California Wedding Adventure! (Part 2)

Well this day starts with…Go Kart Racing, haha!

You can see the pits here where we would get into our cars.  Somewhere there is a picture of Erika and I in our helmets, but I couldn’t find it.

This place was pretty exciting. To be a kid again.

Then later that day Michael went to a wedding rehearsal since he was a groomsman. Afterwords there was a dinner at the Groom’s family’s home, and the set up was beautiful, accompanied by a wonderful Northern California evening … and by that I mean chilly!

The neighborhood had beautiful fountains nearby as well.

The next day was the wedding! I took a ton of pictures here but will try to limit the ones I post so this isn’t super long. This first is Erika and I posing in the reception hall.

Above and below are some group shots! Above is Michael and the three guys he deployed with back in 2012 — Zoom, Sally, and Flava. Below is Michael and Erika with the bride and groom — Zoom and Atsuko!

Speaking of the bride and groom…they decided to “spice up” their first dance. Not captured (mysteriously) is Michael and the rest of the groomsmen joining the fun once the newlyweds decided to share the dance floor.

What a fun day! The next morning (our last full day in California) we decided to go into San Francisco and experience the sights. We started at the Fishermen’s Wharf, an historic region of the city known for, can you believe it, it’s ocean-side ports which would routinely be the host of ships returning from a voyage or a daily fishing excursion. One of the consequences of San Fransisco being so hilly is it’s magnificent natural deep-water bay.

Driving in to the city you just see the Golden Gate bridge rising from the fog.

And here’s one of us in front of the wharf signpost

This is another fun one right by the water and you can see the group we came out with. Many of these folks are now in Oklahoma with us but some of them are in other places (North Carolina, Korea, and Japan, to name a few) — but all of us were stationed in Okinawa together!

As we made our way along we found an enormous two-story carrousel, if you can believe it.

I made a neat slo-mo video of it (using my phone no less)

As we continued along we found an area called “Pier 39” that looked much like an amusement park. There were many different stores and attractions along the way.

And of course, I made another slo-mo video 😀

As we continued we made it back to the water, where you could see many boats…

…but also these seals!

There was an Oceanside Beach as well…well it’s a bay really, but it counts ?

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went by the Ghirardelli factory as well…

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.and shared a 1,500 calorie sundae! Perfect for Two :). Or four…

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xt we posed by a trolly car, although we couldn’t get on (this one), and instead had to make quite the journey up one (several) of San Francisco’s famous hills.

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ich one (above or below) is correct??

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is is Lombard Street, the crookedest Street in America!

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xt we walked to Chinatown and visited some shops.

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.including one I was quite fond of ☝️

We stopped for coffee at the place below. There was a delicious looking lunch menu but we had dinner plans so opted out. This tile work at the entrance stood out — how many places seem to do this today?

We ended the day with a journey back to our parking garage on the World Famous cable car!

Thanks for reading. We hope to make it back to San Francisco because it is beautiful!