Livermore

When in the US…You Can Shop Without Guilt

Day 13.  Our original itinerary for our half day in San Francisco included a visit to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge and crabs for lunch at Salito’s Crab House & Prime Rib at Sausalito.  We would then drive for about 2.5 to 3 hrs further north to Folsom Sacramento where we would stay for the night with Euben’s relatives.   As it turned out, the weather in San Francisco was raining that morning, and with that, we knew we had to change our day’s plans.  Hence, we decided to do our outlet shopping, although it was originally still scheduled at the very end of our holiday.

In San Francisco, we were booked at Residence Inn Marriot in Oyster Point.  It was 20 minutes away from the city centre but still convenient if you are driving.  We had a rented car with us and so the location of the hotel wasn’t a problem.  We chose a room that had a view of the bay and it would have been quite nice waking up to that, but that day was cloudy with a looming threat of rain on the horizon.   We loaded our 4Runner that morning with all of our luggage because after outlet shopping we will continue with our journey to Sacramento, and the day after, we will be heading further north to our ski destination.

From Residence Inn, we crossed the San Mateo Bridge which stretches over the San Francisco Bay.  Despite the fog and overcast sky that dampened the view, we still found this long bridge impressive.

Benjamin, our designated navigator, was in disbelief at how long the bridge was.

According to Mr. Google, this is the longest bridge in California at 7 mi (11.3 km). It links the San Francisco peninsula to the East Bay, where Livermore is.  This is how that bridge would look on a clear day.  This photo taken by Craig Howell from San Carlos, California, was the prettiest of the whole bunch of photos that I’ve seen and I thought this would show you what I mean by the bridge being impressive AND long.Photo by Craig Howell from San Carlos, CA, USA – zeppelin-ride-020100925-123, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50350535

We reached San Francisco Premium Outlets in Livermore around 10am.  It is one of those outlets in the US with high-end brands like Gucci, Prada and the likes.

We liked the layout of the outlets because for people who do not have the whole day to shop, it was really convenient to have them all in one place.  If you look at the picture of the directory below, they are neatly lined up in just three columns.

Anyway, although very short, we found our half day of shopping rather productive.  We managed to get a few sports apparel for the kids, half-priced suit and other office wear for Euben, and uhm, a bit of stuff for me too. *wink*

From Livermore outlets, we traveled 112 mi (180 km) further north to Folsom, Sacramento.  We left around 3pm and although it was still quite a distance, we were not worried.  That was because over the last two weeks we realised that highways in California were good and our Garmin nav system was trustworthy.

We stayed one night in the beautiful home of Euben’s relatives.  They were very accommodating and even took time off from their busy schedules to join us in Squaw Valley the following day.

So look out for the blog on our next adventure. It was in winter wonderland…

Here’s a teaser  🙂