My partner and I visited Walt Disney World for the third time last September.
28.01.2025 - 21:27 / insider.com
Many people think vacationing with one's mother-in-law sounds like a nightmare. Then add your own mother into the mix, and it's usually a recipe for disaster. However, flying across the country, from Delaware to San Francisco , with my spouse, mother-in-law, and mother was the best vacation I've ever taken, and it had little to do with the Golden Gate City.
Don't get me wrong, San Francisco was amazing, and the trip down the coast was breathtaking. But the oohing and ahhing from the backseat as our mothers took it all in made the trip so special.
Two of my favorite moments from our vacation were visiting Alcatraz Island and driving down (literally) Lombard Street. The views were breathtaking, and the time spent together was memorable.
Alcatraz has a dark history and intense energy, but it is a powerful experience. We walked every inch of that island to soak in all the history we could. We stood in the eerie isolation cells of the prison and touched the cold steel of a watch tower.
When my wife, Christine, and mother-in-law, Mary, were too tired to continue, my mom and I walked past the remains of the Warden's House and along the gardens at the southeastern corner of the island. We traipsed up the steep concrete steps to the Recreation Yard and turned around to an astounding yet dizzying view of San Francisco as it seemed to hover over the choppy waves of the bay. Cold nipped at our noses and hands, but that's not what took our breath away.
While meandering on the city's outskirts, we stumbled upon the end of Lombard Street . Not daring to take that walk uphill on our first day, we vowed to come back and drive down later. And that's exactly what we did. Christine and I stole gleeful glances at each other as she cautiously crawled our rental car down that infamously precarious winding street with our mothers in the backseat, equal parts enthralled and terrified.
I'll never forget Mary and Mom gasping and exclaiming, "Oh my god!"
No trip to the West Coast is complete without a drive down Highway One, which winds along rocky cliffs offering stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.
We drove until we hit Carmel and then back up the coast to stay a few nights in Santa Cruz. Upon arriving back in Santa Cruz, a local informed us that it was migration season for the Monarch butterflies , and they were starting to cluster at the Monarch Grove Trail located at Natural Bridges .
The next day, we walked the trails to glimpse a kaleidoscope of Monarchs. It was one of my mother's and my favorite moments from the trip. I came away with a butterfly ring, the scent of eucalyptus in my hair, and memories of Christine, Mary, and my mother, Donna, standing among the delicate flutter of butterfly wings.
Chr
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