The fog outside my house is so pea-soup thick today that I suspect, viewed from the valley, it’s actually low-lying cloud cover. Even the house next door is difficult to pick out. I’m not about to drive down to find out, though: I’m staying right here.
Normally when I have a day off like I do today, I’m hard-pressed not to use it to visit some park or trail I haven’t seen yet. It’s difficult for me to justify to myself staying home when there’s so much beautiful stuff I haven’t seen yet. I still haven’t been, for example, to Almaden Quicksilver or to Ed Levin county parks. Today, though, It’s foggy and wet out, so I’ve finally got an excuse to sit at home, play some Fallout 3, take stock of the last week, and tell you about it.
My buddy Jay flew out for the week of Christmas. This was pretty exciting for me because, my brother aside, he’s the first familiar face I’ve seen since October. I picked him up at the airport and we went back to spend the rest of the night chilling at our place, drinking the Tito’s Vodka he brought to remind us of home and staring out at the view.
The next morning we wanted to go to Lick observatory Mount Hamilton to check out the snow, but found the road cloased by a police officer just above the snow line. On the way back down the mountain we puzzled over what to do next, and decided that on a day clear as that Saturday, San Francisco was as good a place to visit as any. It was a real blast, too. We parked SoMA and ate lunch at the rich people’s food court in the basement of Westfield San Francisco Center. The cost isn’t actually that bad, although finding a seat to sit in six days before Christmas took us almost ten minutes. When we left there we realized we didn’t have a real plan, so we walked down market to The Embarcadero, then walked alongside the port to Fisherman’s Wharf. We then did the most touristy things imaginable, having a beer at a bar on Pier 39, gawking at the Christmas tree, and walking out to the end of Pier 41 to sit and gawk amazed at the view of the bay.
The view of the bay was amazing, too. The air was clear, the sky was blue, you could see Alcatraz and Oakland and the Golden Gate bridge, Angel Island and tiny boats sailing in the bay. I had, of course, forgotten to charge my camera, and ran down tha battery in Jay’s before we got there.
On the plus side, I only live about an hour away.
After resting at the end of the pier, we worked our way further along The Embarcadero, with the intention of catching a cable car. One amazing thing we saw on the way was Boudin Bakery, known, of course, for its sourdough, and with roots that go all the way back to the gold rush. The backers there were forming loaves into the shapes of lobsters, teddy bears, turtles, and, most amazingly, a three-foot-long alligator. It was just about the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen made out of bread, and that’s saying a lot.
We didn’t catch that cable car, because the line looked long enough that it would probably be quicker just to walk the two miles back–so we did. That was a hella good decision. Our path back wasn’t as terribly hilly as you might think, and took us straight through North Beach, San Francisco’s sublime Italian neighborhood. It almost killed me to walk past all those delicious-looking eateries and neighborhood bars (half of them Irish pubs) without partaking, but I made it, and I know exactly where I’m eating the next time I’m in town. As we approached the financial district, We saw a huge tree wrapped entirely and tightly in thousands and thousands of tiny LED lights. It was, bar none, the most amazing Christmas tree I’ve ever seen. Looking at it closely was hard on the eyes and the mind, as the lights were so numerous, and the black limbs so tightly wrapped, that my mind began to confuse figure and ground. I can’t really describe it: you’ll have to come out next Christmas and see for yourself.
So that was that. On Sunday the weather started out nice so we headed for the Santa Cruz mountains, so we could show Jay Big Basin. We didn’t spend too terribly much time there, as a light rain had developed by the time we showed up, but it was enough to see the tallest and largest trees in the park. The tallest has a hollow base so large you could easily have ten people stand in it at the same time.
After that we decided to hit up Santa Cruz, since neither Travis nor I had seen the sea in daylight since we moved here. We grabbed some food at Planet Fresh Burritos (it’s no Freebirds, but for California it’s pretty close), then headed directly for the municipal wharf. Since we were a bit chilly and the weather a bit harsh, we decided first to fortify ourselves at Ideal Bar & Grill at the entrance, and that was no mistake. We had a friendly barmaid and a panoramic view of the bay without all the pesky water and wind.
A brief stint on the beach was followed by an hour or so in the arcade at the Boardwalk, where you can buy Heineken in 24-ounce cans and buy a tortilla-wrapped deep-fried cheesecake chimichanga (I took the former and passed on the latter). After the boardwalk we walked out to the end of the pier; by now it was dark, but we could just see a noisy pack of sea lions, at least a couple dozen of them, milling around the pier and apparently heading out to sea. By then home and sleep was starting to seem like a good idea.
So, that was how we spent the first two days of Jay’s vacation. I’ll write later about the two days we spent in Napa Valley, the day at Pebble Beach and Big Sur, our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and our drunkariffic Christmas day. If you follow the linked pictures above, however, you can get see the pictures in my photo stream.
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Also: Check out Cracked’s 8 Celebrities you didn’t know were geeks; and, in honor of the web site you’re probably reading this on, ‘Watchmen’ Fan Cordially Invites Fox to Eat Several Dicks. Actually, just go read the whole goddamned web site, okay? ‘Cuz it’s hilarious.
