Y’all, can you believe it is middle of the year 2021? It is a bit crazy to think that we are halfway through the year! I am personally glad we made it through the gloomiest longest winter days of Pacific Northwest and entering sunshine-y days. As I wrote this, time is feeling a bit warpy, did we endure two pandemic winters or only one? Personally I am still feeling wary of the society. I don’t see myself and Juan forgoing our masks in 2021, especially indoors public places. The bright side is, I am hearing through past week and today that Washington State (Seattle) is at 49.6% fully vaccinated rate. It is rather good in dissuading the panicky voice in my head everytime I enter a grocery store and seeing someone’s full face. I am aware that at some point I’ll have to learn to be comfortable in slightly more crowded situation with maskless people again. Anyway, that brings me to the topic of this blog. We did a whole week extended road-trip to San Francisco.

There’s a main point to this trip. I wasn’t able to mail in my Indonesian Passport for renewal in 2020 due to pandemic and the new Indonesian-Consulate rule that I have to be in person to extend my passport. The only city in the west coast that will do Indonesian passport renewal is San Francisco. I was quite annoyed, to be honest, about the fact that we are still in a pandemic they didn’t make any exemption for people to mail-in their renewal. BUT, annoyance aside we decided to make the best of it. So, road trip it is! We are -mostly me, honestly- working out anxieties in re-entering society and eventually starting air-travel again. So this is baby step to our next trip that requires air-travel. So here goes, a little recap to our California-ish road-trip!

Day 1 - Washington to Medford, Oregon

We started the trip later than usual, a little after lunch time on June 3rd. We started from Bellevue, WA with a Eugene, OR pit-stop for dinner and finally stopping in Medford, OR. The day was largely uneventful. Juan was battling a mild headache so I have put on a mental note for future travels: leave a travel size tylenol in the car for such emergency. We have 1st aid kit ready in the car so this will complete the preparedness when it comes to our road trips. ✔️

Day 2 - Medford, Oregon to San Francisco, California

Hello San Francisco!

Weather wise, it is absolutely lovely when we entered the Bay Area. We opted to stay outside of the city center to avoid the dense city interactions, I’ve been a bit nervous about the rising cases of anti-asian hate crimes. On top of that, it will also alleviate a lot of the anxious thoughts about stepping out to walk Jasper. Speaking of the little fur-baby, I wanted to note that he’s such a good road-tripper, other than occasionally stepping on my bladder when he sits on my lap, he was an absolute trooper!

We opted to stay around Burlingame area which is close to South San Francisco. Our hotel had a waterfront view and walk paths just out the door which is highly beneficial when traveling with a dog. With that being said, Jasper, as a terrier, discovered that there’s a community of gophers living underground and he went a bit nuts! Please note that NO gophers were hurt in this madness. I did manage to snap a few action pictures and one gopher peeking out of the hole. Cutie!

a little travel journal to commemorate the gopher event in Jasper’s life.

On a personal note, we enjoyed staying a bit outside of the city, especially since we have a mode of transportation! It is much easier to drive in and out not having to worry about finding long-term parking in the city and also, it is a much cheaper stay in comparison which allows us more budget to explore different activities!

Day 3 - Sausalito, California

Our friends who live in the Bay Area suggested Sausalito for our more outdoorsy/dog friendly explorations. We are so glad we took notes because Sausalito is gorgeous in the morning. I have been to SF numerous time but have never spend any time in Sausalito. I absolutely adore the name. It also reminds me of this movie I watched as a teenager in the year 2000: 一見鍾情 Sausalito starring Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai. I remember nothing about that movie, but the name still feels so romantic to me. Here are a few snaps of Sausalito. ❤️

On our walks we saw large waterfront houses perched atop a steep hill that these houses are equipped with private vertical trolley! It was quite a sight watching the outdoor elevator looking trolley slowly go up the side of the hill to an entrance of a home. “That’s kinda indie.” as Juan would say! We then had lovely Thai Street Food lunch from a place called Thaitanic (hehehe). I find the name so amusing and since the restaurant is mostly outdoors, we were happy and less stressed to eat outside while enjoying the beautiful cool day. And come on, who doesn’t love a good play on word? 😂

After our lunch, we head over to Inner Richmond near Golden Gate Park area to meet up with my childhood friend. We have known each other since we were 6 years old little weirdos. We were total weirdos as kids and we are always quite fond of each other for that fact. A few snaps of us in this small community garden in the middle of the city being weirdos that we are. (love ya bud)

