~ Hard Guy ~
Tuesday has become, and will continue to be I hope, the day when I ride Hard Guy. Last Tuesday was my first time. I was experiencing a surprisingly high level of energy and rode the entire trail in under three hours. Josh has a few photos of the ride on this entry of his blog. Hard Guy is located in the area called (by Ridge to Rivers) Crane Creek / Shingle Ridge. Refer to the trail system map shown below and note that the highlighted area indicating the approximate location of Hard Guy. According to the Ridge to Rivers website, Hard Guy "is a long and winding route to the Boise Ridge. Due to long site lines and wide tread it's a good option for horseback rides by staging out of Miller Gulch. If you make it to the top you are rewarded with great views and a first hand look at the transition between high desert and forest ecosystems. Watch for raptors soaring the ridge during fall migration."
Yesterday I rode Hard Guy for the second time. On the way up, I decided that I would track my fitness using this trail. As this is a new trail for me, a longish trail, and a challenging trail, I determined that Hard Guy would be the ideal trail to track my improved fitness based upon the length of time it takes me to ride it. For a variety of reasons, Josh and I decided to have a time check from the trailhead, disregarding the ride up Bogus Basin Road and part of Corralls, tol the point of stopping, either the "halfway point" or the end.
Last night I rode to the "halfway" mark. This point is well past the halfway mark, however, I do not intend to bring along my GPS equipment to determine that which is exactly the halfway point. Plus, the point which I am calling "halfway" has a distinctive tree which is a good spot to rest and refuel, so it is likely that I won't forget where "halfway" is. It took me precisely 56 minutes to ride from the trailhead to "halfway" last night. My energy was at medium, I hadn't slept more than two hours that night, and I hadn't had much vigorous exercise in the days prior to the ride. All variables which I feel are important to take into account when tracking my progress. Please refer to the following sample spreadsheet to get an idea of how I intend to track my progress on Hard Guy. This is a draft and I will most likely be modifying it to make it more specific. Josh and I discussed how it would be interesting to track a whole slew of variables, such as amount of social interaction, stress load, fun-having, etc., and have a guage for happiness, but that would require more thought than I am willing to put into the project at this moment in time.
Anyhoot, the ride. Hard Guy is a fun trail. In Josh's guide books to mountain biking Southwest Idaho, Hard Guy is listed as an "advanced/expert" level trail. Since I am neither an advanced nor expert level bicycler, I have determined that the trail is only as hard as you make it. Granted, I feel that it is too difficult for a beginner rider, but for a solid intermediate such as myself, Hard Guy is good fun challenge. The trail, incidentally, winds through a large plot of land that is currently being used for the grazing of cattle. I am not entirely sure, but my guess is that these are free range cattle. Yesterday, this particular variety of livestock was everywhere, grazing, taking naps on the trail, and Josh and I had to carefully navigate our way through and around. At one point on the decent, I was flying down this steep pitch (which Josh had earlier described as a part of the trail he likes "to go really motherfucking fast on") and I had to slow down drastically because there were four calves walking along the trail with their mommies and a bull hanging out on either side. The calves, noticing my approach, began running away from me along the trail. How does one herd cattle on a bicycle? It was an amusing experience, though a bit terrifying. Josh, meanwhile, was way behind me and apparently caught the end of this scene. There were quite a number of instances in which I was approaching several large cows and bull(s) and, because I didn't want to startle any of them and induce them to girate right into my person, I made a point of calmly calling out a friendly "Hello" to alert them to my impending presence.
At some point early on in the trail, there is a "creek crossing". It comes at the bottom of a dip and is rather unpleasant due to its lack of actual water. Considering the quantity of cattle in the area, the consistency and smell, I have deduced that this particular "creek crossing" is kinda gross. I mean, well after riding into and out of it, being dried off by the heat and wind remnants, I was still noticing a distinct cow piss smell about my person. Unfortunately, there is no way around this obstacle and my creek crossing skillz aren't good enough for me to emerge without it splashing all over me.
