Jen's Epic Road Trip: San Francisco

Here's part three of my road trip recap! There's a lot more to come (Monterey, Los Angeles, Grand Canyon and Sedona, Utah, Yellowstone and the Tetons, and Glacier!), so I'm going to try to mix these in with running/training posts over the next few weeks. I'm enjoying recapping my travels, and it'll be great to have a record of this once-in-a-lifetime road trip, but this isn't a travel blog, so I won't do too many in a week :) 

Anyway, when last I left you, I had just headed out of Eugene, OR, with my college bff, Katie. 

On the way, we passed Mount Shasta. IT WAS SO BIG AND BEAUTIFUL. If you've read my blog for a while, you might have noticed my weird obsession with mountains. Mount Shasta is the second largest volcano in the contiguous United States (after my home state beauty, Mount Rainier). You can see it for miles and miles away, and I kept peeking into my rear view mirror to see it as we drove away.

This conveys the size of the mountain slightly better, but honestly there's just no way for a picture to accurately capture the scale. It's over 14,000 feet tall and rises more than 10,000 feet from its base, so it looks absolutely humongous.

Okay fine, enough mountain talk. How about food talk instead? Katie and I were headed to San Francisco, but ended up taking a detour to Napa Valley after she found an open reservation on opentable.com for ad hoc, Thomas Keller's mid-priced restaurant in Yountville. 

Not only was the four course prix fixe menu only $52 each (compare that to fancy NYC restaurants and it's staggering what a good deal it was), there was a ton of food. I couldn't even finish dessert, which is a pretty impressive feat for a restaurant. Ad hoc - 1, Jen - 0. I guess I better go back?

Katie had the pork shank, which she raved about, and my salmon was probably the best-cooked salmon I've ever had. The vegetables were also incredible. And dessert was coconut-flavored! I was in heaven. We didn't get to San Francisco until 10:30 PM, but it was totally worth it.

Saturday morning we had a lazy start since we were exhausted after being on the road all day Friday. We decided to walk a few blocks from our hotel to the Ferry Building Farmers Market. Instead of a regular breakfast, we tasted our way through stalls and booths. The inside of the building is more restaurant and shop-focused, while the outside of the Ferry Building has your typical farmers market stalls. It was a fun way to do breakfast!

Next, we drove across town and wandered around Golden Gate Park, which is even larger than Central Park in NYC! Several museums are located in the park, similar to how they are in New York.

The odd thing about San Francisco weather is that Golden Gate Park, which is on the western side of the city, was completely shrouded in fog, but the Ferry Plaza on the east side was bright and sunny all day. It was really weird, but I guess would be nice as a runner -- you could take your pick of weather!

The Bay Bridge was actually closed over Labor Day weekend, which was crazy since it's such a major entry point for San Francisco. While driving from Napa to San Francisco Friday night, Katie and I saw some insane traffic exiting the city for the long weekend.

We had dinner at Slanted Door, a Vietnamese restaurant, in the Ferry Building. Our appetizers -- soup and a seafood-stuffed blossom -- were really tasty, but our entrees were kind of "meh." Good, but nothing amazing. Maybe a good place to start off an evening with drinks and appetizers then head elsewhere?

On our drive out of town Sunday morning, we had breakfast at Craftsman & Wolves in the Mission District. I had a fantastic yogurt and granola bowl, and Katie loved the croissant she had. I'd definitely go back if I were in San Francisco again!


Have you ever been to San Francisco? Do you like to explore local markets and parks when you're traveling?