Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

I've been meaning to type this up, but I kept putting off uploading pictures. ^^; So now about a month and a half later, I present to you our vacation!

Shaky Start
On the first day of our trip we learned a very important lesson. Double check when your flight is taking off because your tickets may not always be correct. ^^; We missed our connecting flight in Phoenix because we very carefully followed our tickets which said boarding was at 10. IN FACT, the plane was leaving at 10. If we had checked the gate, we would have discovered the mistake on our tickets.

Thankfully I didn't panic or anything embarrassing like that. We calmly went to the customer service desk and explained what happened and the very nice lady there booked us on the next flight out, which was in only a few hours. Crisis averted!

I had a mild moment of panic when we got to the San Jose airport because out luggage had not come on the same flight as us. However, after checking the luggage office we quickly found our bags. So it was all good. From there it was a short shuttle ride to the rental place. I had called ahead so my car was ready to go. All I had to do was sign the paperwork.

Driving to Fresno
In the tiniest car known to man we began our drive to Fresno. We got a little lost at the beginning trying to navigate San Jose, but soon we were on the highway. Our directions took us through the mountains. It was very very pretty. Probably the prettiest driving part of the week.
( Scenic Highway )

Fresno
We made good time to Fresno and was at our hotel before dark. I've been told that we stayed in the nicest hotel in Fresno. It was pretty spiffy. The beds were amazingly soft and huge and wonderful. I had plans to relax in the hot tub, but the bed devoured my strength. I slept VERY well that night.

In the morning, we checked out and drove to Clovis, which is a tiny tiny town just outside Fresno. We got there far too early and nothing was open so we just wandered around for an hour or so until the cinnamon bun place opened. We had some very tasty and filling buns for breakfast. It pleased me.

By then the used book stores were open so we killed some time there. In the first one, Ben found a copy of howl's moving castle for me. It was a very good find! The second book store was not as impressive. We didn't find anything worthwhile there.

After the book stores, we went to the jewelers who were finally open. We looked at what the jeweler had and ben told me to pick out whatever I wanted. I picked a very pretty tear drop shaped benitoite gem set in white gold. Ben looked relieved that I didn't pick the $3,000 necklace that was also in the case. Then we talked with the jeweler for a bit about the benitoite mine and how the people who bought it can't sell anything they find commercially for 10 years and how they found a HUGE chunk of benitoite just sitting on the ground in the mine and how they were trying to open the mine up as a "dig your own gems" thing.

Once we were out of the store Ben asked be if I would marry him and of course I said yes. ^^; (And for all you people who claimed I never announced it, I DID make a voice post right afterwards. It's your own fault for not listening to it. :P)

So then we said goodbye to Fresno (which wasn't that impressive to look at anyway) and started our drive towards San Francisco. This highway was not nearly as pretty as the one to Fresno, but there were windmills. The windmills made ben VERY happy.
( Windmills! )

Emperor Norton's Grave
We made a short stop just outside San Francisco to pay our respects to Joshua Norton, the United State's first and only Emperor. The cemetery must get a lot of visitors for the Emperor because they have a map printed out that gives directions directly to his grave. If you ever visit, just stop in at the front desk. They'll know what you're talking about.
( Emperor Norton )

After that, we tried to find our hotel. I missed my turn though and ended up driving THROUGH San Francisco. That wasn't fun at all. I was a nervous wreck by the time we got to the hotel. That was not an experience I would ever want to repeat.

The San Francisco hotel was not as swanky as the Fresno hotel, but it was near plenty of restaurants and shops. Ben took me out to an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet where I ate too many sweet buns. Then we did some shopping and went to bed. We were going to Muir Woods the next day so we needed lots of rest!