Eclipse Trip - The big event

We got up early and drove to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and viewed the eclipse.  Because it was a last minute change due to weather, we wound up paying $30 to park at the local high school and watch it from their football field.  On the plus side, they had relatively clean bathrooms (the portopotties at the park had gotten so bad that it was literally more hygienic to just go in the woods), and they had decent concession stand food and prices.  I would like to imagine that they used the eclipse money to buy more science books for their school library, so that I don't feel gouged.  Everyone we met there was super friendly, though.

The eclipse took a while to get to totality and a while for it to get back to regular, with about two and a half minutes of actual full eclipse, which went by in a flash.  The glasses and binoculars were awesome for watching it approach the total eclipse, and then you could watch it for that very short time without protection.  During leadup and exit, the light gradually changed and got darker, but once it hit totality, it was very suddenly dark twilight, with sunset on the whole 360-degree horizon, and we could even see planets in the sky.  Bobby got some good pictures on the real camera, but even with the lenses, phones didn't pick much up.  Poor Akasho was very nervous during totality, and he tried to run and hide, so Bobby and I held him between us until the sun came back, and then he was fine.

The whole experience was really amazing and awe-inspiring, and it was everything we hoped it would be and more.  Totally worth driving all the way out here.  And now the long and grueling drive home...the traffic is the worst I have ever been in, because you have thousands of people trying to leave on roads that haven't seen this much traffic in the last decade put together.

Eclipse Trip - Sweltering Sunday

It was hot today.  Triple digits in the shade, humid as a rainforest, hardly any breeze.  We, of course, went on multiple hikes.  We scouted out potential eclipse viewing locations at the tops of mountains, climbed in caves and other fun rock formations, and probably covered ourselves in poison ivy.  It is freaking everywhere.  Most of it is yellowing like it hasn't seen rain in a month, so maybe it's less oily.  I don't know.  I didn't wake up covered in itchy red bumps this morning, which is shocking considering how surrounded we are by it.  I don't think I will escape unscathed though, considering how much more trekking through the woods we did today.  It was so impossibly hot today that we all took a break and sat in the car with the air blasting for an hour or so.  Andrea shared hikes and meals with us and it felt like we had known her for a while.

It looks like the sky will be overcast here tomorrow, so we will be waking up early and driving to Kentucky for better viewing.

Eclipse Trip - A very long day

We left late on Thursday, after Bobby got home from work and packed.  I had that day off to pack, clean, and get various animals ready.  Bobby, Jim, and I took turns driving west for about 20 straight hours, with a few rest stops in between.  We finally arrived around midday on Friday to what would be our campsite for the night.  I have no idea how Bobby even found this place, because it was not set up for tent camping.  It was basically a lawn with RV hookups every so often.  There was no shade, no fire pit, no camp store.  The bathroom and shower facilities were functional, though, and the owners seemed really nice at first.  The old guy/coowner basically told us to park anywhere and his wife would check us in later.  We pitched our tents then drove out to a place called Cave in Rock, which is exactly what it sounds like.  There is a cave in a big rock next to a river.  It was cool inside compared to how hot it was outside, and the acoustics were really fun.  There was also a bunch of graffiti from the 1800s and 1900s.  These people had to bring a hammer and chisel to carve their names into this rock.  Now that is dedication.  Kids these days with their spray paint and their sharpies don't know how easy they've got it.  

After this, we got food and headed back to the campsite.  There was another old couple there now, apparently friends of the owners, and they had a big dog running free on the grounds.  The dog was friendly and we let him and Akasho play for a little bit, but Akasho is nursing a shoulder injury and isn't supposed to be doing anything active for the next month.  So when we decided that he had had enough, we leashed him to the only tree in the place and hoped he would calm down.  The other dog's owners didn't bother to try and wrangle their dog, though, and he kept instigating even after we explained that our dog was injured.  Their dog also peed on both Jim's tent and mine and Bobby's, and the owners didn't even apologize.  Akasho has certainly peed on stuff he isn't supposed to, but we always apologize profusely and clean it up the best we can.  Apparently this is not common courtesy in Illinois.  Anyway, the old lady/coowner checked us in, which included checking our names off a list and taking our $60 (cash only, no receipt) for the weekend.  While I was in the bathroom later that night, the woman came up to Bobby and tried to say that we owed her more than twice what we paid because we had a second tent and a dog.  Bobby said that was insane, because for $60/person/night instead of that price for all of us for the weekend, we could have gotten a hotel with free continental breakfast and wifi, and not have gotten woken up at 6:00 in the morning by some really unhappy sounding cows at the farm across the street.  But I am getting ahead of myself here.  So we said we couldn't give her any more money that night anyway because she had already taken all the cash we had on hand.  In the morning, I took a lovely shower, because I was going to get my money's worth damnit, and we packed up our shit and left.  We found a national park nearby that allows something called dispersed camping, where instead of regular campsites that you pay for, you are allowed to just pitch your tent in the woods for free as long as you put out your fires and take your trash home.  So we did that.  We managed to find a great parking spot and camping spot, and just set up shop.  Lots of people have been arriving and having to hike further in, so we are just going to stay put until after the eclipse.  Near our spot, we met another camper, Andrea, who seems really nice, and have been hanging out a bit with her, in between naps of sheer heat exhaustion.  It is 90 degrees in the shade and humid as all get-out.  The only other drawback of this place is that there is poison ivy everywhere.  If I escape without a rash by the end of this, it will be nothing short of a miracle.  The bugs are so loud here that they can give you a headache, but there are fewer mosquitoes than the Appalachian trail, so, it's ok.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and we plan to hike around a bit and find the lookout at the top of this little mountain where we will view the eclipse from later.

