cable car | McAllen Family Adventures

Day Four

Carol Blog today. First one ever.

Woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the ocean in Santa Cruz. Robert popped out for a morning coffee and we sat on the terrace having our Solvang pastries for breakfast with a beautiful, fresh view.

After breakfast we set out on the road heading for San Francisco. Not too far into the journey we saw a local park with a covered bridge. Felton Covered Bridge. A long time dream of mine was to see and photograph an old covered bridge. A few photos later, we are back on the road.

The next part of the journey was simply amazing. Coming off the coastal route today we headed through the redwood forests, stopping at Henry Cowell State Park. Parked the car for an hour and took a hiking trail down to the water…these trees are some size.

Not as big, we hear, as other redwood forests further north but still very impressive and bigger than we’ve seen before in height.

After our morning hike we headed back on the road to our next stop enroute – San Jose. We stopped here so that we could visit the Winchester Mansion. After watching the movie recently, I was expecting it to be spooky and was apprehensive about going on the tour. However, when we arrived we paid our $40 for the tour as I was pleasantly surprised. It was such a fun, quirky, beautiful house. Full of amazing craftsmanship and lots of innovative designs for the time. Mrs Winchester deserves quite a lot of credit for this. Definitely glad we took the tour.

Feeling a bit hungry after the tour we stopped off at a local Burrito deli for a spot of lunch.

Excitedly, late afternoon we arrived in the ‘City by the bay’, passing over the Golden Gate Bridge. A first for the me and it didn’t disappoint. Amazing piece of engineering.

We were staying in Tiburon so headed there to check into our hotel before exploring the big city. Tiburon has a ferry service commuting to San Fran…this seamed a more relaxing option rather than driving into the city and trying to find a parking space.

It was a pleasant 5 minute walk from our hotel, the Lodge at Tiburon, to the ferry port. What a lovely 35 minute sail, passing the Golden Gate Bridge , the Bay Bridge and Alcatraz Island. Saved us a Bay Boat Tour.

Once in the city, we wanted to tick off the cable car experience. We were only spending a few hours in the city so we were happy with jumping on the cable car down to Fishermans Wharf for some dinner. The Trolley Car driver was sorry there were no seats for us and we had to hang off the edge. Little did he know this was my dream way of travelling on the tram!

A little bit chilly at this time of day, we were happy to try some clam chowder to heat us up and some Calamari. Washed down with a local beer. Tummies full and happy with our San Francisco whistle stop tour we headed back to our hotel. Missing the last ferry we got an Uber for only $5 extra. Arriving back at the hotel for 9pm we decided a night cap was needed at the hotel bar, before turning in. An early start tomorrow for the journey home…☹

On Day five we arrived at our AirBnB in Tijeras just around sundown. We’ve not booked with AirBnB before but had heard some good stories and some bad stories but we wanted to experiment after out up and down hotel experiences the past few days.

Treehouse

We stayed at Brinkley House and I was blown away by how good this place was. I know they are not all like this but we’ve set the bar pretty high! We wanted something a little away from things which we could use as a base for exploring the area…we loved it so much we kinda abandoned some of our plans for the day and stayed hanging in the house. It is a beautiful little house with excellent tech gadgets (Apple TV, speakers throughout the house, wifi, SEPARATE wifi in the beautiful tree house which has electricity and a bed!! It is also only 4 mins from route 66 so was close to the area but far enough away to feel like we are in the country. Lots of little outdoor spaces for relaxing and even a horse shoe toss area. The hosts were also very friendly and had some great little extras which really made the stay. That coupled with their friendliness and willingness to help meant they got full marks from us! The kids would not go down to the mysterious basement though 😉

Sundeck at the back

We relaxed in the morning and then decided that we would explore the close area instead of venturing further afield to someplace like Santa Fe. We had been given a tip to visit the Sandia tramway which is a cable car up to the top of Sandia Peak. We headed there after lunch on the porch and were not disappointed. The mountain rises up to 10,738 feet above sea level and we start below in a cable car which take us up to the top. The views up there were spectacular! We also saw snow for one of the first times since we moved to Texas!

Sophie and Ben enjoyed skelping each other (and me) with snow balls. Sophie was particularly proud of hitting her poor brother straight in the kisser with a well-placed shot. He puts up with so much that boy and never seems to get annoyed. I’d have decked my brothers in the snows then kicked snow on them till they had to resurrect Scott and Amundsen to help dig them out…just saying.

It was our first time on a cable car too which was spectacular which we live streamed on the way up.

After this we headed down the hill. I had noticed a Breaking Bad tour leaflet in the foyer of the Tramway so I Googled – Walter White’s address just in case. It turns out it was only 5 minutes away from where we were! So it would have been rude not to.

We drove over there but I read in places that the owners were a bit annoyed by tourists (especially since some jackasses had thought it would be a good idea to throw pizza on their roof (like the famous scene) and this had gone on for a while now.) So we just drove by and took some pictures and stayed away from the property itself.

Followed that up with lunch at yet another place which looked poor from the outside but had great food and service! Huge Chinese food portions in the China Garden. Yelp has yet to steer us wrong! We did take a ton of food home with us which I may have for breakfast…don’t judge me 😉

After this we headed back to the house and relaxed playing cards again and sitting on the porch looking out to the wilderness.