Another shitty thing that happened to me last night, pun intended, was when I was riding home through the North End neighborhoods and I felt a conspicuous splat upon my leg. At first, I thought that Josh had thrown some projectile object at me. The impact was strong and it stung a bit. Then I looked down at my knee and I realized I had bird poo on my leg. A bird had defecated and it landed on me! I wasn't feeling so clean and fresh at this point, what with being splattered with cow piss and bird excrement. Here's a lovely photo of my lower half post-bike ride.
~ Dancing at the Balcony ~
It had been a long time since I had gone dancing, by the time that I went dancing this Friday night. Honey Bear and Poopy were in town for the three-day weekend, and I had prepared myself for a party-fun-night. Honey Bear and Poopy never came out, so fuck'em, I went dancing alone. (And by "alone", I mean "with Josh"). We went to what has been voted as "best dance club in Boise", The Balcony, but my hypothesis is that the vote is by default, as there is a dearth of quality dancing opportunities in the city of trees. Actually, the Balcony happens to be my favorite place to go dancing, but considering that I basically loathe all of the other dancing opportunities in town, I am growing tired of always going to the same place.
Additionally, I have some complaints about the place. Firstly, one of the Balcony's strong points is its hightened acceptance of all individuals. Gone to an extreme, however, this can lead to the establishment being packed with annoyingness. For example, the Balcony is located a mere two blocks from the Qwest Arena which can overwhelm the downtown area with the opposite of downtowners when hosting such activities as hockey games, Styxx concerts, and as what was taking place on Friday, the "Raw Wrestle Mania Revenge Tour". What I find rather interesting is the fact that the Balcony is a gay club, yet on Friday when the "Raw Wrestle Mania Revenge Tour" was over, it became the party venue for the wrestling fans. Secondly, while the Balcony can play a lot of good music that I want to dance to, such as nasty hip hop, it has a tendency to play Miscellaneous Techno Song way too many times. AND, while I love Madonna and Cher, I am of the opinion that their music is played too much at the Balcony. For example, on Friday while I was there, I heard the exact same remix of that one Madonna song I don't know the name of three times. Therefore, because of both the crowd and the music, this was my response at about 1:15 in the morning.
Upon our arrival at the establishment, Josh and I were awestruck by the older gentleman who was dancing. He was probably about 75 and was wearing a silk button-up shirt with brightly colored fish. And he was dancing his soul out. It was amazing.
We ordered drinks and sat down to drink them until we felt like shaking our bottoms. Here are some exciting photographs of myself during this period.
The dancing started when the song which we have informally named "The San Francisco Song" projected from the speakers. Everytime that "The San Francisco Song" comes on, it is necessary for us to dance in an almost-slow motion affected-theatrical/flamoyant/overly-dramatic manner. Which is fun! "And it made our hearts ache for San Fransisco" (--Josh, 2006).
Once the dancing started, it wasn't about to be contained. Yet, it wasn't what I would call a packed venue, that evening. Nor was it attractive. This is my observation grounded in typecasting and mistrust... it seems that many people who are obsessed with watching sporting events are themselves very out of shape who wear nothing but sports fitness attire and sneakers. This is ironic, I find. So all of the wrestling fans were taking over the dance floor with their poorly-navigated and rigid dancing.
During the songs which I didn't particularly care for, such as "Miscellaneous Techno Song", I took some photos of our shoes and of Josh's hands.
At some point, I went to utilize the ladies' loo, and when I returned, I found that my favorite nasty rap song was playing. So I went onto the dance floor myself and danced and danced. Fortunately, there was plenty of space for me to get my dance moves on. And behind me some wrestling fans decided to emulate their non-wrestling-fans homosexual counterparts, by taking off their shirts and dancing. Josh opted to photograph this.
As is evidenced from the photos, I enjoy dancing in a somewhat silly manner.
