California Dreamin', Part 2

Wednesday was our Alcatraz day.

When I was lamenting to my friend that it was going to rain on us and that maybe we should cancel our trip (yes, I was being an Eeyore), she kindly lent us her ponchos they used on their Florida trip. And it was a good thing we had them because it soaked us as we waited in line to get on the boat. That was ironically the only real rain we had to endure. Once we were on the boat and on the island, the day turned out sunny and clear.
This was inside one of the jail cells.

Looking out a window in the prison toward San Francisco (above) and looking toward San Francisco while outside (below).

Both times I've been, I've found it fascinating and think they have one of the best audio tours ever. Each person got a headset that narrated you through the prison with the narration told from the prisoners' viewpoint.

After returning to the mainland, we stopped at Fisherman's Wharf for some yummy chowder and garlic fries while Alex and Ash enjoyed chasing the seagulls.

Then on to Pier 39 to check out the sea lions, get lost in the Mirror Maze, and play some tunes on their piano stairs. Seriously! Those stairs actually played music. A musician's dream come true.
On our way out of San Francisco I convinced Tyler to drive until we found Lombard Street. It's one of those iconic San Francisco sites you either have to see or actually drive down. We chose to view it from the bottom as we drove by (this picture was snagged off the WWW since we couldn't find a place to park).

But getting there involved several very steep hills we had to navigate. Cruising down one street, Tyler cautiously approached the top of the hill, stopped when he couldn't see over it, and backed up to try another street. I seriously felt like I was on a roller coaster just as you're hitting the top and ready to plunge over the edge. It freaked me out. It freaked my kids out. And it freaked out our driver. He wasn't taking any chances of lost brakes. Maybe next time we'll be brave and actually experience Lombard Street the way it's meant to be experienced.

Thursday we headed for one last night in Reno, stopping in Sacramento for lunch at a nature place and making one last must-see stop at the Donner-Reed State Park in the Sierras. Despite my diligent weather watching, we still got caught in some snow as we headed over the pass. It only made the whole Donner-Reed story more authentic. The statue they have outside the visitor center is 20 feet tall from the base to bottom of the people which is as much snow as those poor pioneers got caught in that winter.
And our California adventure came to an end Friday. I loved every minute of it. Even the messy van. Next time I'm going to remember to get a picture of what my kids live in as we travel. And actually it's only a couple of them that like to spread their stuff EVERYWHERE despite bringing a bag to contain it all.

Our favorite snacks to eat when we travel: 
apples (cut up and soaked in Sprite -- this keeps them from turning brown)
Sour Patch Kids or licorice
crackers and cheese in a can
bagels and cream cheese

Our favorite entertainment in the car:
Books and books on tape. We didn't quite make it through Peter and the Starcatchers on CD, and I finished Escape, a riveting book about escaping the FLDS faith. That book had my mind reeling for a good week afterwards. Sadly, vacations seem to be the only time I have large chunks of time I can devote to reading, one of my most favorite hobbies.

California Dreamin', Part 1

"People who collect experiences are happier than people who collect things." 

This little saying popped up on my Facebook feed from a friend and I totally agree. Money spent on vacations either with just me and Tyler or with the entire family has been absolutely worth every penny. Some days I sure wish I had more pennies to spend on seeing more of the world.

Way back in January we decided to head to northern California for spring break. Ever since we announced it to the kids, Alex was on the countdown.

"Ashie's birthday, bowling, California."

We've been home two weeks and he's still looking for California on maps. Funny boy!

I am a weather watcher and definitely missed my calling in life. If I were going to do college all over again I would be a weather gal. Not sure what I'm ever going to do with my BIS degree.

Okay, with that out of the way I was watching the weather for our vacation. I knew I did NOT want to pull a Donner-Reed party fiasco and get caught in the Sierra's. There was some stormy weather forecasted for our vacation so instead of using Monday as a travel day, we left immediately after church and used Monday as a vacation day, the warmest day of the week.

Monday we left Reno and our first stop was the Jelly Belly Factory: free tour and free jelly bellies at the end.

Next stop was Muir Woods and hiking among redwoods. I'll admit this was my reason for our vacation. I wanted my kids to see these tall, beautiful trees.

This vacation we branched out and tried an Extended Stay America after our botched attempts at securing a vacation rental. But you can read all about that here. We ended up about 20 miles north of San Francisco which meant we got to cross the Golden Gate Bridge every day. Our hotel was on a bay, with a fabulous walking trail that led to a Super Target. I considered that our best find for the groceries we would be needing. It was the ideal place to stay and if we ever went back, we'd definitely stay there again. I loved that we only ate out a handful of times during our 5 1/2 days we were gone. It was still an adventure to eat out when we did.

Tuesday was Chinatown and The Exporatorium. Rain was headed our way so we headed out early and managed to find an open meter in Chinatown. Our first experience was when we stumbled on a truck unloading pigs.

Somehow we ended up in the market section but eventually made it to the little shops to purchase t-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, and trinkets.

As the rain began to fall our final stop for the day was an indoor, hands-on science place. I can't really describe it other than there are so many exhibits to try out that we paired the kids up and told them to explore where and what they wanted and meet at the front in a few hours. I felt it was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Nate was the only brave one to try the toilet bowl drinking fountain.

