Check it out, the last post on our trip to California in October! If you’ve read all of these posts (here, here, and here), and we’re not related, bless your kind soul.
While planning this trip, we intentionally decided to spend the first part of our trip in Napa so we could avoid the large crowds in the tasting rooms, and also so we could enjoy the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco on Saturday. It may sound weird to plan a trip to such a big city around a farmer’s market, but it truly is incredible. Between the Ferry Building and the plaza behind it, there are rows of booths with fresh produce, stores with candles and ceramic bowls, and lots of yummy food stands. We stocked up on a few picnic items for the afternoon and grabbed some delicious breakfast sandwiches.
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
Farmer’s Market at the Embarcadero
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
Breakfast at the Embarcadero Farmer’s Market
Since we were lucky enough to have visited San Francisco two other times, we decided to skip out on walking along the Embarcadero and instead check out a new part of the city we had never visited before: Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park covers over 1,000 acres and is one of the most visited parks in the U.S. You could easily spend an entire weekend exploring all parts of Golden Gate Park. Since we only had a few hours to spare that afternoon, we chose to focus on getting a boat to view the park from Stow Lake before visiting the de Young Museum.
Golden Gate Park
Personal boat rower at Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden
Golden Gate Park
After our time on the water, we walked over to the de Young Museum, where we had a picnic before checking out the exhibits.
Outside the de Young Museum at Golden Gate Park
Our picnic outside the de Young Museum
Inside the de Young Museum
Inside the de Young Museum
Inside the de Young Museum
We left the de Young Museum and walked back to our car so we could drive by the bison paddock on our way out of the park. Yes, bison. It was a little strange to see these large animals in the middle of a large city, even if it was in a fenced off area.
As bookends on this trip, we would only get two dinner meals in San Francisco. On our first night, we had a (very late) dinner at Tacolicious. The other restaurant we love is Coqueta along the Embarcadero and we were so excited to get reservations there for Saturday night. The environment is a lot of fun, and their food is delicious. We sat up at the bar where we were able to watch the chefs in the kitchen. Warning: if you sit in this spot, you will be tempted to order every single thing you watch them prepare. We may have been convinced to order a few tapas because of this kitchen view, but they went perfectly with our paella dinner.
Before drinks along the Embarcadero. Chip made fun of this vest when I first bought, but I still love it.
Pre-dinner drinks
Coqueta
Coqueta
Coqueta
Delicious paella at Coqueta
To wrap up our night in San Francisco, we went to grab a drink and dessert at Ghirardelli Square.
Chocolate martini at Ghirardelli Square
Dessert at Ghirardelli Square
We had some time Sunday morning before our flights back to San Antonio. We decided to swing by Mama’s for a hearty breakfast. It doesn’t seem to matter how early we get there, there is always at least an hour wait. This was our second time there and I have to say, I don’t totally get the hype. Yes, the food is good, but not “wait in line for over an hour” good. If you have limited time in the city, there are a lot of other great small restaurants that won’t have as long of a wait. We had hoped to drive around a few neighborhoods and check out the Painted Ladiesagain, but we had to eat our food pretty quickly to get to the airport on time.
Glad to see these Tai Chi classes are still going on across the street from Mama’s
The view from breakfast
Breakfast at Mama’s
Driving to the airport
After a couple of flights, we were back in San Antonio to our sweet pup who was ready for some cuddle time. We loved our time in Napa and San Francisco and hope to be back again soon!
Friday was our last morning in Napa. I’m sure there are a lot of great breakfast/brunch spots in Napa, but we could eat at Oxbow every morning and be perfectly happy. We ventured from our regular tacos at C Casa for their awesome breakfast burrito and cinnamon roll. We ate it all before I could get a good picture of our meal.
Leaving RiverPointe – it really felt like a little home!
