Dear Readers, Rick and I visited California recently, and really enjoyed our time there.

I made sure to take lots of notes so I could tell you all about our travels. So buckle up, Buttercup, here we go!

We flew into San Francisco and stayed at The Presidio, a beautiful property with lodging, green space, wooded areas, museums, hiking trails, and even a veteran’s cemetery. The Presidio was founded in 1776, so although the west coast doesn’t automatically come to mind for America’s semiquincentennial anniversary, this column fits my 250th theme. Kind of.

Well okay, The Presidio was actually founded by Spain.

But eventually the property became an Army base, and then in 1994 it joined the National Park Service. It really is an amazing place, and we loved our stay there.

Our hotel’s interior walls were adorned with historic photos of its former Army life. Very interesting! Although Rick was concerned that he would get called out before dawn to do calisthenics on the lawn. For some reason he didn’t want to go through basic training again, go figure! And we discovered a cute sitting area too.

Its walls were decorated with wildlife photos of animals and birds which call The Presidio grounds home. So beautiful! We planned our daily activities there each morning over coffee and tea.

We spent time at Fisherman’s Wharf and Little Italy, dining and sightseeing in both. We rode the iconic cable car too. Remember the television commercial for “Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat! Dingding!”? Of course, we had to sing that little ditty a couple of times. I’m sure our fellow riders appreciated our harmonizing – well, at least they didn’t throw rocks at us! And we visited two new-to-us botanical gardens; the Japanese Tea Garden and the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. Both were so lovely, and we appreciated the different kinds of plants and flowers we saw. Another day we crossed the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge to see Muir Woods and the Bay Model in Sausalito. Honestly folks, I could easily write an entire column on every one of these destinations! So delightful.

One morning our destination was the Walt Disney Family Museum. My favorite piece was the Oscar that Walt received in 1939 for the first ever full-length animated movie, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. It was presented to him by child actress Shirley Temple, who sweetly proclaimed, “Isn’t it bright and shiny?”.

The award consists of one regular-sized Oscar and seven miniatures (representing the dwarfs). So clever and adorable! Then we broke for lunch and hiked a trail down to the beach to get some fresh air. Afterwards, we went back to the museum for a couple more hours.

There was just so much to see for Disney aficionados like us.

Speaking of the beach… the Pacific Coast is so different from the Atlantic Coast. Both are beautiful, just in different ways. We loved watching the waves break over all the large rock formations. And we found that the individual beaches differed from each other as well. Some beaches had black sand. Some had lightcolored sand, similar to the OBX. Some beaches had no sand, just rocks. And one beach…well, it had naked people. One guy we had to chuckle (to ourselves) at. His face was totally covered to avoid the sun – but the rest of him was wide open to the elements. Maybe he had sunscreen on? But then why sunbathe nude to begin with? Did he ever get sunburned?

So many unanswered questions!

A top thing on my to-do list was to ride in a Waymo.

This is a driverless rideshare vehicle operated in large cities, similar to an Uber. When I was a little girl, my Dad told me that autonomous vehicles would become a thing in the future. Probably not in his lifetime, but certainly in mine. Well, you were right Dad! We Waymo-d three times and loved it the first two times. The vehicles are Jaguars, no small talk needed with the driver, and you can adjust the music and air conditioning to your liking. Nice! The third time our vehicle had a couple of fairly significant glitches. Hopefully the people in charge will get those ironed out. But overall, we had a positive experience with Waymo.

Fog in San Francisco is so prevalent that locals have given it a name – Karl. However, we really lucked out and only experienced Karl for a few hours on our arrival day. Otherwise, the weather was bright, sunny, cool, warm, and windy. All during the same day! We dressed in layers and took them on and off as needed. We found individual neighborhoods to have different micro-climates, and The Presidio was always the windiest. Every shop sold hoodies, stocking caps, and gloves for good reason. But luckily we were prepared.

All too soon it was time for us to pack up and head to our second California destination. Where to, you ask? Well, tune in next week, same bat time, same bat channel, to find out! Spoiler alert, it was so different from San Francisco, but still very enjoyable!

Laura lives in Zion Crossroads with her husband and two cats. It should be noted that Hallie and Bella are NOT fans of her travels! She can be reached at hallielaura@gmail.com.