So we danced and danced, and imbibed. Then we left and walked to my place. On our way, Josh opted to rest on the soft grass of the Idaho State Legislature grounds and later relaxed in my new large red comfy chair. The next morning, I didn't feel so good and spent time relaxing myself in my comfy chair.
~ Silver Creek ~
"You know, I don't go in for that whole "God thing", but there's something to the Great Outdoors and a renewing of the spirit." - - Amy, 2006.
On Friday last, Amy and I loaded into her automobile and "got away from it all". We traveled to a place called Silver Creek, which is near to the small town of Crouch, Idaho, about a two hour drive North of Boise. In between our witty banter focusing on the ridicule of science, we admired some scenery and got in some physical activity.
Here are some photographs that I snapped while seated in Amy's moving automobile.
It took us a small time to locate a camping spot suitable to the both of us. There was some confusion regarding whether we ought to camp at that which appeared to be the idea of spots, except for that it was along the creek and we had seen some signs which notified campers that they were not allowed to camp within 50 feet until June 1st of the creek. Amy and I were uncertain of the distance from our camp to the creek, it might have been 50 feet, but we decided that should a forest ranger question us, that we would deny having seen the sign. Deceit always, you know, being the correct plan of action.
After we arrived at our ideal camping location, Amy set up the tent while I gathered firewood. I do not know what it was like for Amy to set up the tent, but my firewood gathering was quite the adventure. I had to wander deep into the woods which seperated our camping ground from others. I triped and stumpled over ground debris, received whips to the face from low-dangling pine tree branches, got my feet wet in the waters of the flooded stream, all the while loading my arms with a large amount of branches and hauling them back to camp. That evening, we hopped onto our bicycles and went on a small toodle up the forest service road which connected all of the camping lots.
Then we returned to our camp, Amy started the fire, and we sat around drinking wine and making obvious observations about the scientific world around us, until we were so tired that it was time to go to bed.
We stumbled over to the outhouse for one last time and then got all bundly in the tent. Right about the time when I had perfected my bundly sleepingbag arrangement, I had to pee yet again. Fie, wine, fie! So I donned my attractive-and-not-at-all-dorky headlamp and ventured outside. I returned to the tent and slept soundly all through the downpour of the night. At some point around what I hypothesize was 6:00 a.m. or thereabouts, my bladder woke me up. I realized that the torrential downpour had stopped and decided that it was time for me to get up. I put on my clothing and navigated my way out of the tent to find a very foggy and moist morning. I was about fifteen feet away from the tent heading towards the outhouse when the torrential downpour began anew. Luckily, I was wearing my rainproof jacket, but I became very wet during the two minutes that it took me to travel to and from the outhouse and the tent. Despite being wide awake and wanting to seize the day, I returned myself to the tent and snuggled in my sleeping bag adjacent to a sleeping Amy and listened to the rain for several hours. Throughout most of this experience I was worried that we would have to call our camping adventure off.
At some point, I dozed off and had a dream about being the captain of a tugboat off the Baltic Sea. When I woke up, the rain had stopped. Amy and I emerged from the drenched tent and put together a breakfast and some thick french pressed coffee. I spent a good deal of time sitting alongside the creek staring at the water. Then we went on a stroll up another forest service road. It was during this walk when I informed Amy that due to my ability to theorize, I am a theorist. While I was talking about my theory-making, Amy and I became alarmed when we heard loud gunshots near to our persons. Considering that there were signs pretty much everywhere which indicated that the shooting of firearms was not a forest service approved activity in that area at that time of year, it was lame. We then proceeded to have a conversation, before returning to the conversation about how I am a theorist, about how we aren't really "gun people".
We returned to the camp, made some salads for lunch and headed out on a bike ride. We rode bicycles for about three hours, up and down the forest service roads. At the end of the ride, I had decided to ride up this road to a summit. But during this ride, I became alarmed yet again as the people with guns were at the summit playing some sort of gun game. I felt glad that I happen to have been wearing my construction orange jersey so that the gun-shooters would perhaps not mistake me for a deer or whatever they might have been trying to shoot. I made an effort to stay away from them and I quit my bicycling adventure sooner than I had wanted because of them. Fie, gun-shooters, fie.