Walking around Oxbow one last time
Learning about bitters for making Old Fashioned’s at home
Before driving back to San Francisco, we decided to head back to Domaine Chandon for a quick stop. We had such a great tour there the day before, but had rushed out to our next tasting that we didn’t get to fully explore the grounds. We initially thought we would just go take a few pictures and walk around, until I remembered that as new wine club members, we get free tastings every time we visit. Twist my arm, I guess I’ll have a glass of sparkling wine at 10am. One observation while we were there Friday morning: As we got out of our car, we saw a group of 20 people getting ready for their tour. I’m so glad we visited on Thursday and had been in a small group of four people and got to ask our guide a ton of questions. I highly recommend visiting the wineries during the week for this reason.
Walking up to Domaine Chandon
At Domaine Chandon
One of our new favorite places in Napa
I could stay here all day
…Especially with a glass of sparkling rose
The right way to do a Friday
Domaine Chandon
Before we left the wine country, we had to take the funny video below outside of Chandon. Hey, cutie.
After our stop at Domain Chandon, we drove back to San Francisco for the weekend. I’m sure locals get used to it, but I am always blown away at how tall the towers are on the Golden Gate Bridge. While we usually stop for pictures at the lookout point coming out of the city, we decided to try a new spot this time as well: Fort Point. If you can only pick one place to stop for pictures, I would choose this one over the lookout spot right after the bridge. Yes, you do get the city behind you with the lookout spot, but I love how you get such a sense of how tall the bridge is from Fort Point. We took more than a few pictures there and enjoyed the water crashing up against the rocks before check in at the Coventry Motor Inn one more time.
Fort Point
Alcatraz out in the distance
Now, when we were first deciding if we wanted to take this somewhat last-minute trip to San Francisco, we saw that Of Monsters and Men would be playing in nearby Berkeley that same weekend. This sealed the deal for us. We had to make this trip. Chip and I both love music, but we don’t always enjoy the same artists. I’m a sucker for catchy pop music (I’ll always fan girl over boy bands, no shame at all), and I tease Chip about his alien music full of weird synthesizers. But Of Monsters and Men is a band that we both really enjoy and love listening to together. Certain songs from their first album will give me serious nostalgia for our first trip to Nantucket. While Chip was at his conference, I would sit out on the porch at Century House, working on emails and listening to “Little Talks,” “Dirty Paws,” and “Love Love Love” nonstop. Their new album Beneath the Skincame out in June and was pretty much always on at home and in the car for a few months. Once we realized this concert was happening Friday night, we planned our entire trip around it. So after checking back in at the Coventry Motor Inn, we hung out at the Ferry Building for part of the afternoon before driving out to Berkeley for the concert at The Greek Theatre in the UC Berkeley campus.
It wasn’t until we parked our car near UC Berkeley that we realized we hadn’t locked the doors while we were at the Ferry Building… and someone had stolen my American Giant hoodie and Chip’s sunglasses. So not cool. They left behind the blankets we had packed, so we fortunately still had those to sit on during the concert. After I got over being insulted by this petty theft, we went to Eureka! for dinner and enjoyed some great burgers before walking to The Greek Theatre. Now, this outdoor venue is designed to look like an old amphitheater with a round seating plan. The seating is unassigned and broken into three sections: the pit (where you stand the whole time), the orchestra (where you sit on cement steps, which is why we packed blankets), and the lawn. After reading online reviews from veteran concert goers, we decided to sit in the orchestra section. We wanted to get some good seats in this section, so we finished our dinner and walked a mile through the UC Berkeley campus, checking out all the buildings along the way and got to the concert gates before the doors opened. The line was longer than we anticipated when we showed up, but most of the early comers went straight to the pit, so we got a great spot in the middle of the orchestra section.
I can’t say enough good things about the concert. The opening act, Amason, was great and did a great job setting the tone for the night. Chip and I had been debating over what we thought would be Of Monsters and Men’s first song. Would it be from the old album? The new album? We went back and forth on it, but neither one of us expected it to be “Thousand Eyes.” We didn’t even think they would perform this song. I’m so glad we were both wrong because this was AMAZING live. It was so dramatic with the lighting and the drums. The song ended and we just looked at each other and laughed. We knew the rest of the concert was going to be incredible and we were not disappointed. There are songs that I liked before, but after hearing it live, I love them. Who would have thought an accordion would make “King and Lionheart” sound so good live? Looking back on the concert four months ago, some of our favorite memories are singing along to “Dirty Paws,” following the drummer’s lead to clap the beginning of “Slow and Steady,” and listening to “Crystals.” They did such a great job interacting with the audience and we loved comparing how the lead singer Nanna sways as she sings while fellow band member Ragnar bobs his shoulders up and down as he plays the guitar. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can see them again another time.
