Ladd Photos

Our second major trip of the summer took us to San Francisco. We spent the first day checking out the O.co Coliseum and watching the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics (2-1).

The A’s stadium was easily the worst stadium we have visited so far. It was like walking though a concrete labyrinth to find our seats. There was no view of the field from inside the concourse and the food options sucked. The stadium felt like you were sitting in a giant bomb shelter that happened to have a baseball game happening in the middle of it. But, we have to visit them all, and the O.co Coliseum was our 6th Major League stadium as a family.

One positive of the game, besides the Mariners winning, was that the boys got to run the bases after the game.

During our second day in San Francisco we explored the Presidio and walked on the Golden Gate bridge. We made it about halfway across the bridge before turning back. It was very windy but the amazing views of the city were worth it.

After seeing the bridge, we drove through the areas north of the bridge along the coast. All that area is very beautiful country.

My boys are always up for exploring a neat museum, so we spent our 3rd full day on the bay at the California Academy of Sciences. This amazing place is an aquarium, rainforest, planetarium, and natural sciences museum all rolled into one.

We were all blown away with how much cool stuff there was to see. There was an entire rainforest inside the museum, where you walked around the perimeter and explored every level of the ecosystem. They had an impressive aquarium and a cool exhibit on earthquakes the boys loved. I really enjoyed the show I caught in the planetarium and would have loved to see several more, if there was time. Even the massive building’s living roof was awesome to check out.

If you are ever in the San Francisco area, I can’t recommend seeing the California Academy of Sciences enough!

The 4th day of our San Francisco adventure brought us to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the Mets. The Giants’ stadium is almost a polar opposite of the O.co Coliseum. AT&T Park is nice and open, has a beautiful view of the bay, and great food options. My only complaint is that the parking is difficult, due to its location on the embarcadero in downtown San Francisco.

The Mets ended up beating the Giants (4-1), and being a Dodger fan, I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. So, this was a successful outing that marked the 7th Major League stadium off our family’s to-see list.

We started off the last day of our trip visiting Coit Tower and, in the process, experiencing some nice San Francisco summertime weather, fog and drizzle.

After Coit Tower, we drove down Lombard Street, the “crookedest street in San Francisco”, and then explored Chinatown. We continued our impromptu walking tour of San Francisco by walking around the Financial District and ending up at the Ferry Building.

After all that walking, we finished up the day by meeting our friend Kevin for dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf, and then dessert at Ghirardelli Square.

During the first full day in New Mexico we drove up into the mountains to visit Silver City. Aliciana’s ancestors all come from this area and there are still many family members left in the cute little city. We had a nice brunch with Aliciana’s Tia Pancha and her family, her Grandpa Raul, and her Tia Cynthia.

After leaving Silver City we drove to City Of Rocks State Park on the way back to Las Cruces. The rocks were lots of fun to hike around on and it was amazing how far you could see down into the valley. This area of New Mexico was some of the prettiest land I’ve ever visited. From up on the rocks you could see rain storms roll across the grass plains below. I can see why New Mexico’s state nickname is “The Land of Enchantment”.

The second full day in New Mexico we visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park. My camera couldn’t capture the beauty we witnessed on the 1.25 mile hike down from the natural entrance into the Big Room. Of course, it is pitch black once you get into the caverns and the little bit of artificial lighting made it very difficult for my photos to come out sharp.

The Big Room tour was also an additional 1.25 miles loop among all the amazing rock formations. So, there was a lot of walking done but my boys were troopers. Luckily, we took the elevator back up to the surface, so we didn’t need to climb out from 750 feet below.

During our third day in New Mexico we visited White Sands National Monument. The giant dunes of gypsum sand were lots of fun to hike up and slide down. Even with sun glasses, the light was amazingly bright off of all the white sand.

After leaving White Sands, we drove through the center of New Mexico to make our way to Albuquerque, where we spent the night.

We spent the last day in New Mexico walking around downtown Santa Fe. We ate at a great little place named Blue Corn Cafe & Brewery where I had the best green chili stew and a few good microbrews. We also checked out the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and the Palace of the Governors.

After leaving Santa Fe we drove up to Taos and around the beautiful land in that area of the state. We stopped along the way to walk on the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge to view the Rio Grande down below.

To make our way back to California, we spent this day driving from Albuquerque to Flagstaff, AZ. Along the way we visited the Petrified Forest National Park.

The Painted Desert portion of the park was very pretty but the petrified forests were disappointing. The petrified logs remaining were much smaller than I expected. I imagine all the impressive specimens have long ago been taken, either into personal collections or museums. The badlands of the park, where the fossilized trees existed, was incredibly hot and had a creepy feeling of death hanging over it.

The Native American ruins existing in another part of the park were interesting but it was tough to keep my boys interested in some old walls when it was so hot outside. Overall, I don’t think the Petrified Forest National Park is worth the trip unless you happen to be passing through the area and need to kill an afternoon, like we did.

Gavin started 2nd grade in Mrs. Hiel’s class. Connor gets to spend 3 days a week in Mrs Patwa’s preschool class. Both boys were very excited to start school at Turtleback Elementary.

We drove to Anaheim and caught one last baseball game for the season. The Angels beat the Texas Rangers 7 to 0. Gavin even got to see his hero Mike Trout hit a home run. The boys had fun running the bases after the game.

We decided to check out The Rise of the Jack O’Lanterns, which was setup at in the San Diego Safari Park’s parking lot. There were a lot of impressively carved pumpkins but I don’t think we will be going back next year. It was very overpriced and there were way too many people there.

It was difficult getting photos because of the lighting, but I managed to get a few to come out sharp enough.