Our original plan was to stay in the house until the 15th. What that meant however, is that on the 15th we'd need to wake up rather early in Sonoma, pack, leave the house, drive to SFO, fill the cars with gas, drop off the cars, make our way to the terminal, check in, go through security, all in time for our 11:45 flight to TO. The mere thought of it was giving mom palpitations.
To make the transition a bit easier we modified the house rental and ended the week on Tuesday.
This meant a liesurely morning packing, tidying up the house, etc. We left at 10:30.
We drove to San Francisco where we hoped to have a picnic in the Golden Gate Park or at the beach.
The beach was deserted. It was windy and the surf was crashing ashore. No picnic here.
Nonetheless, we wandered around.
Then we drove to Golden Gate Park.
We stopped and looked at the windmills.
Then we drove around until we found a spot to have our picnic. I confess that this drive was longer than necessary, not because we wanted to look at the beauty of the park (although that would have been a perfectly good reason), rather because I was looking for a spot where I would NOT have to parallel park! LOL
Finally we found a secluded spot for our lunch.
Lunch was really just the leftovers from the house - fruit veggies and dip, snacks, and turkey sandwiches. It doesn't sound like much but it was a feast!
When we were back in our cars we headed down to our hotel by the airport. When it came time to book this hotel mom gave me a budget of $ 100 - 150 dollars. I tried to tell her that the going rate for a hotel by the airport was $300. Nonetheless, $ 100 - 150 dollars it was to be. We were able to get rooms at a cheap hotel called the Citigarden for $ 125 a night. This was clearly a popular spot with others not wanting to break their trip budget on hotels. I will also say that it was much better than I expected. The area was perfect for an early morning flight from SFO.All of that aside, we wouldn't stay there again.
Once we were settled in we had to drop Rose's car off at the airport. I also discovered that there was a Sees Chocolates outlet nearby . . . surely I needed more chocolates!
We completed those errands and then just relaxed.
It was a far easier transition than what we had planned originally and I was glad to end the trip this way.
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