I spent the rest of the day lounging near to the creek reading my book and admiring the beautiful scenery around me. I am one of those people who can be kind of awed my the natural beauty that can be found on the Earth and it is very enjoyable for me to sit back and just observe some nature. That evening, Amy and I made some delicious chilli to which we added chopped onions and loads of cheddar cheese. She built us another fire, which we sat around. We went to bed at a time suited for senior citizens and despite all promising circumstances, I was unable to attain sleep that night. I was much too cold. I spent the night shivering, with my muscles cramped and knotted with cold. I was kind of sleepy the next day. We left early in the day because we both had things that we had to do to get back to our lives, but yes, the camping trip was very nice.
~ Nutrition ~
As of this writing, it has been exactly one week since I returned from San Francisco. Let it be known that in that week, I have been feeling badly. While I have a vested interest in not occupying this blog with complaining, allow me to briefly summarize my experience of feeling badly. I have not had any specific concrete symptoms, such as a sore throat, but I have been overwhelmed with exhaustion, fatigue, and lethargy (synonyms, though they might be). And while the general feeling of fatigue might not be considered a life-threatening disease, I felt as though I would die from it. I became amazed that my head continued to remain atop my neck, that it had not rolled onto the floor from its weight, and lifting my arms was a task so difficult that I was wrought with agony bearing the albatross. My hypothesis was that I had overworked my body to the extreme while on vacation and that I needed rest. Said "rest", however, was difficult for me to procure due to the need to attend my place of employment for the duration of the week. When the weekend came, I still failed to rest adequately. By yesterday, back at my place of employment, I began to convince myself that something must be wrong with my state of health. I then proceeded to diagnose myself with a variety of illnesses, including anemia. As I leafed through the many different types of anemia, I found myself thinking "Eureka!" over and over. My hypothesis then evolved into the following, "Going on vacation and physically exerting one's body in ways one is not used to and failing to compensate this with adequate nutritional sustenance, including the failure to take in the recommended daily measures of essential vitamins and minerals, can cause one's body to feel fatigue." This hypothesis was based on a number of variables, some of which I have already discussed, and others, including the fact that while on vacation I did not eat according to my normal diet and that there were no groceries in my apartment when I returned home and had not had the opportunity to resume aforementioned normal diet. From the hypothesis, I concluded that consuming some essential vitamins and minerals would do me well. Thus, on my lunch break, I walked home and drank a protein shake which I mixed with one and one half cups of skim milk. The protein shake mix that I use, incidentally, contains almost 100% of my daily vitamin and mineral needs. Less than one hour after drinking my protein shake, I was feeling much better. Since then, about 26 hours ago, I have made a concerted effort to maintain a healthy diet (which included my procurement of additional protein powder because I was out of it), and I am feeling in near-to tip-top form. This has led me to determine that there is something to this whole "nutrition" thing.
~ San Francisco ~
The main idea behind a trip to San Francisco, such as the one that I just experienced, is that it's very nice if you like that whole "view" thing. It seemed that everywhere that I went, some amazing view was present. I managed to snap quite a number of inadequate photos which in no way captured how fantastic the city really was.
~ Day 1 ~
The trip commenced (yes, I believe commenced is not too-retarded of a word for "to begin") on Thursday last. It was in the morning and Josh and I were trying to acquire mochas and an overpriced food item to take to the airport. This was an excellent plan, except for that it failed to take into account that all of downtown seemed to have lost power, a necessary ingredient in espresso-making. Thoroughly disgusted and articulating something about "Good thing we're leaving this mocha-not-making city!", Josh and I procured food items from McDonald's at the airport and some variety of airport coffee. Then we flew to San Francisco in such a manner that our arms did not become weary and we expertly navigated a variety of public transportation options until we came out on Market Street which is near to Union Square. We hauled ourselves and our sparse luggage to the youth hostel and checked into our room.
