knowitallgirl

Vacation midpoint

Oh, the places I've traveled since we last spoke. I'm typing at you now from a comfortable cat-covered couch in Towson, Maryland, watching the pundits dissect Bill's DNC speech. But I digress. After the last adventure I chronicled, I was visited by Super Sorch, the hippest non-Texan to ever bless Texass with her bad-ass self. We flew a kite in the fog at Ocean Beach, hiked Muir Woods, and spotted Jonathan Richman at the vegan store in the Mission. (Yes, he's a vegan.)

After sending Sorch back to her adopted state, I road tripped out to suburban Sacromento ("Sacto" to you locals) to visit my high school friends Laura and Mike and their cute little munchkins, where we bounced on their trampoline and made airplanes from shoeboxes. Laura plied me with plenty of books for my next adventure the following day -- reading to Ms. Heller's first grade class at the Epiphany School. I read them five books (What! Cried Granny was the hands-down fave), after which the class drew pictures of their favorite story and gave them to me as a thank-you. Soooooooo cute.

Then last Thursday I Jet-Blued my way to NYC, to hang with Leslie and Jen for the weekend. On Friday I dodged both raindrops and tourists on Canal Street to contribute to undermining copyright law by buying fake LV Murakami bags. Unemployed and losing all sense of time as the days go by, I took my time to wander around the stores several times before buying anything, and kept running across a large, heavyset Italian guy walking from booth to booth, which I didn't think much of until I witnessed one of the many Chinese merchants handing the Italian guy a wad of $100 bills. Heh. Can you say MOB?

Other highlights of the weekend included mass shopping at H&M, a hundred-cheese fondue dinner at Artesanal, shvitzing at the Russian & Turkish Baths, lots of girltalk, socializing, and potato pancakes. Good stuff.

Now I'm near Baltimore plotting my next adventures with Professor Okamura, despite the drippy Maryland summer rain. Rain in the SUMMER? I'm confused. And though I'm trying my hardest to stay on CA time, I'm once again staying awake far past my hosts, so it's time to call it a night.

As seen on Folsom St.

Imagine sitting in an incredibly dull meeting at work one day, bored out of your skull. Luckily, you're facing the window, which offers you a wide view of the Rincon Hill area of SOMA in San Francisco. Your gaze drifts towards the side of a building situated near the corner of Main and Folsom streets. There's a large ad suspended to the building's side, nothing you'd noticed before, but now that your brain is starving for stimulation, you stare at it eagerly, desperate for distraction. And just as suddenly, you choke, struggling both to contain the rising laughter growing in your throat and to keep yourself from losing it in front of your coworkers, as you don't exactly want to explain that you'd been paying zero attention to their mutterings. But most of all, it's because you've just realized that the ad across the way is not only a forty foot reproduction of one of your college friends, it's of him (Jim) and his business partner (James) completely naked except for a couple of strategically placed laptops. Yes, this is a true story, told to me by my friend Matt. And to make it more interesting, Jim of the Jim/James team that runs HotorNot.com is also my best friend's former boyfriend. Yup. It's a small world.

Marin fun, Half Moon Bay Redwoods

I *guess* I should count my weekend activities as vacation time too, though those don't feel real since the rest of you are there with me. Anyway, Saturday night was spent in Nicasio (rural Marin) at the local home of our Costa Rica friends. Homemade pizzas (note: pizzas don't barbecue well), cute little kids, and good friends -- it sounds trite to say it *just* rocked, but it rocked. A slew of us spent the night camping on the roof, where we fell asleep to a sky full of stars.



View from the top of our friends' place in Nicasio, looking towards Lucas Valley Road. Can you believe this is only about 25 minutes from San Francisco?



The gang tries to undo their human knot.

On Day Seven (Monday), after having a pleasant yet efficient visit with my allergy doctor in Sunnyvale (somehow, I kept myself away from the former workplace), I drove up to Half Moon Bay to the Purisima Creek Redwoods trailhead. I rode about 11 miles roundtrip and climbed nearly 1600 feet, not bad for a novice mountain biker. Purisima Creek is beautiful, but all of the old growth redwoods were logged in the late 1800s, so the trees here are not the monsters you find in, say, Muir Woods. BUT -- there is something hopeful about seeing how many now decently tall trees have sprouted from the stumps of the old giants. Remove humans from the scene and nature carries on nicely.



A blurry but distinctively yellow banana slug on the trail.



Looking down from the top of the ridge (almost at Skyline Blvd.) towards Half Moon Bay and the ocean. I'm right at the edge of the fogline, hence the murky view.

To come -- a Texas guest! New York adventures! Stay tuned!

Day Four

Day four was spent doing something I'd promised myself I'd do for months - no, years. I got up *early* (8am), rode down to Pier 41, and caught the ferry to Angel Island. Even on a classically foggy and cold San Francisco morning the island still has the best view on the bay. I took the perimeter road around, taking in the old Civil War hospital, various military barracks, and the prettied-up Victorian homes the park rangers live in (read this article about what's it like to live on the best real estate in the SF area for only $200/month!).

A couple of miles into my ride, I plopped myself down upon a scenic bench to contemplate the fog-shrouded Golden Gate when I heard a tour tram pull up behind me. Expecting to be jolted from my reverie, I kept my back to the tram, intending to ignore them, when I noticed that everything was eerily quiet. Curious, I turned around to see a tramful of tourists all wearing headphones -- audio tour! Creepy.

After a few hours despite the tardy emergence of the sun I was chilled through, so I treated myself to the only edible item in the park's cafe (note -- next time bring lunch), some evil jalapeno poppers, and headed back to the City.



The Civil War hospital, built in 1864 or 65, to defend the West against the "real threat" of the South. What's with the one unboarded window? Must be where the spirits of the dead soldiers emerge to haunt the island. Eerie.



I enjoyed this notice nailed to the side of the hospital, asking people to be kind to the buildings "until they can be restored to their original condition for viewing by the public." The notice was posted during the first Brown (Pat, not Jerry) governorship, so somewhere between 1959 and 1967.



As seen on Fisherman's Wharf. Shocking that they didn't name it "Kit."

Vacation, Day One

Ahhhh. My first official day of freedom. I decided to start my vacation by taking advantage of "Target Tuesday" (barf) at the Asian Art Museum, which had free admission today (and Target branded fortune cookies). Here are a few highlights:



Above and below, an exhibit called "Follow The Dreamboat," consisting of hundreds of tiny origami boats with people's wishes written on them. I saw everything from hopes to world peace to an entreaty for the White Sox to win the World Series. (Yeah, keep hoping. Go Giants!)





A cool goddess statue. Sorry, forgot my notebook, so that's all you get on this one.

Before the weekend commenced, I had a few going-away parties at work last week. Here's some highlights from one in Mountain View:




My old college roomie Desiree, and her boyfriend Ian.



Jess, Des, Ian, my forehead.



Scott, Suzanne, James, and very pink-faced Jen.


The Fourth of July was, of course, foggy and 50 degrees, like it is every year. We thought escaping to Mill Valley would save us, and of course, it didn't. But Leanne made a dessert that despite its Jello-based origins was fantastic. Go patriotic desserts!



What does tomorrow hold? Another lazy city day, but I think Angel Island beckons to me later this week. Gotta escape the fog.