Thursday, August 13
- Phoenix to L.A.
- Stayed with Toph and Em
- Queen-sized, hip-tall, air mattress
Friday, August 14
- $80 breakfast in L.A.
- Drove 101 to Paso Robles to see Dan & Suzanne
- A WHOLE bottle of Justin Isosceles for lunch!
- Fires everywhere
- Vina Robles tasting [tasting with wine club members = both sides of the menu & cheese to match :) ]
- $12 bottle of Red 4 to go
- 101 to San Fran
- One hour hunting for a parking spot with Brian
- Let Brian drive to expedite finding of spot; Brian firmly curb checks my Matrix “rims”
- Matt locks himself out
- Slice at Mystic Pizza; meet Amy Hribar (went to school and played soccer together; she’s been in Spain for a few years, me nowhere near Pittsburgh; SMALL, SMALL world!), while eating on the street
- Drink 7/8 bottle of Crown Royal
- Up ‘til 3am
- Brian cooks veggie pizza for 6 hours; wake to smell of burn cheese; pizza is hard, black disc
Saturday, August 15
- Coffee & bananas/mimosa’s
- Soak feet in Japanese hot tub
- Squat & Gobble for breakfast; hash browns taste like Dad’s…mmmmm
- Walked to Market Street; unsuccessfully ride a street trolley
- SFMOMA; Georgia O’Keefe + Ansel Adams exhibit; Richard Avendon is a brilliant photographer
- Best/prettiest mocha of my life on the roof
- Brian buys 5 of the same postcard: sad-looking Marilyn Monroe
- Off to Pier 39 via trolley for a brief moment of touristy chaos
- Taxi to City Lights Books; Chelsea is in heaven—buys a Bukowski’s Women; buys Ginsberg’s Howl for Matt & Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet for Brian
- Drink at the kitschy bar, Vesuvio; every inch of wall is covered
- Home for pre-drinking drinks
- First, Lucky 13 (like Howard’s, but in San Fran and way cooler); best punk/rockabilly jukebox ever; photo booth insanity; HUGE shots
- Next, Zeitgeist; really hoppy beer; drug-induced paintings of pigs/elephants on the walls; friendly strangers; Brian loses motor skills—takes a time-out in the Port-a-John; we get kicked out/bar closes; carry Brian out to puke on the sidewalk; Matt pees between U-Hauls; Chelsea saves us all with pizza; Brian manages to be vertical; Chelsea guides us home with Brian’s iPhone & Google maps
- Pass out
Sunday, August 16
- Lazy morning
- Kate’s Kitchen makes us wait; fractured souls
- Lazy again; soak feet again
- Wander aimlessly around Amoeba
- Wander aimlessly across Hippie Hill
- Wander aimlessly through Golden Gate Park
- Eat $20 snacks with aforementioned $12 wine
- Check out the park from the roof of the de Young
- Wander aimlessly through Flower Conservatory and dahlia gardens
- Window shopping in the Haight-Ashbury
- Thai noodles…mmmmm
- Hot tub
- Three tall boys and three good friends in Alamo Square Park
Monday, August 17
- Brian goes to work; Chelsea finds car and park expertly in front of Brian’s house
- Back to Squat & Gobble…still delicious
- Cross Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, together
- Muir Forest. No words.
- Mt. Tam—hot but beautiful view; strange men in parking lot wearing white with bells strapped to their legs, and some instruments, singing weird British folk songs…?
- Stinson Beach; club sandwich; rolled pant legs
- Cow Hollow Motor Inn—our home for a few days
- Seafood dinner; Chelsea eats fish equivalent of pot pie, which includes shrimp, squid, scallops, crab, etc. and little tiny octopi babies
- Post-frozen yogurt, fall asleep with TV on
Tuesday, August 18
- Sleep in; get huge coffees; watch SportsCenter (Favre is back. Ugh.)
- Only aiming to eat breakfast/lunch, find ourselves at Mel’s Diner from American Graffiti
- Rent bicycles
- Huff and puff and peddle our way through Presidio Park
- Check out Ft. Point; Warming Hut; Marina Blvd.; Crissy Field; extremely lame, semi-functional wave organ
- Eat snacks on the stairs of a lighthouse; watch Chinese shipping container barge travel through the bay, and strange man wearing 2 wetsuits
- Check out Victoria Park; view of Embarkation Point from the hill
- More cycling/walking our bikes up the hills of San Fran
- Return bikes
- Matt does laundry in the sink (that takes 3 days to dry)
- Give up on 2 hour wait for ultra-trendy Italian restaurant; instead, find E’Angelo Cucina Itali—best Italian meal since Italy; beautiful waitress, grumpy old man, dirty cooks—everyone speaking Italian, us eating as if we were in heaven
- Find wine bar; buy 2007 Ridge California Sonoma County Three Valley Zin…sooo tasty
- Hotel drinking, music listening, and rummy playing
Wednesday, August 19
- Up early
- Breakfast at Pier 39; yummy SF sourdough; biggest plates I’ve ever seen
- Wait in line forever, but looking forward to a day on boats and guided wandering
- Angel Island; stinky diesel tour tram; guy ON HIS CELL PHONE WHILE ON THE TOUR—AGGGHHH!!!
- Alcatraz and audio tour with weird ambient music; took more photos in one day than I have during most other vacations
- Find Meze’s (translates to something like Greek tapas) Greek restaurant; 5-course prie-fix; best meal so far
Thursday, August 20
- Get up; get coffee; get groceries from local market; pack & leave
- Partial scenic route drive; Richard the TomTom + large-print atlas + compass = Highway 1
- Find a Subway in Mexico town; find a random, exquisite, gorgeous beach; eat lunch, take photos, play in the sand, watch things
- Get to Big Sur Campgrounds & Cabins; unpack and pitch tent
- $8 burritos the size of your head from general store
- Stella tall boy and more rummy playing
- Nice bonfire
- Guy next door roasts marshmallows by the fire with end table lamp on outside
Friday, August 21
- Free coffee & healthy breakfast; clean up & go
- Point Lobos State Park; Whaler’s Cove; whaling museum
- Healthy lunch back at camp
- Pfeiffer Beach; purple sand; Big Sur rocks; starfish; fog
- Crappy general store pizza; drink delicious Petit Syrah out of the bottle
- Rummy tourney continues
- Bonfire with stolen wood
- Matt falls asleep by the fire and is disoriented when I call his name
Saturday, August 22
- Chelsea pees outside thinking it’s too early for anyone to be awake, but later realizes it was at least 10am—time is nonexistent in nature
- Shower, breakfast, breakdown camp, leave
- Drive Highway 1 behind two undiagnosed mentally retarded drivers—Matt is tense; Chelsea loses her persistent optimism
- Make up time on 101
- The Lydecker Hotel welcomes us with open arms—we love Ann & George :)
- Make dinner together; drink box of leftover wine tasting bottles that Topher brings
- Dinner table storytelling is my favorite part of any trip
- Sleepytime
Sunday , August 23
- Eat breakfast
- Revise Lyndsey’s resume
- Notice smog/fire smoke everywhere
- Boring drive through desert
- Home again, home again, jiggidy jig jig
- Vacation hangover/depression
THE END