On a side note, after I had made the reservation at this hostel, the Adelaide, I read some review in which the reviewer indicated that it was located at the end of a sketchy alley and hinted that one might consider staying elsewhere during one's trip to S.F. Well, the reservation was already made and I didn't feel like changing it. Sure enough, as Josh and I were walking down Taylor Street looking for the small alley we would call home (me, having told Josh of the hotel review), we turned to walk down the alley and were struck by its sketchynitude. All of this proved to be unfounded, as the hostel was very nice. As an experienced hosteller, this was one of my better experiences by far. I would recommend it to a friend or close personal acquaintance.
Incidentally, we opted to rent a private room at the hostel rather than go dorm-style. This proved to be a wise decision which I could elaborate in detail for any interested persons.
After oogling our new digs, we wandered down to Union Square where there was some art exhibit thing happening with belly dancers. I have no understanding of what was going on, but it was a quality people-watching experience. We located some nutritional substance from this Greek hole-in-the-wall place on Geary St. and ate on a grassy knoll. The weather was beautiful - - the sun was out, it was warm and fantastic. We spent the duration of the afternoon wandering around. One highlight was the discovery of the Dior store and me entering it with the purpose of inspecting the $1,585 handbag that has caught my interest in several months' issues of fashion magazines. The woman in the shop told me that the bag has a waiting list and that if you can find one available it's best to get it right away because they are so hard to come by.
In the evening we went to a musical concert at the Palace of Fine Arts to see a performance of Ryan Adams. A funny thing happened on the way to the concert... The concert was set to begin at 8:00. We were keeping time with the use of our cellular telephones. Somehow, and "how" eludes me because Josh and I are both smart cookies who understand the concept of time at least as it relates to the act of "telling time" by looking at a digital clock, we didn't realize that the time displayed on our phones would change along with the time change. Up until the time at which we were physically on the bus heading towards the concert, we were convinced that the actual time was an hour less than what was indicated on our phones. As I was looking around my surroundings I noticed that the bus had a clock which placed the time at exactly what was on my cellphone, and not an hour before. I then verbalized the words, "Is it really 7:40?" and a female near to me checked her time and answered in the affirmative. It was at this point that both Josh and myself began to experience some anxiety about arriving at the concert in a timely fashion. You see, we were kind of far away from the venue, in a city that we hardly knew, on a bus in traffic, and not only were we both interested in this concert, but the tickets cost a pretty penny. So, blah, blah, blah, we departed the bus and ran to the concert (I was wearing heels) and we made it on time and it wasn't a big deal. The concert was good. Except for that the opening "musical" act was lacking in talent and Ryan Adams has some kind of gimmick going on in which he can't concentrate on playing his music. Near to the end, it had been a long day for me and I became overwhelmed with fatigue. When we left, we had something of an adventure locating the bus that would return us from whence we came.
As we were walking from the bus stop to the hostel, I decided that it was necessary for me to consume a beer or two in order to sleep. As some side information that may or may not be interesting, I have a lot of difficulty sleeping in strange places. So we went to a klassy place called Lefty O'Doul's which was so cheesy and lame that I would not recommend it to anyone. I did, however, manage to procure two beers which facilitated my sleep. Part of why the bar was so lame was this piano-playing guy with a microphone. And how everyone in the bar was completely intoxicated and singing along to whatever the piano-playing guy was performing. At about the time when Josh and I were getting into our second beer, the guy started playing "Hotel California". It was then that Josh and I made our feelings known to each other about "Hotel California". We looked deep into the other's eyes, clasped hands, and indicated exactly how much we dislike the song. Then we embraced the moment. We sang along to "Hotel California" with all of the swaggering drunks and it was the pinnacle of our bar experience.