To cap off our Chinatown experience we ate dinner at real Chinese restaurant that night. Our kids only know Panda Express as Chinese food. I was a little nervous when they set us around a table with glass goblets and a lazy Susan in the middle. There was only one mishap when that turn table hit Kiersten beverage glass.

Stay tuned for more.

Scammed . . . almost

Typically January is filled with planning our spring/summer vacations. Earlier this year Nate commented how he'd like to go to Mount Rushmore. And Tyler commented on what a long, boring drive that is. I checked with Google maps and from here to there it's about 10 1/2 hours. And from here to San Diego it's about . . 10 1/2 hours. And from here to San Francisco it's about . . . . . . . 10 1/2 hours.

Wow! We are so centrally located and can really road trip anywhere. Several years ago Tyler and I enjoyed a few days in San Fran and loved it, especially Muir Woods and the redwood trees. I've always wanted to share that with my kids.

Spring break does not coincide with Easter this year, so we are going to head west.

I got to work making sure it was all going to work out financially and deciding how to be the best steward of our money because vacations can be such a black hole.

Well, with seven of us it's a little tricky to find good, cheap places to stay. In the past we've relied on reward points from all of Tyler's travel. Unfortunately those have been maxed out and we are on our own for the first time in quite a few years. Tyler got a tip from a hotel about using craigslist to find vacation home rentals. Since we did that last year when we went to Manti, I thought it was a fabulous suggestion. This was a way we could save on dining and meals.

I scoured and scoured and found a few that would work as far as location, price, accommodations. Then one day I came across the mother lode. A three bedroom home with parking, right across from the Presidio (a huge park) and within a few miles of everywhere we wanted to go. For $150 a night, it seemed like a steal for the San Francisco area (RED FLAG #1).

I emailed them with a few questions like was it available for a short term rental, was there a cleaning fee, and how close was public transportation.

I waited several days with no response (RED FLAG #2), so I emailed again and finally got a response back, albeit in fairly poor English (RED FLAG #3), from a Rich Ryan at 2:30 in the morning (RED FLAG #4). The weird thing is that there was no reference to the listing number (RED FLAG #5) so I wasn't entirely sure which house we were discussing since I had emailed one other listing also. I inquired again and his second email was more timely and he sent me the rental agreement although he never really addressed the questions I had brought up (RED FLAG #6).

Together, Tyler and I looked it over. We have never done something like this other than Manti which seemed pretty safe and were wondering how much we could trust this person we were dealing with. At a cursory glance the rental agreement looked good, but later that night as I really poured over it, I had some misgivings:

1. The document looked like a cut and paste job. It didn't flow and it wasn't all that professional (RED FLAG #7).

2. Why was the phone number in Klamath Falls, Oregon (RED FLAG #7). Sure I realize cell phones can originate anywhere but that's what came up on our called ID when they tried calling several times (we didn't answer; thought it was a telemarketer) and I thought it was a little strange.

3. There was no cleaning deposit. At first I thought BONUS! But after looking at quite a few I realized it's pretty standard to have a cleaning deposit (RED FLAG #8).

4. He wanted the money wired to a bank account that looked legitimate but made us nervous. We would prefer to pay by credit card (RED FLAG #9).

5. The owner's name was different than the person we would be depositing our money with (RED FLAG #10).

6. Should we decide to back out, we had until 3 days before our arrival to cancel our reservation and would be out $100. Most other listings had a 30 day cancellation policy which made a lot more sense since they aren't a hotel and it's harder to find last-minute renters and you're out all your money (RED FLAG #11).

We decided to do a little research. Tyler called several California agencies to find out more about vacation rentals and these people in particular. No one offered any real help. Up to this point I'm still feeling okay about it. A Facebook search brought up a profile that left me feeling uneasy. We were looking at a 30-something Filipino lady (RED FLAG #12) and I was wondering where she had the money to own such a nice home not to mention she just looked downright scary.

Tyler looked the address up on Zillow, a market analysis site, to discover that that particular home had been sold in December 2013 for almost $4 million, only two months previous (RED FLAG #13). Now I'm sure 30-something Filipino lady did not have that kind of money and if she did why is she only renting it for $150/night.

I looked it up on Zillow myself and was surprised to see that the pictures were the exact same as on craigslist and even the paragraph describing the home was exactly the same (RED FLAG #14). They had simply lifted all the info from some real estate site. And when I went back to the craigslist listing, I noticed the MLS watermark in the corner of all the photos (RED FLAG #15). Whomever these people were had not taken their own photos.

The square footage of the home on the craigslist listing was actually the size of the lot. According to Zillow the home was much larger (RED FLAG #16).

Lastly, I looked up the address at the top of the rental agreement. According to Google maps, it's in a run down part of Oakland and looks like an apartment building. Now why would they be living here and renting a beautiful home they just bought (RED FLAG #17).

Apparently craigslist vacation rentals are a big scam and we just about fell into one. As much as I really hoped this would work out, I'm so glad we took an evening and did a little homework. That just saved us $750 and a lot of heartache and grief.

If it's too good to be true, it probably is.