24hrs in San Francisco

In December of 2019 Matt and I were off to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary (a few months early). Destination…Australia! But first, we had a one-night layover in San Francisco, CA. We landed at SFO around 5pm, took the BART to our hotel in the Union Square district, freshened up and then wandered around looking for some food. Surprisingly, most places were closed… I’m assuming it was because it was December 27^th and restaurant owners were taking a break for the holidays (this would be a theme for our time in Australia too). We finally found some food not far from the hotel, ate, walked back to the hotel, ordered drinks and called it a night. 

The next morning, we woke up and started the day with breakfast near the hotel and a walk to Fisherman’s Wharf. We walked to take in the sights…and…we just like walking. We viewed the famous Golden Gate Bridge and then walked to the San Francisco Maritime National Park and to Ghirardelli Square. Ah, the good stuff! I don’t think they opened until 10:30am and at 10:35am I was eating my ice cream sundae! After the walk we started to make our way back to the hotel, we walked past Lombard Street where I was surprised to see people just standing in the middle of the road taking pictures. Um, it’s an active street y’all, get out of the road! 

Once back at the hotel we took showers and packed, it was early afternoon but even with a late check-out we needed to be on our way to the airport for our 11:30pm flight. We got the airport around 4:30/5pm and headed straight to the United Polaris Lounge! 

The United Polaris Lounge at SFO was the only reason I was okay with getting to the airport with over 6 hours until our flight! We drank, ate dinner, drank some more, had dessert, watched TV and relaxed before our long journey across the globe… Stay tuned! 

Thanksgiving 2018: Chicago

My husband and I visited Chicago before we had a kid and when we were still living in Texas; we now live only three hours away. We have traveled to Chicago a few times since moving up here (twice for flights out of O'Hare and once for a work thing) but we were never there to visit the city. After our Thanksgiving 2017 outing to Louisville,KY we wanted to get something in the books for Thanksgiving 2018. We decided Chicago would be fun and it was only a short car ride away (but the longest car ride since kid-o has been out of diapers).

Since we were only going to be there for two nights we decided to be fancy and stay at the Ritz Carlton. The thing I loved most about the hotel was its proximity to all the shopping. There is a mall on the same block and The American Girl Store. We shopped at the AG store and even got my old doll's hair done and ears pierce (now she is Alana's doll). Then we enjoyed some pizza and hit up the Disney Store.

The next day was Thanksgiving Day and we headed to Uncle Dan's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Not knowing much about this parade, or parades in general, we positioned ourselves a block next to the block that was being televised. Turns out, that's the last black to see anything. So, we got there at 7:45, parade started at 8 and we didn't see anything until 9:30!! And it was 32 degrees! We ended up only staying for a few floats and balloons before we headed into a Subway to warm up. After spending some time in Subway, we headed to the Christkindlmarket, a replica German Christmas market. It is very cute and has great food and treats but the crowds make it not worth it. You could barely move around with a stroller and when crowds are that big I tend to just say, "let’s go." And that’s what we did. We pretty much relaxed in the hotel for the rest of the day and then headed out for Thanksgiving dinner. So much easier than cooking all day and then having to clean up!

We took advantage of our late check out on our last day and walked to Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s a really nice walk along Lake View Drive and has great views of the city. The zoo is great too and its free so that is always a bonus.

I loved seeing the city lit up in Christmas lights and it was good to explore parts of the city we hadn't seen before. 

Thanksgiving in the South: Louisville, Kentucky

As I get back into this whole blogging thing and I was looking over my past blogs I realized I did not post about our Thanksgiving trip to Louisville, Kentucky. Back in the day I had just a travel blog, travel mi amor. And then I got pregnant and realized that maybe I couldn't just focus on travel anymore because my brain and life were shifting in a major way. So I created the spotted bulldog; a mix of travel and lifestyle blogging named after my sweet Lola.

SO....about Louisville...

As many of our friends know my husband and I are really into travel hacking...you know collecting hotel and airline rewards points and getting to travel for free...In late 2017 we only needed three more nights to keep our Platinum status with Marriott so we decided to meet family in Louisville, KY for Thanksgiving.

Louisville is abut a 7.5 hour drive for us so we left the day before Thanksgiving and arrived at the Marriott located downtown and settled in for the night. Our daughter, who was 2.5 yrs at the time, traveled great! We were on the cusp of potty training so when she wanted out she would tell us she had to potty. But we learned quickly that she was playing us! Once we arrived we were pretty surprised that a lot of restaurants were already closed for the holiday. We finally found found some burgers and went back to the hotel.