Dinner at Eureka!
Walking the UC Berkeley campus
Walking the UC Berkeley campus
Picking our seats for the concert
We loved The Greek Theatre
Amason
Ready for the concert
Of Monsters and Men
Of Monsters and Men
Of Monsters and Men
Of Monsters and Men
Listen to that accordion!
As soon as they started playing “Little Talks,” the sweet preteen in front of us started dancing like crazy. It was awesome.
After our tasting at Pride Mountain Vineyards, we drove back into downtown Napa to check in at our hotel. We originally hoped to find a place through airbnb or VRBO, but we couldn’t find anything in our price range. If you’re traveling to Napa with a larger group, I highly recommend a rental home. We went that route last year with my family, and had a great time having a home to spend time in. Since we couldn’t find any for this trip that worked for us, we considered our hotel options. There aren’t many chain anythings in Napa, save for a Starbucks and Panera Bread, so it felt slightly out of place to consider staying at a Best Western or other chain hotel. Napa also has a few really nice four to five star hotels, but these were definitely out of our price range. Reading through reviews on TripAdvisor took us to RiverPointe Napa Valley and we couldn’t have been happier with it. It was the perfect middle ground between a hotel and a rental home. We loved how close it was to downtown Napa, giving us the option to walk to Oxbow Public Market in the mornings for breakfast and quick access to some great restaurants for dinner. These mini condos/mobile homes gave us our own space, complete with a kitchen and living room, but still offered some of the amenities of a hotel, like a wine tasting our first afternoon in Napa. We weren’t expecting this tasting, so we were pleasantly surprised when we checked in just before the event started. And yes, we were by far the youngest couple in the room but we had such a great time getting to meet some of the other people staying at RiverPointe. Everyone becomes a friend when you’re having a glass of wine, right?
After our tasting, we drove to dinner at Bistro Don Giovanni. We had visited Don Giovanni for lunch during our first trip to Napa a few years ago and really enjoyed it. When we told friends we were going back to Napa for this trip, we heard more than a few recommendations to go to Don Giovanni for dinner. One look at the menu solidified our decision. It was crowded there, so be sure to make reservations if you want to make Don Giovanni part of your Napa experience. Everything on the menu looks great, you really can’t go wrong there. We also had a super sweet waiter from Croatia. He loved hearing that we spent a day in Dubrovnik during our honeymoon, and then showed us pictures of his family while we ate.
Thursday morning started off with breakfast at Oxbow. Seriously, we love this place. We considered a few options for breakfast, but in the end went with C Casa. You can’t beat their breakfast tacos.
C Casa – please send us tacos
Pumpkin latte to get the morning started
After breakfast, we grabbed a few snacks there at Oxbow before driving to our first stop for the day: Chandon. Over the last year or so, I’ve really started enjoyed sparkling wine. We went to Mumm during our last trip and thought it would be fun to check out another place that specialized in sparkling wine. It didn’t take much research to find Chandon. Y’all. This place was amazing! We may or may not have joined their wine club… any friends want to join us for some sparkling wine?
Ready for our tasting
The tour at Chandon
The flight at Chandon
Fun fact: Chandon also makes still wine
Set up for the tasting
Starting our tasting…
Bring on the bubbles
Our tour at Chandon was one of our favorites of this trip. We were a small group of just four people, so we got to spend a lot of time with our super sweet tour guide, who was great at answering all of our (mainly Chip’s) questions. The grounds were incredibly beautiful and we had a great view of the lawn as we had our final tasting. Our tour ran a little longer than we had planned, so we had to rush out to our next tour after signing up for the Chandon wine club. Don’t worry, we stopped by the next morning for some pictures!
