Go Joyfulli

One of my friends realized she had never been on a cable car, so we decided to play tourist in San Francisco! I did a little research before we went. There are three different lines, and the Mason-Hyde line supposedly has the best view. If you get on at the turnaround (the start of the line), you'll probably have to wait a long time to get on - but if you just walk up a couple of blocks, you can get on much more quickly. I heard that they usually leave spots open since they expect people to get on later. It worked out well for us - they let us stand on the sides which was pretty great, even though we had to tuck our elbows in from time to time to avoid accidentally hitting cars parked in the street. Of course it meant standing the whole time, too, so maybe not suitable for those who need to sit. It also made me a bit nervous about taking pictures with my cell phone because I didn't want to risk dropping it into the street. The cable car goes all the way to Fisherman's Wharf...

Somebody who heard that I was going to Tahoe for vacation told me about wildflowers in the Palisades (which apparently used to be called Squaw Valley but was renamed because squaw is a derogatory term). I was staying in South Lake Tahoe, so it was about an hour and a half drive each way... and unfortunately, the aerial tram was unexpectedly down when we got there. They told us it would probably be fixed in a couple hours, so we went on a short hike on the Shirley Canyon Trail. It's supposed to be a long and challenging trail up to "high camp," so we only went for a bit to the first waterfall and then turned back to have lunch and wait for the tram to be fixed.  To be honest, I didn't do any research before heading up so I was kind of expecting superbloom-style wildflowers/hills... which is not what we found. There were little patches (which I strategically took pictures of) but the area was kind of underwhelming in general. I don't regret going but I probably woul...