After getting back from our holiday to Port Douglas, Sara headed off to Darwin for another two week stint for work and I headed over to the Golden State to visit my mom and brother, Jeff.

I bought a relatively cheap ($1,100 AUD) round trip fare to San Francisco via Auckland, NZ.  It worked well to connect in New Zealand as it shortens the trans-Pacific flight time to a little over 11 hours.

I arrived into SFO after a robust 1 hour of vertical sleeping and proceeded to pick up my rental car and drive 3.5 hours up to Tahoe to see Jeff.  It was nice to be in the glorious California summer sunshine.  I had the windows down and the Amity Affliction (my favorite Aussie band!) blaring.  I made an important pit stop at Taco Bell since it’s had been too long since my last double decker taco. That night I got to play in Jeff’s softball game.  I was a bit rusty after not swinging a bat for almost 2 years, but managed to scrape out one hit in my 4 ABs.

The next morning we snuck in a quick 9 at the Tahoe City golf course before heading back down to the bay area to spend time with our mom.  We stopped at the In-N-Out Burger on the way down because California.   We got some good Mexican food (which is in short supply in Australia) in Pleasanton that night with mom.

We hung out with mom for a bit in the morning the next day and then hopped on the BART to head to an A’s game.  We got great seats right behind home plate for $30 (yay mid-week day game!).

The weather was perfect.  That night dinner was another check-box item for me – Round Table Pizza.  As usual it didn’t disappoint.

An early wake up was in order the next day for a quick 18 holes of golf in Livermore.

Then we met up with mom for lunch before heading back up to Tahoe for Jeff’s co-ed softball game.  I didn’t get to play in this one, but it was probably for the best, since the right field fence was only 215 feet.  With that plus the high altitude it would be like taking candy from a baby for me to sock a few dingers.

The next morning it was up an at ’em to meet up with a childhood family friend of ours for a trip up to the top of Squaw Valley on the tram and a nice hike back down to the base.

We stopped for a quick lunch and then headed back to the Tahoe City golf course for another 18.  Sufficiently beat down from the day, we headed home and Jeff whipped up some awesome sausage quesadillas.

Jeff was back to work the  next day, so I was heading back down to see mom solo.  I stopped by to see Jeff and have breakfast at the Firesign Cafe and then proceeded down the west shore for the scenic route.

Also, I wanted to stop in South Tahoe for a quick game of $5 craps.  I was rewarded with a nice $65 payday after about 30 minutes of playing.  I even had the table to myself.  Made it back to the bay area in plenty of time for another nice dinner with my mom, Chinese food this time.

The next morning I got up and hopped on the BART again, this time all the way to San Francisco to head to a Giants game with a friend I hadn’t seen in a few years.

The weather didn’t disappoint and neither did the Giants.  $30 will not get you anywhere close to behind home plate for the Giants for a Sunday day game, but still not a bad view!

Again, more time with mom, this time with Thai food!

For my last day in town I helped my mom with things around her house and we took a trip up to Walnut Creek (where she grew up) to see what all has changed since she’d last been.

Then it was off to the airport for my flight back to Oz via NZ.  A great quick trip to the USA.

To escape the stubborn Melbourne winter this year we decided to head up to Far North Queensland to the town of Port Douglas for some warmth. It’s a small town known for being a good launching point for exploring the Great Barrier Reef. We did a day trip to the reef when we visited Australia in 2011, so this time we decided to focus on inland activities. For the second year in a row we timed our holiday so it would coincide with our anniversary, because, why not?

We flew into Cairns, rented a car and drove the one hour up to Port Douglas. The road there is pretty breathtaking in parts as it winds along the Coral Sea.  You’ll have to take my word for it, since we didn’t take any photos.

The weather was not awesome for our first full day there, so we figured if it was going to be rainy, why not explore the rainforest that was nearby! There were crazy trees everywhere and we took a nice hike through the forest and crossed a scary suspension bridge.

Port Douglas is known for its beach – “Four Mile Beach” – which is funny to me since they don’t use miles here. It’s a very long, flat beach that seems to go on forever. One day we walked about 4 miles down the beach, but there seemed to be more beach after that. So the name doubly doesn’t make sense!

One of Sara’s co-workers declared that the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway was “ace”, so we decided to give it a go.

It was an amazing experience, we took a gondola about 7.5 kilometers with two stops go get off and view the rainforest and Barron Falls.

The gondola ends in a town called Kuranda, where we got lunch and hiked around a little. Then we took an old-timey train back down the mountain while we heard stories about how hard the train was to build. The train had one stop as well from the opposite side of the waterfall . Apparently during the wet season, the waterfall is quite the spectacle. It was pretty cool to see even during the dry season.

Back in Port Douglas, we noticed the beach had little balls of sand everywhere and seemed to be moving as you walked towards it.

We learned that the beach is home to the Sand Bubbler Crab, they seem to have the terrible job of hiding in the sand until the tide goes down and then harvesting the sand for any food in it and discarding the sand in little balls near their hole. I found them fascinating, they made the beach look like art.

One bar in town hosts a nightly “Cane Toad Race” and that came recommended by multiple people.  We went one night and were disappointed that the toads didn’t actually race as much as sit around and do nothing.

For the most part we just relaxed, read some books and just enjoyed the break from the Melbourne winter. I realized it had been 5 months since our prior vacation, which is way too long for me to stay sane!