After Chandon, we had our tour at Frog’s Leap. This was our third time at this winery. We had done their garden tasting during our first trip, and the tour during our second. For this third trip, we decided to do the signature seating tasting. I’ve said it before, but what we love about Frog’s Leap is how casual the environment and how beautiful the grounds are. It’s a unique combination to enjoy some really great wine while also feeling really comfortable in the laid back setting.
On our way out of Frog’s Leap, we decided to make a quick pit-stop for some food at Gott’s Roadside. Let me tell you, nothing goes better with wine than a good hotdog and chocolate milkshake.
Gott’s Roadside
For our last winery, we went to Sterling Vineyards. We had someone recommend Sterling to us, and after reading about the winery, we decided to check it out. A highlight to Sterling is their gondola with views of the wine country. We were excited for these views, but we were worried it was a tourist attraction and that the tour wouldn’t be that great. Maybe it’s because we did the self-guided tour, but we were underwhelmed with our time at Sterling. We enjoyed the gondola and took tons of pictures from up in the air, but the tour itself was made of videos at the different “stops, ” so there wasn’t much room to learn more or interact and ask questions. I’m glad this was the last tour of our trip so it wasn’t the first time we were learning about the wine making process.
The view at Sterling Vineyards
During our tour at Sterling Vineyards
In the gondola at Sterling Vineyards
We drove back into downtown Napa after our tasting at Sterling for dinner at Torc. It was easy to see why this restaurant has such great TripAdvisor reviews. The ambiance was festive, without being too loud, and the food was delicious. I would definitely go there again if we ever had the chance. More to come on our last morning in Napa and our weekend in San Francisco! I promise I’ll try to get those posts done sometime in the next month…
I was lucky enough to have last week off for the holidays. While it meant finally catching up on laundry from our trip to Tucson for Christmas, baking some doggy treats for the first time in about a year, and general cleaning (I think I am finally ahead of Wrigley in the vacuum-shedding battle), I was also able to spend some time reflecting on 2015. It was a fast year, and a really long year. It had lots of great moments laughing with friends and family, but also some really tough days. Instead of letting those hard days define the year, I’m hoping to share some of my favorite memories from the last few months while this blog sat neglected.
One of my favorite memories of 2015 is a trip Chip and I took to San Francisco and Napa in October. It was a bit of a spontaneous trip, but we were so excited for some time together in a part of the country we love so much. I’ve mentioned this before, but we are so glad we decided to start setting aside a little money each month for the sole purpose of traveling. We love exploring new places together and seeing what life looks like outside of our bubble in San Antonio. We flew in to San Francisco on a Tuesday evening with the plan of renting a car and then driving to Chip’s favorite place for dinner – Tacolicious. We had two smooth flights before landing in San Francisco and patiently waited for the team at Enterprise to help get us a car. Since the wait took longer than they expected, they graciously upgraded us to a sports car. We were pretty excited about that! We left the airport around 7pm and started the drive into the city…
Less than 10 minutes into our drive, one of the dashboard monitors starts beeping. A lot. And loudly. We had a flat tire. We took the first exit we could and pulled over while we called Enterprise. And called and called and called some more. Y’all. We could not get anyone at the airport office to answer the phone that entire night. We eventually spoke to one of the road side assistance reps on the general help number and they called in a tow truck for us. In the meantime, we sat in the car in a thankfully very safe neighborhood while continuously trying and failing to get in touch with someone at the Enterprise airport office. We wanted to make sure that we should tow the car back to their office instead of a mechanic, and we also wanted to see if they could have our next car ready for us. We were getting pretty hungry for dinner by that point. Fast forward over an hour later (we still haven’t talked to anyone at that Enterprise) and we’re getting the rental car towed back to the airport while riding in the truck with the driver. Fast forward a bit more, and we’re finally leaving Enterprise once again, this time in a convertible since that was just about all they had left by that time (we really didn’t want to ride in a big SUV/pay that much in gas). We quickly checked in at the Coventry Motor Inn and walked to Tacolicious for dinner around 10:30.