On Thanksgiving day we headed to the Belle of Louisville Riverboats for our Thanksgiving lunch cruise. It was nice not to have to cook and the food was good for what it was. However, the scenery wasn't all that great, that part of the Ohio River is pretty industrialized, but you got a little history about the city. Later in the evening we drove to the Mega Cavern to see the Christmas lights. The Mega Cavern is a man made cavern that was created by a massive limestone quarry. Now its used as a storage facility, adventure park and during the holidays, a light display.

The next day we headed to the Louisville Slugger factory and museum. As an engineer its always fun to see how things are made and we all really enjoyed the entire facility. After that it was off to the races at Chuchill Downs! I had never been to a race track before and I have to say it was pretty fun! My mother-in-law and I took Alana into the Kentucky Derby museum and the guys started to place their bets. I wasn't a fan of the mint julips but it was super fun to place bets and win a little.   

Saturday we were back on the road headed north. It was a short trip but it was fun! Before we had kids we would travel over Thanksgiving every year, hitting up Key West and Hawaii twice. And after doing it again in 2017 we remembered how much we enjoyed it.

Is there a holiday you like to get away for? 

Girls Trip Toronto

St. Laurence Market, Union Station, Luna Moth, Gooderham Building

A few friends and I wanted to take a girls trip this summer. With a list of possible destinations we went with the cheapest one, Toronto. We were off without a hitch! Got to Toronto, checked into our hotel, freshened up and then headed to St. Laurence Market for some lunch. We didn't convert any USD to CAD but we should have. the market shops primarily only took cash. BUT they did take the US dollar too! They just didn't do any conversions for you. So if your meal was $6CAD then it was $6USD. My friends got something likely more flavorful and more ethnic than my simple ham and cheese croissant but I was getting hangry and didn't want to wait.

After lunch we headed to Eaton Center, a downtown shopping mall, to do some shopping. And on our way the most disgusting thing ever happened to me...we were waiting at stop light to cross the street and homeless man walked up to me, spit a louggie in my hair and shouted, "have a shitty day!" and then he walked into traffic (unfortunately he wasn't hit). I was pretty shocked that this had actually happened and just thankful that we had a water bottle and some napkins to get it all before we had to cross the street. Welcome to Canada! Here's mucus in your hair!

After that fiasco and shopping we headed to Casa Loma, a 98-room castle in the middle of the city. Casa Loma was once a home to a very wealthy man who, not too long after building his castle, went bankrupt and had to sell the residence and everything inside. Its now a museum and filming location for MANY Hollywood blockbusters including the X-Men series and Chicago.

Casa Loma

We grabbed some ice cream on the way back to hotel before we decided what we were going to do for dinner. We finally decided on the waterfront Amsterdam BrewHouse. We ordered some drinks while we waited and our first round was not very good, we ordered mojios. Once we were finally seated after a lot of confusion as to what was considered "bar seating" or not we ordered our food and second drinks, the peach bilini was much better. We all ordered some version of a hamburger and I think we were all satisfied. After we walked to the Toronto sign which is located near city hall.

The next morning we wondered around to try and find graffiti ally. I was using Trip Advisor and it wasn't being the most reliable so we finally just google mapped it and we found our way. It was an interesting few block of some amazing street art. Once we had had enough we headed to pick up our rental car and we headed to Niagara Falls.

Graffiti Ally

I was a bit disappointed in Niagara Falls. We visited on the Canadian side and it was VERY tourist with casinos everywhere and chain restaurants like Margaretville. This isn't really our style. We did go zip lining which is touristy but I had never done it and wanted to...so we did. While it was kind of cool, it wasn't over the falls and you cant bring anything of your own to take pictures while you zip line down. If you have been zip lining before, like in Hawaii or Costa Rica, this particular one might bore you. The falls themselves seemed a bit underwhelming to me. I don't know if its because I was seeing them for the first time as an adult (verse a kid who is just smaller in size) or if its because I have seen so many waterfalls during my travels. Maybe its sort of how people feel when they see Mt. Rushmore? We didn't spend too much time here, we probably spent more time driving there and back to Toronto, we found a place to eat in one of the casino/hotels on our way to the car and then headed back to the big city.

the falls

The next morning it was already time to head back. My final thoughts on Toronto...well... I didn't really like it. It was just another big city (remember I use to live in the suburbs of Houston, TX) and they really seemed to have a homeless problem. I have never seen so many homeless people just walk out into traffic have total disregard for their life. Matt and I were originally planning on visiting Toronto/Niagara Falls for a family trip in July of 2017 but after visiting I am glad we didn't. I don't t think I will be back to Toronto unless it was for work but I do see myself going back to Niagara, but the American side, so my daughter can see it. 

CN Tower, Toronto sign, yummy beaver tail

Have you ever been a little disappointed by a trip? Or have you ever been harassed by a homeless person?! lol