Bay area

Don’t get me wrong: San Francisco is an exciting place to visit with plenty of attractions for the weekend tourist, but being in a crowded, bustling city again after five months of “easy living” in laid-back, sunny Santa Barbara gave me a sense of relief that R’s latest corporate relocation did not bring us there or somewhere similar. Driving through Silicon Valley on the way up last Thursday evening did make me think the place could do wonders for my career (we even spotted the Oracle mothership along our way), but, at least for the time being, I’m happy hiding away down here and being done with my work day by 3 or 4 o’clock most days. In case I haven’t mentioned it enough yet, I am really happy with my life right now. I still don’t have as much free time I want, but I’m beginning to think having enough is an unattainable fantasy. I’ll take what I’m getting now, despite the fact that weeks still go by without the chance to open up Adobe Premiere and dig into my latest editing project.

Before I get any further off track with additional long-winded reflection, let’s get into my purpose for this entry: to cover our mini-vacation in the bay area. If you’d like an accompanying visual, see our photos here.

We spent three nights in a very cozy (i.e. small) room at a hotel downtown. Our location at 4th & Market Street was perfect for hopping on a cable car, a bus, or the BART, all means of transportation we made use of. My buddy from college, L, and his new wife were also in town and staying two blocks down the street until Saturday morning. We hung out with them all day Friday at Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, and various other scenic hotspots around the city that you would probably recognize from the opening to Full House if nothing else. We had some lunch next to the water and a dinner out at an unpretentious place with motorbikes hanging from the ceiling. I enjoyed seeing these folks again, and it was helpful to have them show us around, being that they had already been visiting for a while and knew the city better than us. I’m so glad we were able to meet up and continue staying in touch with some friends from back home.

On Saturday, R and I were on our own. Since the tourist scene was starting to wear on us, we got off of the beaten path a little bit (but not too far). First we checked out the famed Haight and Ashbury district followed by a walk through the park to a Japanese tea garden where we sipped green and jasmine tea in an exotic setting amplified by a surrounding mist. Then it started raining. After a stop at the hotel to pick up some warmer clothes, we took the train out to UC Berkley and enjoyed a walk down the one-of-a-kind, funky Telegraph Avenue. Somewhere in there we also had a chocolate sundae at Ghirardelli Square and visited Chinatown, where I bought my only souvenir, a San Francisco T-shirt for $1.88. (Now that I think about it, Chinatown happened the night before, but it just doesn’t fit into that paragraph). The night was capped with a late, indulgent meal at an ultra swanky place called Ame. This is where I realized I didn’t pack appropriately because I felt severely under dressed in khakis and button-down shirt. Luckily R classed it up enough for the two of us and we enjoyed some of the finest Rice-a-Roni in the world :-).

We hit the road early Sunday morning, taking the slower but more scenic coastal route down and stopping for lunch in Monterey and a few other spots to take in the view. It would have been nice to have more time to explore this area. We will have to return sometime and maybe do some camping in Big Sur. Speaking of Big Sur, I want to leave you with some Mason Jennings lyrics from his GREAT song by that name. This is the kind of stuff we had playing as we drove along the rugged coast:

Forty miles south of Monterey and the San Lucia hills
The sunshine shone me to sleep, and I dreamt I was alive
I sang myself a song, it went, know what you know
Stay when you stay, and go when you go
And I call it intuition, flowers bloom and hummingbirds fly
Yes, I call it intuition, it gets me by