Airplane selfie! We would soon both feel how Chip’s face looks…
Towing the first rental car back to the airport
Late dinner at Tacolicious
We decided to spend the first few days of our trip in Napa with the hopes of avoiding the big crowds that fill the wineries for weekend tastings. So after walking to breakfast at Home Plate, we loaded up the car and made the drive out to Napa.
Morning view from the hotel
Getting ready for the afternoon winery visits with a big breakfast
Driving the streets of San Francisco
These pictures just don’t capture how STEEP some of the streets are!
Love my travel buddy
Taking advantage of the convertible to enjoy the sunny day
Golden Gate Bridge
View of San Francisco from the other side of the bridge
On the other side of the bridge
Crazy hair on the drive to Napa
In serious need of a Thelma and Louise head scarf
It took us about an hour to drive from San Francisco to Napa. It’s been a warm year across the country (doesn’t feel like it right now!), so we didn’t see the amount of fall colors as we did the first time we went to Napa a couple of years ago. That didn’t stop us from enjoying the view, the wine country is really one of the most beautiful places we’ve been to. Once we got into Napa, our first stop was to get a quick lunch at Oxbow Public Market. Chip got a burger while I couldn’t resist a hot dog. Keeping it classy.
Sometimes, I have the palate of a five year old
Planning a trip to Napa can be a little overwhelming. Did you know that there are over 400 wineries in Napa? If you’re also looking at Sonoma, there are over 600 total wineries to choose from. To help pick our tours for this trip, we focused on getting a different experience from each place we would visitt. As much as we enjoy wine, it can be difficult to differentiate one tasting and tour from another unless there is something unique offered. When we first started planning this trip, I was really intrigued by a blind tasting offered at Elizabeth Spencer Wines. We had never done a tasting like this before and liked the idea of competing against each other while also learning how to get more from a wine tasting. We had 1:00 reservations at Elizabeth Spencer and we lucked out by being the only ones on this tour. We were taken into a private room with our tour guide, Dana, and had four glasses of red wine ready for us to taste. Dana walked us through the four wines, teaching us how to compare the shades of red between the wines, where you feel tannins, and more. Dana was so great and patient with us and probably spent an extra 30 minutes on our tasting, walking us through the different regions of Napa Valley and even showed us some dirt samples from each area. Unfortunately, Chip correctly guessed two of the four wines, while I was only successful with one. I’m waiting for a rematch!
Blind tasting at Elizabeth Spencer
So focused on the wines
Dana walking us through the different regions in the Napa Valley
Who knew grapes could grow in these types of soil?
Dana gave us one more sample of each wine once we finished the tasting
Elizabeth Spencer was definitely one of the highlights to our trip!
We had such a great time at Elizabeth Spencer. We loved the unique tasting experience, which was both fun and extremely informative. Out of the different wineries we’ve been to in California and Fredericksburg, this was by far one of the best tasting experiences we’ve ever had. Dana did a great job answering our questions and made us feel so welcome there. We can’t wait to do a blind tasting with my family sometime soon!
Leaving Elizabeth Spencer
After Elizabeth Spencer, we drove to our next winery: Pride Mountain Vineyards. We decided to visit this winery because of their Facebook page. Like everything social media related, a lot of wineries would post just beautiful and perfectly lighted pictures, beautiful glasses of wine with the perfect backdrop. But Pride Mountain had a lot of fun, behind the scenes posts. We loved seeing how the staff has fun while making great wine, and that they give so much credit to their field workers. We had the last tasting of the day, so it did feel a little rushed, but we loved the casual feel to the winery and seeing some of the wine-making process in action. Since the staff was wrapping up for the day, we also got to see them cleaning out some of the equipment while they joked with our tour guide. It was nice to see such a transparent picture of what life on this vineyard looks like. I have to admit, they made all that hard work look really fun.
Driving to Pride Mountain Vineyards
Chip wanted to smell the barrels outside of Pride Mountain Vineyards. Spoiler: they didn’t smell like wine.
Not a bad view from the parking lot at Pride Mountain Vineyards
Can I work here?
Grape vines for the win
Chip found some grapes. They smelled better than the barrels.