First Date Night in 15+ months

We have spent over a year not going to sit-down in restaurants so we decided to venture out to San Jose area. Originally we wanted to try out this ramen shop: Ramen Nagi, but when we arrived the line went around the “block” so we decided to wing it at nearby Santana Row instead. We found an outdoor seafood spot with just-decent food so I won’t really share the name of the place here but people watching were really FUN and we enjoyed spending quality time with each other. The only picture we snapped from that night was this picture below. It looks like a cover band picture except that there’s no way we can be a band as we are both not very good singers. 😂

Day 4 Pacifica + Half Moon Bay

This portion is a little frustrating to me as I didn’t remember to snap any pictures. In my defense, we decided to take the morning to kayak at Half Moon Bay! I didn’t want to take my phone into the kayak as we also have Jasper in tow with us. He was so cute, equipped with doggy float vest BUT he H.A.T.E.D KAYAKING. He was okay in the beginning when he was still able to see land but the smart albeit scaredy cat mama’s boy that he is, he found it extremely disconcerting when we kayaked to a point where he couldn’t see land. He was whining, anxious yawning and ended up sitting on my lap while I struggle to help Juan paddle our 2 people kayak!

I so wished that he loves being in the water. We were told by the staff working the kayak rental that he had 5 westies over the years who LOVED sailing with him! But I guess not our westie. 😓 He’s a gopher hunting land westie for sure! We still had a lovely time laughing while trying desperately to paddle back to land so Jasper will stop whining and stressing out. As soon as we reached land, he expressed fully that he was mad by hopping sideways and throwing his head back and around aggressively. Yep, that’s our spoiled fur baby! The event is recorded in my travel journal below.

I did not snap this picture, found it from here. but isn’t Half Moon Bay gorgeous? — **I did not snap this picture,** found it from here. but isn’t Half Moon Bay gorgeous?

After an eventful morning, we dropped Jasper off at the hotel room while we went out to hunt for a quick snack at Downtown Burlingame. We wanted small snacks as we are going to have an early picnic pizza dinner with our friends, Frances and Dan. I am quite frustrated *again* that we forgot to take pictures of all of us picnicking at the park but Juan did manage to snap this picture of our hopping mad furbaby. 😆 It was a really windy afternoon but we are so so glad that we got to spend time with them as it has been 4 years since we last saw each other. Hoping for a shorter time between until we see each other again.

Last 1/2 day in San Francisco

We woke up early to pack ourselves up to leave SF. My passport appointment is happening in the city so we decided to head into the city early enough so we make the appointment in time. In hindsight, we could have relaxed as the person who is supposed to be taking care of the appointment was 1hr and 15 minutes late. It is unfortunately a very common occurrence in Indonesian culture that people are just… very often, late to any kind of appointments or even workplaces. Needless to say that was a very frustrating experience and let’s leave it at that. Passport, done! ☑️

After I left the appointment, we ended up at this Korean Restaurant called Surisan 수리산. This restaurant really saves the day. The food is absolutely delicious and I almost cried as I savor restaurant made 돌솥 비빔밥 Dolsot Bibimbap for the first time in over 15 months of pandemic. What we ate below.

and just like that, our SF portion of the trip is over. We will come back though and definitely will attempt to try Ramen Nagi next time. Food is life, y’all.

Day 5&6 South Lake Tahoe

Oh, South Lake Tahoe. It holds such a special place in my heart. I couldn’t remember where exactly this picture was taken but it was winter in South Lake Tahoe, a small extremely memorable pit stop our family did shortly after I moved to the states in 2006. This is the first time I’ve ever seen snow covered sand. I was in my early 20s.

Now I’m in my 30s exploring early summer in Tahoe with my sweet husband and furbaby. We arrived at our hotel around dinner time. We were pretty beat so we decided to stay in and just rest up for the next day. The hotel we are staying at, Coachman Hotel is a historic property original built in 1960 as 2 different motels, The Green Lantern and The Royal Coachman. They were renovated and the name was changed to Coachman Hotel as a nod to the old Royal Coachman & history of South Lake Tahoe. The space is gorgeous and their branding really appeals to me. They offer free coffee in the morning (Stumptown!) and their main area is rather quiet if you get there early enough. We were there during the weekdays so there are not too many people in the morning. I was extremely happy because I was able to sneak in a couple hours of quiet time journaling between 7-9am while Juan and Jasper are asleep. Quiet mornings are precious to me, it rewires my entire day and I find that I am able to manage the rest of my day better.

Van Sickle Bi-State Park

We were originally wanting to check out one of the hikes in Emerald Bay Tahoe, but alas, after a quick research we found out to our dismay that they don’t really allow dogs anywhere within the Emerald Bay State Park bounds. (I get it, but BOOOOO!) & don’t be misled by that one picture of a dog in the bottom of the site I linked, they really don’t allow dogs. So, we decided to go with Van Sickle Bi-State Park. It was rather close to the hotel so we walked to the trailhead! We completely spaced out on the fact that we just climbed 6000ft to get to Tahoe from SF. I was struggling with the moderate hike and feeling quite bad about myself until I realized, duh, we haven’t quite adjusted to the 6000ft + the 1000 we just climbed doing the hike. 😅 I have never been a very athletic person to begin with, but I sure enjoyed hiking and walking in nature.

