Thanksgiving in the Bay Area

We decided to head to Menlo Park to visit Alec's mom this year for Thanksgiving.  We had been planning on going for awhile, so when we heard about the so called "storm of the century", we got a little worried and so we decided we were going to leave a day early so we would try and miss it.

We left Monday night at about 8:30 after my work.  The roads were not to bad most of the way.  We hit some areas of crazy wind, but other than that we thought we had missed this crazy storm.

Then we hit Reno..... and oh my word, the Sierra's were getting pounded. 

They got like 10 feet of snow with the storm we were driving in and the one right before.  We had to stop multiple times so that they could check to make sure we had 4WD or chains and snow tires.  

Well, lets just say, after sitting in Truckee for about an hour or so, we were off for a snowy adventure.  

It took FOREVER!!!  Because it was snowing so hard they made you follow a snow plow through the pass.  If you were not right behind the plow, you were driving on roads as if there had been no plows.  It was a crazy white out... benefit... you can't see the cliffs you were going to drive off if you slide off the road!!!:)

We finally made it and were so excited to be back in the Bay Area.

We finally got to Marsha's about 9:30, 10ish... and let me just say her house looks amazing.  She has just finished remodeling it and we loved seeing what an awesome job she did.

So our trip consisted of a whole lot of eating.  We tried to hit each of our favorite spots.... Su Hong (like 3x's for Alec), Fish Market (yummiest clam chowder ever), Taco's Mexico (more on this to follow), Red Mango (just taste better in Palo Alto:)), University Cafe (yummy thanksgiving lunch), Left Bank (yummy Thanksgiving Dinner), Starbucks (best Carmel apple cider, another that just taste better in SF), Anne's( breakfast of champions:), and oh yeah, you can't leave out good old chucks donuts!!!!

And we could not leave there without hitting and stocking up at Trader Jo's (we NEED one in Utah!!!!)

So as you can tell, food was a major priority for us!!!:)  Besides eating, with what time we had left we......

Went and did one of our favorite walks around Crystal Springs Reservoir

Went to Redwood city marina and went paddle boarding with Doug (our awesome tour guide in Praque).  We had a blast.  We just paddled around the marina for a couple of hours on Thanksgiving morning. 

Went Black Friday shopping in Downtown SF.... Alec needed his Carmel apple cider (seen below to get through this shopping torture.

    Ate more food.... Alec wanted me to get a picture of our meal at this Mexican restaurant in downtown Menlo Park, he says this is what Mexican food should look like.

Tacos Mexico:  Alright so back when we lived there, Alec and Mike found the best Mexican food in San Jose.  After they found it we would drive all the way to San Jose to get this all the time.  The lady would always tease Alec because he ate so much when he would go in.  It was so funny... we walk in this time and the lady looks and him and was like "where have you been?".... she totally remembered him from like 2 years ago.  It was so funny, so Alec grabbed a picture with her!

Went to the beach.... Burrrrrr

Ok, so after our awesome trip we left Sat night to get home so we could have a day home before work Monday.  This time the Sierra's were just an ice skating rink, but at least you could see.  We finally made the finger nail biting trip down the pass when our Tahoe decides to break down on an icy bridge at like 12:00 at night.  Well, due to the snow and ice, the tow trucks were so busy with accidents that we sat on the side of the road till 2:30.  So before we left my mom was like you guys should bring this down blanket just in case.  Alec kind of laughed at her, but we brought it any way.  Thank goodness we did, we would have seriously frozen to death!!!!

After the tow truck came he took us into Reno where we dropped off our car at Firestone (because they were the only ones that were open on Sunday..... BAD choice, they TOTALLY RIPPED us off!!!) and then the driver dropped us off at the casino hotel down the street. 

Can I just tell you I HATE Reno!!!  It is just a nasty town!  

So Sunday came around and the people said they needed to replace some fuel stuff on the car.  We told them that we were trying to get home and they said it would be done by 1:30, 2:00 at the latest.  Well 4:30 rolls around and we finally got out of there.  It was crazy ridiculous!!  They charged us an arm and a leg and then took all day to replace a few parts. 

Needless to say, I am not wanting to first off do a road trip any time soon, and second I will NEVER use Firestone again!!!!

Well, we finally made it home Sunday night at about 11:00.  We had an awesome trip, we just wish the whole car thing would not have happened!  We hope everyone had a 

Happy Thanksgiving!