you need a reservation and the next one wasn't until 330 (it was like 140 when we went) but the cashier gave us a map and told us we could go to the boardwalk if we wanted to (BINGO!!!) and then just come back. 

she for some reason didn't want to take his card and preferred cash so we were going to come back but then we found the boardwalk AND OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES!

its everything i thought it would be and then 1000% times more!!!!

 

this was the freaking best!!!!!!!!!!
that boardwalk is amazing!!!
all we have (i mean we have a lot) is Santa Monica and this one DEFINITELY blows SM out of the water. 
this place is huge, they have all sorts of rides for everyone and the beach!!!!! and that little pool water lake area whatever its called. 

ahh!!!!

San Francisco was a hit, Santa Cruz was a hit. 
this entire trip was a hit!!!!

Santa Cruz beach is so awesome, we even saw some juggalos, full makeup and all, dressed in black chillin on the beach. 

BEST FREAKING TRIP EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i still cant believe we did all that.
and i cant wait for our trip next month!!!!

if you read all that!, thanks!! that's why i love you! 
i hope you have a good rest of your week!!!