Ready to tour Pride Mountain Vineyards
In the tasting room at Pride Mountain Vineyards before the tour
You bet we bought Wrigley a bag of these treats
Speaking of Wrigley… this could have been his long lost cousin in a book at Pride Mountain Vineyards.
Part of the wine making process
More of the wine making process
On one side of the brick line is Napa. On the other side is Sonoma.
In the cave at Pride Mountain Vineyards
Pride Mountain Vineyards
Leaving Pride Mountain Vineyards after our tour
Can we live here?
More to come on our time in Napa, a concert in Berkeley, and our weekend in San Francisco!
We had been looking forward to our Saturday in Nantucket for weeks. It was a perfect culmination of all of the things we love most about this little island. We started the day off with breakfast at Black Eyed Susans and got a seat at the counter pretty quickly. Let me tell you, the two cooks in the kitchen run that place like a well-tuned machine. It’s a small kitchen, but they use every inch so efficiently. We were slightly hypnotized watching them cook. After breakfast, we walked to our favorite little book store, Mitchell’s Book Corner. I would use my kindle a lot less if there was a book store like this in San Antonio. Mitchell’s Book Corner is a small, two-story store covered in more books than you could ever read. We took our time there, looking over different books while listening to other families in the store. Not surprisingly, I was drawn to a World War II historical fiction book called The Nightingale.
Found our future home on our way to breakfast
Eating at the counter at Black Eyed Susans
Mitchell’s Book Corner
Mitchell’s Book Corner
The cutest display of children’s books at Mitchell’s Book Corner
Just a couple minutes away from Mitchell’s Book Corner is Petticoat Row Bakery, so we picked up a few cookies for us to have later in the day. We quickly went back to The Carlisle Inn to get our picnic blanket before renting some bicycles for the afternoon. If you ask me, cars shouldn’t be allowed on Nantucket on sunny days. Everything is so close that you can easily walk or ride a bike to get anywhere, and with the perfect weather, you’d be wasting a beautiful 70 degree day in a car. We soon made our way out of the center of the town and rode to Something Natural to pick up some lunch to take with us to the beach. Y’all, these are so much more than just sandwiches. Maybe it’s the picnic tables, or maybe it’s their sandwich skills, but we love this spot. We loaded up our bikes with our food and rode the three miles over to Dionis Beach.
We were surprised that the beach was pretty empty by the time we got there around lunch time. There were just a few other families spread out, so we easily found a great spot for us to spend the rest of the afternoon. Once we started eating our lunch, a sweet lab from the next family over came and sat next to us. I may or may not have won Mason’s love with some bread. Sorry, Wrigs.
Walking up to the beach
This lemonade tasted even better with this view
Afternoon at the beach
Our spot for the afternoon
This guy is the best
Afternoon at the beach
Afternoon at the beach
Our new friend, Mason
Afternoon at the beach
Afternoon at the beach
Afternoon at the beach
Afternoon at the beach
We were at the beach for a few hours, which was more than enough time for Chip to get a ridiculously intense sunburn. For some reason, he didn’t think to apply sunscreen to his legs, and I, for some reason, thought he did put on sunscreen even though he hates it. Here’s what he looked like when we got back to The Carlisle Inn that afternoon:
What happens when you don’t wear sunscreen
We had a small accident on our way out of the beach. We were loading our bikes back up with our bags and blanket and getting ready to leave when my bike got stuck on the bike rack. Someone had locked their bike really close to mine so I was having to wrestle my bike free. Chip put the brake on his bike, which was holding our big bag full of cookies, camera, books, etc., to help me out. Turns out all that stuff weighs a lot and it brought his bike crashing down. The bag, of course, fell out but we didn’t think to check if everything was okay. We rode for a couple of miles and decided to take a break for a quick picture. That’s when we pulled out my phone and realized that it was on the wrong end of that bag tumble. So for the rest of the trip, I was phoneless (although still getting alert sounds). #firstworldproblem
When we realized we had shattered my phone
Sorry, phone
Once we had returned our bikes, we went back to The Carlisle Inn to get ready for dinner. We had brunch plans at Boarding House for Sunday, but since we had heard great thing about the bar there, we decided to check them out for some pre-dinner drinks. We then went to dinner at Oran Mor. I have to say, for this being such a popular spot on TripAdvisor, we weren’t too crazy about it. I think part of it is that we aren’t their target audience, we were definitely the youngest guests there, but I also wasn’t super impressed with their menu. Don’t get me wrong, the food was still good, but for the reputation they had, we were really expecting more. If we had known what the meal and experience would have been like, we would have gone to Cru instead. Chip actually went there during his conference and said it was amazing. Next time!
