Day 8: California
29 June 2008Marie makes an amazing tour guide, and she took us all over San Francisco on Saturday. This was great in many respects, not the least of which being that I didn’t have to drive through the city any more, as it was kind of giving me a heart attack with all the uncontrolled intersections. It’s just not comforting to me to know that there are stop signs in all 4 directions at an intersection. Without the binding power of a stop light I am constantly convinced that we are going to get blindsided and it will be curtains for the prius after us only putting 2800 (!!!!) miles on it.
Here’s another reason I was glad Marie was driving. We made it down the crookedest street in the world and at the bottom were more people taking pictures than at any other tourist site we’d been to. I happily joined them.
Then we stalked down some trolley cars to take some more pictures. We had intended on actually riding one, but that looked scary and I’m usually more than happy to fake the experience than actually complete it, and this was no exception.
See how I casually lean against the trolley? This pose says “I’ve been on one of these things thousands of times.”
My favorite stop was City Lights bookstore, which is a lot like NY’s The Strand except, you know, organized. I bought a copy of A Wrinkle In Time, having recently decided it deserved a re-read since I didn’t like it much in elementary school. Fingers crossed for this time around, Madeline L’Engle (RIP).
Anna is spending her summer as one of SF’s writers in residence and had beat us to the city by about 5 days, so she met up with us for lunch. I love this picture because I think it’s plainly obvious that we are effing thrilled to see each other, despite the fact that we’ve lived in the same town for the last 4 years and see each other constantly on the east coast.
That’s Alcatraz in the background– I thought we were badasses just for standing near it, but a few weeks before Older Brother Bud completed the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon that involved swimming from that island to the shore and then biking and running through the hills. So, he wins. AS USUAL. Siiiiiiigh.
Our last stop before mom and I departed was to take some pictures in front of the Golden Gate bridge. As we were taking this one I didn’t realize the hilariously creepy element to it:
Looks like Camera Guy was quite taken with Anna, who is on the other side of my camera. If one of us goes missing within the next few weeks, make sure the cops know about this.
Mom and I drove into Reno last night and are getting ready to go do a lot of gambling before noon on a sunday. This was our first night in a Motel 6 (we’ve been favoring Quality Inns) and I was less than impressed with the decour.
Though, upon more careful consideration, it’s hard to argue with a motel chain that comissions bedclothes:
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