The weather lately has been amazing.

Since April had a week long break, we decided to go out to California for 9 days.

The park is a lot cooler than its signs are.  Spent the first day or so in Yosemite.

It was dusty.

Pictures don’t do it justice.  You could just sit and stare forever.

So brave.

Next day we got into Napa and went for a balloon ride.

It was a long ways down …

We may or may not have crashed into someone’s vineyard.

Next up we drove over to Sonoma and spent the day visiting wine tastings.

Next up we stopped off in Berkeley.

And then finally made it into SF.  First stop was clearly coffee.

and breakfast…

Next was a day trip down to Palo Alto.  Got to ride one train…

… and then another train

Then finally, back to SF for the rest of the trip.

Had the best Pho ever …

Look closely 🙂

And then the last picture, on the last day.

It was an awesome trip.

So good.

We drove up to the Great Smoky Mountains and did a 3-day, 40 mile hike through the wilderness.  It hailed, it rained, the sun shined, and I had a TIL that turkeys can actually fly through the air.

The beginning of the trail at the end of the Smokies

The first descent we had into the valley, heading to the campsite

The low areas – near streams and what not – were actually the more scenic

That chair.  That chair can die in a fire, and the rest of its chair family

Bandanas are super fly

We’ll see you again.  Only 2,076 miles left.

We had these during dinner at BLT on our trip to NY as an appetizer.  They then give you the recipe for them as part of your receipt, so we thought we’d try our hand at making them.

Light and puffy and completely delicious.  The popover pan, as we soon discovered, is actually quite vital to getting them to pop, well, over.