Pre-dinner drinks
Dessert was, of course, at the Juice Bar. And don’t worry, we took our ice cream duties very seriously and tried different flavors each time.
After our calorie-filled day in Boston, Friday was dedicated to getting to Nantucket. We started the day by having a great breakfast with Jeff and Megan over at the Thinking Cup before going back to our hotel and taking an uber to the airport. From there, we caught a bus through Plymouth & Brockton to Hyannis. It’s normally about a two hour bus ride, but we hit a lot of traffic during the drive (I wouldn’t know, I was reading The Vacationers the whole time, wasn’t that great of a book). We had planned on walking from the bus station in Hyannis to the ferry dock and grabbing a quick lunch at a nearby restaurant, but by the time we got in, all we had time for was catching a quick cab to the ferry and checking in. We did the one-hour Steamship Authority ferry to Nantucket and arrived around 3:00.
Breakfast at the Thinking Cup
Sailing into Nantucket was even better than I remembered. We enjoyed seeing all of the dogs on board and got a great spot out on the deck as we approached the island to check out all of the adorable (and very large) gray homes and boats sailing by.
One of the golden doodles on board
Sailing into Nantucket
Sailing into Nantucket
Sailing into Nantucket
Sailing past Brant Point Lighthouse
Ready for our weekend in Nantucket
Once we got off the ferry and picked up our luggage, we walked over to The Carlisle House Inn, where we would be staying. We had hoped to stay at The Century House again, but they were booked by the time we started planning the trip. We ended up being really happy with The Carlisle House Inn, the room was a great size compared to our small spot at The Century House, but we did miss their freshly baked cookies every afternoon! We quickly dropped off our bags and then made our way over to the Whaling Museum. The last time we were in Nantucket, we really didn’t get much time in the museum before they closed and were looking forward to being there for a little over an hour this time around. Even that wasn’t long enough, we probably could have been there for at least a couple of hours. We spent a lot of time reading more about the history of Nantucket as well as the different signs surrounding the sperm whale skeleton in the main room that explained the history of whaling, which was so much more gruesome and disgusting than I had realized. Y’all, the whale below wasn’t even full grown when it washed up to shore back in the 90s. These are such large animals.
Learning about Nantucket’s history
The Whaling Museum
See that missing tooth on the left side? It’s believed that this sperm whale died from some dental disease.
Some of the tools involved in whaling
Looking in the whaling boat
That would have been a huge whale
The Whaling Museum
There was a special exhibit at the museum on the new movie In the Heart of the Sea, which is about the story of the Essex. The Essex was a whaling ship that inspired the story of Moby Dick. Here‘s a link to the movie; not going to lie, it’s pretty heavy stuff.
In the Heart of the Sea
Costumes from the movie
In the Heart of the Sea exhibit
In the Heart of the Sea exhibit
After The Whaling Museum closed, we walked around town for a little bit before making our way to Fifty-Six Union for dinner. This was one of our favorite meals of the weekend thanks to the awesome patio. The restaurant is pretty dark inside, but out on the patio with the string lights and nice breeze… it was perfect.
Walking to dinner
Walking to dinner
At a small pop-up concert in one of the small parks
At a small pop-up concert in one of the small parks
Fifty-Six Union
Fifty-Six Union
Fifty-Six Union
Clams with bacon. Yes, please.
Fifty-Six Union
Once we finished dinner, we walked over to the Juice Bar for some ice cream. Pretty sure it tasted even better than we remembered.
