Yep, we popped off to Northern California for a week's stay pretty much the day after I turned in my last assignments at University. We took the very first direct flight of the season to San Francisco, a trip that takes a relatively easy seven+ hours if all goes as planned. It's a Major Improvement over stopover flights and made it especially easy to travel with Óðinn (Valentina is always easy to travel with.) At six weeks old, he basically slept the entire time there and back. Dad calls him a miracle baby... : )SF is always beautiful, and we particularly lucked out on this day since it had rained buckets the day before. We took a break from shopping and hiked up to the top of Buena Vista Hill, overlooking lower Haight, meeting a few squirrels, a little black dog and some sweet old Italian tourist ladies on the way. Valentina thought it would be fun to run down the hill but I nixed that plan; instead she cartwheeled the entire descent. Crazy girl!
The beauty of this one-week trip was that we didn't have to say too many big goodbyes: my parents are moving back to Reykjavik after forty years in Northern California in just two weeks time, and my sister's clan will be coming late summer. One week was actually just perfect...we got off the Lava Rock for a much needed reality check (otherwise known as a shopping spree, American style) and found that we were more than happy to return home. And that's exactly how a vacation should be!
