My Dad came to visit me and Sarah in California last week (finally). I say finally because it was like pulling teeth to get him to come out here. He always wanted to put it off for one lame reason or another. A few months back I made him state a deadline of when he will come out. Being January, he said he would come out by the end of May. I let my nagging slide until the end of April and he finally gave in.
He arrived in San Jose around noon on Saturday. The first order of business was to go to Wal-Mart or Target and get him some tennis shoes. As we have warned other people who have come to visit, if you want to see a lot of stuff while you’re here, you will need comfortable walking shoes. Next we headed to In-N-Out for some of their yummy burgers. After that we headed home.
There was a small list of things my dad wanted to do while he was here. He wanted to see, and touch the ocean, hike on a mountain, see one of the long declining city streets of San Francisco, go to China town, ride a cable car, ride the train, and go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We did a few more things than just that, but those were his requirements. Oh he also wanted to go to Alcatraz but those tours have to be booked a month or two in advance and my dad is incapable of planning that far ahead.
We decided that for the first Saturday he was here, we would try and keep things local for laziness sake. So that evening we decided to take him up to Stanford and walk around the campus since it’s really pretty and generally fun to wander around and look at stuff… and pretend that I could even dream of hoping to afford to be a student there, not to mention get in. That’s about all we did Saturday.
There are pictures here.
By the way, you’ll notice after seeing a few pictures of my dad that he apparently has a favorite photo stance. He stands like this in a lot of pictures. I don’t know why. I also don’t know why he kissed the totem pole.
On Sunday we went into the city. We were going to kill two birds with one stone and ride a cable car up and down a steep hill. Bam… vacation machines we are. Then we went to the Ferry building for food. I paid 16 dollars for a Burger, some fries, and 2 drinks. Yum. After that we went to check out China town. Dad said he wanted to get a few souvenirs and China town is the place for that. Actually that’s about all it is good for. But you have to go there at least once. Then we headed to union square and I stopped off at the Lush store for more shampoo bars. The girl looked at me funny and asked, “You want four of the same kind?” We decided it was time to head back to the car and go to Mount Tamalpais, which is a pretty cool mountain overlooking the city and the bay.
The next day was Memorial Day. That day was the day that dad got to play good touch, bad touch with the ocean. We went to a beach in Santa Cruz and hung out there for a while. Dad wanted a picture of him standing in the ocean, so when we went to take the picture the water dropped back and he wasn’t standing in it any more. So I told him to back and get in the water, but then the water came back in suddenly. That’s when the ocean played bad touch with my dad. After wandering around the beach for a bit, we got back in the car to head to Monterey to see the Monterey Bay Aquarium. That was pretty cool. Lots of huge fish and stuff. And penguins too. That was all for day 3.
Sarah had to go back to work on Tuesday but I had taken the day off. So that morning my dad and I got up and went into San Jose to see the Winchester Mystery House. I wasn’t sure if it would be cool or not but once we got going on the tour it was really quite interesting. The pictures in the gallery don’t really do it justice. It’s one of those that you have to be there to appreciate the weirdness. Once that was over we need some SmackDonalds® for our weary bellies. Then we headed off to Big Basin Redwood state park. I really like this place. Its got huge trees and it has been almost deserted to the two times I’ve gone. They have some really cool hiking trials you can take too. We hiked on this one trail that was about 3 miles. But it took a while because it seemed most of it was going up the side of a mountain. It was really pretty though, and a lot of fun just being in the wilderness. We got back into Menlo Park around 6PM. Sarah got home about 30 minutes later and that’s when we decided to make my dad cook us tacos. They were yummy.
The next 2 days I had to go to work so they were spent recuperating. Well my dad recuperated, I had to go to work. I came home and asked my dad what he did and he told me he just slept all day. That would have been nice. Thursday was about the same except I don’t think my dad slept the whole day.
I had taken Friday off and Sarah was taking a half day. So that morning my dad and I got up and got on the train to head to Mountain View, where we were going to meet Sarah for lunch. After eating we came back home and sat around for a few hours. Then Sarah took us on a drive along the coast and we ended up at Pigeon Point Lighthouse. It was really cold and I had just gotten my hair cut so that’s why I look so frozen in the pictures. It was really pretty though and we all watched the sun set. After that we went to the British Pub style restaurant in Half Moon Bay for dinner. The next morning we got up really early and took my dad to the airport. Then Sarah and went and got some breakfast and went back home and back to bed for the rest of the morning and afternoon.
All in all my dad coming to visit was awesome. I think he had a pretty good time and he better come back again if he knows what’s good for him.

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