The Juice Bar
Ice cream from The Juice Bar: the best way to end a day in Nantucket
We decided to stop by the Club Car‘s piano bar for a little bit before calling it a night. We left before all the popular sing-alongs started, but we really enjoyed the jazzy songs the pianist played while we were there.
Two years ago, Chip and I went to Nantucket so he could attend a finance conference. A few weeks ago, we made the trek back to Massachusetts for him to attend once more. I had always hoped we would get to go another time, so I was so excited when Chip was able to sign up for this conference again. The last time we went to Nantucket, we spent a quick night in Boston before leaving for the island in the morning. This time, we knew we wanted more time in Boston since we had so much fun there during our family trip for Alex’s college graduation a couple of years ago. So after an early morning flight out of San Antonio, we got into Boston in the afternoon.
Ready for our flights!
Looking for a place to eat in the Chicago airport… Chip didn’t want to eat at a place called Manny’s. Ha!
Flying into Boston
Flying into Boston
We took an uber to the Boxer Hotel, dropped off our stuff, and walked to the North End. Y’all. The North End is my waist line’s BFF and worst enemy all at the same time. You can pick any street and find half a dozen delicious Italian restaurants. We knew we wanted to have dinner at Regina Pizzeria, but as we were walking around we decided to try to go to Neptune Oyster for appetizers. We had tried to get into Neptune Oyster the last time we were in Boston, but each time there was a solid three-hour wait. We thought that by showing up at 4:00 on a Thursday afternoon, it would be easier to get a table. Even then, we had a 45-minute wait but we didn’t mind at all.
We decided to walk around while we waited for our table and realized there was an adorable hat store just next door called Salmagundi. Lesson to all other retailers: this is how you do customer service. The staff was incredibly friendly and not pushy at all. We had been in the store for just a couple of minutes, slightly overwhelmed by the amount of hats they had, when one of the girls offered to try a hat out on me (bless her heart, she thought my Lopez melon head was a small. Ha!). After another seven or eight hats, I found a great floppy hat at an awesome price. We walked to a few other stores before making our way back to Neptune Oyster where we were seated shortly thereafter. I can see why people wait for hours for a table here. We each had a great drink, Chip ordered the best lobster roll we’ve ever had, and I ordered some mussels. So. Good.
The view from the North End
At Salmagundi
At Salmagundi
So glad we finally got to try Neptune Oyster
They take their seafood seriously at Neptune Oyster
Dinner, Round 1
We then walked a couple of blocks over to Regina Pizzeria. After reading some great TripAdvisor reviews (particularly this one), we were really looking forward to some authentic pizza. There was a short line outside the restaurant, which gave us enough time to check Facebook and see that our good friends Jeff and Megan were also in Boston. Talk about an awesome coincidence! We gave them a quick call and made plans to meet up for drinks after dinner. We were soon seated inside and couldn’t get over how authentically Boston this place was. It’s been around since 1926 and I doubt many changes have been made at all inside the restaurant. There were families everywhere, lots of shouting, and a group of retired firefighters just behind us. It was the best! And the pizza was totally worth the hype. Yum.
The original Regina Pizzeria
Dinner, Round Two
On our walk back to our hotel, we stopped by Mike’s Pastry. It should be illegal to be in Boston and not go to Mike’s Pastry for some cannolis. Be ready though, they only accept cash. Chip and I each picked out a couple of cannolis and ate them at the hotel while we waited for our uber to pick us up and take us to meet up with Jeff and Megan. We had such a great time catching up with them over drinks at City Bar!
So many options…
Can someone send us more cannolis?
Really. Please send us cannolis.
On the walk back to our hotel
Such a fun night with Jeff and Megan!
Friday morning, we went to the Thinking Cup for breakfast. It was a different location from the one we went to last time and they seemed to have a larger breakfast menu. Chip had some super fancy oatmeal and I had their version of a breakfast burrito, which was more of a wrap but incredibly delicious. After breakfast, we checked out of our hotel and got a ride to the airport. From there, we caught a bus to Hyannis where we would be taking the ferry to Nantucket. More to come!
the nance familia 
