We had a GREAT trip to San Francisco! On Friday, we woke up at nine o’clock in the morning, showered, ate the hotel’s free breakfast, and drove to Guidewire. Everyone there is so NICE! I especially enjoyed meeting Priscilla, a woman who suffered a head injury in a car accident several years ago. She had trouble reading and writing afterwards. After she explained that, I tried to explain my symptoms, but all I could think of was, “I’m tired.” She did say, though, that she was also tired, and she got over it, so perhaps there’s hope for me yet.
Jake in bed with a page of United’s in-flight magazine:
While it was great to meet Ben’s coworkers, it was also a little awkward. I felt like “the wife”, not a former Caltech student with a master’s degree. Nobody asked me what I do (thank goodness!), but I could feel it. It’s probably all in my head — I’ve been warned about the blow to your self-esteem that a stroke can give you — but it still sucks. Oh well =(
Benihana, from across the bird sanctuary:
Afterwards, we lunched at In N Out, which we lack here in Colorado. I got a double double without the cheese, animal style, ketchup instead, and no pickles (yuck!), fries, and a chocolate milkshake. Boy, did it taste good!
Then, we drove to Half Moon Bay, a town by the shore. We enjoyed a romantic walk along the beach, and then I dragged Ben in search of the horses. I’d read that you can “rent” a horse to ride along the beach, and that sounded *totally* cool to me. We found them at a place called “Sea Horse Ranch” a couple of miles north of the beach we stumbled onto for our walk. After signing away our lives, they paired me up with a horse named Zapatos, and Ben up with one named Mindy. We were joined by three Mexican dudes and, as our guide, a Spanish-speaking guy whose name I don’t know.
The horses were slow, they warned us; they lied. Zapatos liked to be in front, so when anyone passed him, he’d trot to regain his position. On the beach, he galloped! I wasn’t quite ready for that. However, as much as I’d like to complain about it, I can’t. I LOVED going fast. I probably looked like a doofus, but I had fun. =)
(Do the stirrups look too long? I ask because they FELT too long, and my butt hurt like the dickens when we got off. Sitting down? On, say, the toilet? No thanks!)
After that, we came home and had dinner at the Elephant Bar next to our hotel. Then we went back to the room and Ben announced he was leaving to play poker. He did pretty well, so I’m glad he went, but I didn’t do so well on my own. I could NOT fall asleep! I’d say I finally dozed off around 1:30 am. Ben got home at 4:00 am. We were pretty drowsy the next day!
However, we were up and at ‘em anyway because we had tickets for a 1:45 departure to Alcatraz! We drove — the train would take a half hour, and Ben didn’t want to spend so much time getting there — and parked at Pier 28 for our Pier 33 departure. We paid our $10 and then realized that Pier 33 was significantly far away because all the even numbered piers are lumped together on one side and the odd numbers are on the other. We had quite a walk ahead of us!
I was getting hungry. Well, not so much hungry as tired, but I’ve learned to recognize the “tired” as “hungry” recently. (Remember how I said I was exhausted in my last entry? I felt ten times better after some protein — i.e. meat — at Benihana’s.) I pulled Ben into the first restaurant I saw. “I’m hungry,” I explained, “and we’re eating here.” I was prepared to fight for it, since the restaurant looked expensive, but Ben didn’t disagree. !!! We had a nice lunch.
Then we got to the boat! We had to wait in line because there was some guy taking pictures of people in front of a poster of Alcatraz. Geez louise. I started to take my own picture of people from behind him and he yelled at me! Then, when we got up to him in line, we walked around him and he yelled at us for cutting. Good grief!
Unfortunately for us, the ferry ride was short. Ben wanted to sleep, and I wasn’t complaining about a chance to sit. But we arrived at the island, got off the boat, listened to their “mandatory introduction” for about thirty seconds before deeming it worthless, and then took off up the mountain to the cell block, where we got our free audio tour.
I’m glad I’m not a prisoner, because living in one (at least one like Alcatraz) looks miserable. They showed us some of the cells as they were during the 50s, when people actually lived there; some inmates did watercolors, some knitted, but they ALL looked really bored. (Actually, it doesn’t seem all that different from therapy …) The audio tour outlined some of the attempted escapes, which were impressive. People actually tunneled their way out of the concrete bunker with spoons.
A view of the city from Alcatraz:
We were pretty tired at the conclusion of the tour. After taking the boat back, we opted to go to Starbucks before catching the MUNI back to our car. The first Starbucks we went to was closed on the weekends. The second one closed at 2:30. Third time’s the charm, thank goodness; we got our caffeine. By then, it seemed sort of silly to hop on the MUNI to get back to the car; we just walked.
Here’s the home of Second Life, which we passed walking back to the car:
We drove home, hopping off an exit early to get some dinner and avoid a major traffic jam. We tried a Chinese place, where we were the only people in the entire restaurant speaking English. I got Shrimp Chow Mein, which only contained 7 shrimps. They were good shrimp, just lacking in quantity. Then, we headed home and went to *bed*.
It was a great trip. Thank you, Ben, for letting me tag along! =)
