The Frugal Fashionista Travels: Petaluma, CA

Petaluma, California was the location that I chose to complete my Mindfulness Tools program. This was the first phase of the training pathways to become certified as a teacher of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.

Petaluma Photo Diary

I am really getting into taking photos! I brought my DSLR camera with me on this trip and I took it with me wherever I went. This was my first time traveling on a plane since the accident so I planned to fly out two days before and come back two days after my program. This way if there were any delays due to the weather when I was flying out, or if I needed a few days to recover from the flight I was all set. It also allowed me to go up to San Francisco for a few days once the course was finished.

My mom came with me on this trip for two reasons: 1. She’s my nurse ( 😉 ) and I knew that she would be concerned about me on my first trip and 2. She needed (and deserved) a relaxing trip to sunny California. Even though for most of the trip I was going to be in my training all day, she would be able to walk around the grounds, and just hang out and read her book or watch TV. No cleaning, no cooking, nothing except relaxing and resting.

We flew into San Francisco International airport and I contacted the shuttle bus that was going to take us to Petaluma. I spoke to the guy who organizes it and he told me where to meet it and said the next bus was coming at 2:30pm – great! We had about 20 minutes to get to the spot for the shuttle pickup. Only thing is, it’s not a shuttle, it’s an airporter which wouldn’t be a big deal except I was waiting in the area for shuttles which was on a different level than the pickup location for airporters. So I ended up missing the first one and I had to wait an hour for the next one (facepalm).

Finally, I got on the right bus and we were on our way. Petaluma is about a 2 hour drive (with traffic) from San Fran and the bus only takes you to the fairground and you need to then take a taxi the rest of the way. It’s only a five-ten minute journey so it’s not too bad.

Our hotel and the view from our room – not too shabby!!

We checked in and dropped our stuff off in our room and headed to eat – because we were starving!! Air Canada no longer serves food on their flights unless you buy it (no thanks) so we only had the food we picked up before our flight left which was hours before. It was 6:30pm CA time (9:30pm Toronto time) when we got in so by the time we finished dinner and unpacked we were off to bed!

A yummy serving of salmon

The next day we decided to explore the area. As I mentioned, we had seen a Target on our way from the fairground, so we headed there for the day. On the way there we spotted an In-N-Out burger and since neither of us had ever been there we decided that we would head there for our lunch.

Let me tell you, it did not disappoint!! SO good!! We each ordered the cheeseburger and fries and we enjoyed it so much that we went back the next day! This time I ordered my burger animal style – if you ever do, get LOTS of napkins, it can get messy!!

I’m not a fan of grilled onions, they don’t really agree with me (lessons learned) so if I am ever in California again and I am heading to In-N-Out I will just get the regular cheeseburger. I am glad that I tried it animal style so at least now I know.

The walk to Target was about an hour each way and In-N-Out was 20 minutes from our hotel. I brought my camera and different lenses with me and these are some of the shots that I took. I took a TON so I’m only including a small sample below. I clearly like landscape photography and I LOVE using my 50mm lens with a f1.4 aperture.

There was a path with a bridge on the hotel property and I spent a lot of time walking there either during the Mindfulness program or on my own.

I became obsessed with getting the perfect shot of this bird. I must have spent 30 minutes photographing him! I wanted to get a shot of him flying off but he would just not cooperate with me, lol!

Thanks for reading,

Charlene xoxo