~ Day 2 ~
After a refreshing night sleep, I woke up at the late hour of 8:20 in the morning. Feeling as though I had slept for an eternity, I wandered to the kitchen and participated in the continental breakfast. Even though I can't say that I've ever had good luck with continental breakfasts, I developed a breakfast regimen that worked for me, which I continued for the duration of the trip. That breakfast was a toasted bagel with peanut butter. It was fantastic.
Day two primarily involved Josh and I hanging out at various places and scoping out our shopping options. We made a big deal of walking down to the South of Market (SoMa) district, which proved to be dead by day (but rumor has it, a party by night) and succeeded in having sushi. Here, prior to becoming exhausted by the area, we found a nice neighborhood with a park (South Park) where we galavanted on some playground equipment and sat down for some coffee.
As we left the South of Market area, we walked through the Civic Center area, which was mighty noteworthy. My impression of the Civic Center is cloudy, however, because at the time I was overwhelmed with needing to find a restroom (which is just lovely to hear about).
Incidentally, the first couple of days of the trip reminded me of the movie "French Kiss" when the Meg Ryan character goes to Paris and cannot wait to see the Eiffel Tour, yet every time that she is looking for it, it is hidden, but when she is not looking for it, it is in plain view. Likewise, when we got to San Francisco, we knew that the TransAmerica Pyramid was nearby, but we could never see it due to such and such a building/hill obscuring the view. At one point, however, we were walking toward South of Market when we randomly turned to look behind us and there it was (taahdaah!!!) in full view.
At some point, we had a little adventure in the Yerba Buena Gardens. I can't remember if it was day 2 or another day, but it happened. There was this awesome playground which had a rubber ground and we had our fair share of fun.
That evening, I had drinks with my friend Amee who lives in San Francisco, who I haven't seen for over four years. She apparently has an apartment two blocks away from our hostel, which was something of a coincidence. We met at this bar halfway called "The Owl Tree" which had this owl-theme.
That evening, I had some insomnia and I sat on a couch in the common area of the hostel reading with some dim lighting to the rear of my person until the wee hours of the morning. I finally got so that I was able to sleep.
~ Day 3 ~
The third day constituted something of a climax for the trip. Josh and I had coffee at the Crepe House, which was a block from the hostel. The coffee was mediocre, but the atmosphere was fantastic. The establishment had old tile floors and walls with big oval windows. We took our mochas to-go and walked to the bus stop where we took the number 30 to Fisherman's Warf to rent bicycles. After thoughtful consideration, we rented a Burley tandem bicycle in the color of my choice (army green). We rode a path along the Bay and then up and up an incline to get to the Golden Gate Bridge. From my trust and faith in Josh as a bicycle handler, I spent a good amount of time being an amateur photographer on the back of the tandem.
As is evidenced by the photos, it was foggy and overcast that morning, but by the afternoon it became sunny and warm. We rode across the Bridge, down down down and under the highway to Sausalito. We parked the tandem and did a small bit of exploring. We determined that the town was way touristy for our tastes and left after having some pizza and soda.
Then, after consultation with our touristy bike route map, we determined that we were up for an adventure to find a small redwood forest in the Muir Woods. So we rode and we rode and we rode for miles and miles and miles. Many of these miles took us up a 15% grade around a curvy mountain narrow road. Neither Josh nor myself had come prepared for such a bicycle adventure. We both wore slip-on shoes and jeans, and completely forgot to apply sunscreen (having wrongly correlated fogginess with a lack of ultra-violet rays). Up and up we went. And then we came to an intersection....and boy were we lost. Here's a photo of the view.
Luckily, a friendly automobile-driver paused on his journey to inquire whether we needed assistance (having deduced that by our confused appearance). As he pointed to our location on the map, I noted that said location was a good distance from the point at which we thought we were. Having weighed our options of whether to fight or flight, we decided that a valiant retreat was in order and to that end we descended the way which we had come. Me, I spent the duration of the descent experiencing overwhelming sheer terror as I was on the back of the tandem (with absolutely no control over the bicycle) and we were zooming down this 15% grade windy narrow mountain road with no barriers right at the edge of a steep drop-off. I had made my feelings quite clear to Josh who seemed to take it seriously when I said that I would jump off the bike and walk the whole way down if he didn't go slowly. Even still, it was a frightening experience. As we crept towards the bottom, me in absolute panic, we came upon a small redwood park.