We also never really hiked on trail like these before, we usually hiked dense forest that opens up into a majestical (hehe, this was a made up word from a movie we watched: Hunt for the Wilderpeople) view. But this hike has sandy ground, tons of gorgeous rock formations and wide skies along the way up (that turned dense at some point). It was really lovely! Oh! a cool thing: this Park is in both California and Nevada as you might have figured from the Bi-State-ment. So the first picture of me straddling the state line. That was sort of cool.

Last daylight of our time in South Lake Tahoe, we went to Lakeview Commons armed with our vanilla banana oreos shakes. It was a slightly chilly late afternoon but the sun was shining and we just sat for a little bit people watching. It was a lovely way to end our South Lake Tahoe short trip. I think it would be really lovely to go back to Tahoe just me and Juan to get some Emerald Bay exploration down in our travel books, but I’m quite happy with what we did this trip.

California - Nevada - California - Oregon

It was a rather interesting drive as we left Reno, Nevada. The land was quite desolate which was kind of beautiful in their own ways but we ended up driving through quite a few of trump-small-town. I personally was not thrilled seeing all the flags and trump support still going on in these small towns. Fortunately we passed these towns quite quickly except for the one time we can only find ONE gas station in miles and it happened to be in one of these small towns. We were quite happy when we arrived in Bend, Oregon and was able to just rest up after a long day’s trip.

Last Leg of the Road Trip

We were quite ready to be home. Our hotel were nice and spacious but the bed was older and the sleep wasn’t quite as comfortable as we prepare for another 6+ hours drive. As much as we love the space, we don’t love that we can hear every sound coming from the neighbors whether it is within their rooms or walking past our room to get to another area. A cool thing about this room is that they have great amenities and there’s a hammock hanging in the middle of the room!

This trip kinda got us daydreaming about when we are older, it would be cool to invest in an Airstream Travel Trailer. We won’t have to be beholden to staying in hotels and finding out some things not working for us etcetera. I hope anyone reading this doesn’t roll your eyes too hard but there are 2 things that are important to us when it comes to hotels: clean comfortable beds & shower!

We head early from Bend to get a quick stop in Portland to eat some Indonesian food from Wajan. This place is the closest thing to Indonesian food I crave, I think the way they cook their meals resembles the way my grandmother would cook us meals when we were kids. I am also adding a few random snaps from the trip that really doesn’t quite belong anywhere but I wanted to included in this journal post.

Travel Journal 2021

I usually end the travel blogpost as the travel ends, but I wanted to share a bit of what’s been bringing me extra joy during this trip. I’ve always been a documenter, I love documenting tiny mundane things that happens in life as a way for me to look back to where I was physically and most importantly mentally. Keeping a travel journal has been so good for the soul and I wanted to share a little bit about my tools and process (also, a bit of my stationery haul from SF, hah!)

These are the 2 main tools I carry around in the morning for a fresh recap of previous day. The compact case is from Etchr. They are rather pricey but I find it worth the purchase because it can hold SO MANY pens and other items I need to make my journal pretty. 😆

I collect papers, cool little pamphlets, hotel cards, stickers (free or purchased) and even paper towels from restaurants along the way to collage inside my journal. I don’t over-plan my journal, just a little bit of sketches to get my bearings inside the pages. I also carry a small inkless travel printer for the 2”x3” photos featured in some of these pages. After a bit of research, I decided on Canon Ivy. Definitely my favorite purchase of the year 2021 for my travel gears. It is easy to use and the pictures aren’t bad for such a small compact printer!

Last but not least: the stationery haul. We went to a few places for these items: the large stampville set and sketchbook are from Salty, a beautifully curated shop in Sausalito. The rest of the items in this one picture is from Maido (by Kinokuniya), we went to the Santana Row location but they also have another location in Japantown SF. I also purchased a few postcards from both SF and South Lake Tahoe and have sent them to some of my penpals! 📮 That’s definitely something I’ll do in every travels we do in the future. It is quite fun and always endearing to receive postcards from my traveling friends so I love paying that forward.

All these concludes the beautiful road-trip we had. It was a total of a week travel and we learned tons from the trip to make our next road-trip even better! We can’t wait for many many more in the years to come. In the meantime, I’ll be dreaming about them Airstream Travel Trailer. Until next time, xoxo.

San Francisco Road Trip 2021