We then rode the bicycle back to Sausalito where we got in line to board the ferry across the Bay. The ferry ride was wonderful...pretty much what you'd expect from a short ferry trip across a bay.
We got off at the Financial District where we wandered around and finally had an opportunity to get up close and personal with the Transamerica Pyramid.
Then, as we were riding around North Beach, I had a fucking cow as Josh turned the handlebars in the direction of a very steep street. Having had enough climbing on the back of the tandem bicycle (and having had enough of having no control over where I was going on the bike), I pitched a huge fit and got all cranky on his ass (quite literally, considering my positioning on the bike). Apparently there had been some miscommunication and he thought that I understood that we were going to be riding the bike up to Coit Tower. Of the next three photos, the first is the street that we rode the bicycle up, the second is the view (me, in my cow-having state said bitchily, "Yea, real nice if you like that whole "view" thing"), and the third is from me having my last huge cow/panic attack of the day as Josh decided that he was going to defy everything that I told him to do and ride the tandem down some old steps (not visible in photo clearly) down a steep San Francisco street.
Then we went and had yet another piece of pizza, this time at a place in North Beach. Josh had some pesto mushroom thing and I had a very "interesting" slice of garlic and clam pizza. We continued to toodle around the area, including a stop off at a rad fountain, and became amazed at how much our sense of direction within the city had improved.
That evening, we dressed up and went to hit the town. I treated myself to my third piece of baklava of the trip, yum. We were attempting to go to this lounge place called Azul but it was having some exclusive private party to which we were not invited. Then as we were consulting our map, we met some locals who took us to a club called Tunnel Top. I felt kind of awkward during all of the social interaction (apparently, they wanted us to sit with them and I wasn't in meeting people mode) and succeeded in making an ass out of myself after a couple of Stella Artois. Then we stumbled home and that was that.
~ Day 4 ~
Sunday was yet another beautiful sunny day. After acquiring mochas, we met Amee at Union Square where we loaded onto bus number 71 to Golden Gate Park. We departed the bus at Upper Haight and explored Buena Vista park. Then we went to Golden Gate park and walked and walked and walked and walked.
Just thinking about how much we walked makes me feel weary. After we exited the park, like six hours later, we walked up and down Haight. We had coffee and walked and walked and went into many clothing shops. It was beautiful and lovely and fun, for sure. After hours and hours of walking, we took the bus back, got cleaned up at the hostel, picked up some take-out Thai food, bought a 40oz of beer each, and sat back watching Kill Bill with the other young hostellers in the common area.
At the end of the day, while I was making my list of that which we had done, Josh mentioned what he felt was the highlight of the day (other than being in my company, of course). When we were at Buena Vista Park, after we had climbed to the top of the hill, we watched the fog as it came in and rolled over the city like fingers.
~ Day 5 ~
Shopping, shopping, shopping. I found some hipster shoes, some Diesel jeans, and some awesome used t-shirts. We went shopping in Union Square, North Beach, the Mission (good idea, go to the district with a high density latino population on the same day as "A Day Without Immigrants"...everything there was closed), and the Castro. We partook of lunch in North Beach at a place across from Washington Square called Cafe Divine where we both had amazing pulled pork sandwiches and we found a wonderful sushi place in the Castro for dinner.
~ Day 6 ~
We had the morning to wander up to Grace Cathedral. I sat on a cement wall reading my book in the sunlight as Josh ran around photographing the view. Around noon, we got our bags from the hostel storage area and took BART to the airport. After a wonderful but long week, and a long day of travel with not enough nutritional substance, I finally walked into the door of my home and the first thing that I saw was the open buds of my African Violet.