California Day 6: Muir Woods

Today, the main thing we did was hike Muir Woods, a park where the famous giant redwood trees live.  We hiked about 6 and a half miles, up and down a mountain, and it was lovely.  The views at the top were gorgeous, as was the whole hike.  I took a lot of pictures, mostly on my regular camera, but here are some from my phone.

We also visited the Golden Gate Bridge again, because we crossed it on the way to the redwoods.  Afterwards, we went to happy hour at Gabby's favorite sushi place and played bingo there.  Then we just hung out back at Cata and Gabby's place, I packed, and we called it a night.

Today we got up early and went to two different tiled steps on our way to the airport.

I got through security and such a lot faster than I thought.  So now it is just a matter of time before I board the plane and head back home to New England.

California Day 5: Tooling around the city

Today we did a lot of tooling around San Francisco.  It was the first day that the majority of the time it wasn't raining.  Most of the pictures I took are from my actual camera and I haven't gotten a chance to upload any of them yet, so I've only got a few from my phone to give an idea of the day.

The first place we went was Arizmendi, a co-op bakery that Gabby likes.  It was so hippy-ish that I nearly burst into flames just entering the store (literally every label had the words "vegan", "organic", or "local" on it somewhere...you seriously just need one sign at the front of the store saying "everything in here is crunchy as fuck, so fear not, fellow hippies").  The food was pretty good, though, and heavy enough to keep us full for most of the day.

Next we walked around the Hight/Asbury neighborhood, which had a lot of cool murals and weird shops in it.  There was a sock shop, that sold only socks, and I got ones with narwhals on them.  We then went to Alamo Square/Painted Ladies, which are a famous row of houses in San Francisco because of their Victorian & Edwardian styles and colors (and also where the opening credits of Full House were filmed, I learned).  There is a lot of cool architecture from that era in this city. 

Next we went and parked down near the Ferry Building, and went through their marketplace.  It smelled so good, with bakeries and meateries, and cheeseries (I know those aren't real words) and the like all up and down it.  We walked around town a bit and I saw this cool...thing...?  It looks like a modern-art sculpture that is also a water fountain, but the water is not filled or running at the moment (probably considered wasteful when they're so recently out of a long drought).  It would be so fun to do parkour on, it looks like.

Next we went to Chinatown, which was just fun to walk around in.  All the cool pictures are on my camera, but I took a bunch of them at Dragon's Gate, the entrance to the Chinatown neighborhood, as well as of the streets which had lanterns hanging across them.  The place just had a different feel and look about it, which was cool.  We were still full from the bakery, so we passed on dim sum and got bubble tea instead.  We also went to see the place where fortune cookies were invented, and watched them make some.  It's just these two Chinese ladies sitting at this machine folding hot cookies into paper before they quickly cool and harden, and the place is down this random alley in Chinatown and not hugely advertised.  It was pretty neat.

Next we visited the Mission district, which had Spanish architecture heavily influencing it, with the terracotta roofs everywhere and the big churches.  It was cool looking, and we visited also Dolores Park nearby (so many puppies were out playing!), and another famous bakery called Tartine.  They had cool-looking desserts (pictured above), and we picked some up for later.  We next visited the Seward Street Slide, but it was closed (sad).  It's just this huge cement slide in this mini-park in the middle of a hilly neighborhood, which looked like it would have been so much fun to slide down, but they had gates over the slide itself so you'd stop if you tried to actually go down it.  Ah, well, next time.

The final place we visited was called Land's End.  It's this park overlooking the ocean with a hike through the woods and along the cliffs.  It was beautiful.  At the end of one of the paths was an open area and someone had made a huge circular walking maze out of rocks.  It wasn't very tall (one could easily just step over the rocks), but it was a fun design and neat thing to walk through.  Again all my pictures of that are on my camera, but below are some of the pictures I took with my phone.

This was pretty much the last thing of the day.  We did a lot of walking (18,000 steps, according to my sister's fitbit - I left my fitness watch plugged in and was so mad!), and just chilled at Gabby's place for the rest of the night.  Cata had been traveling for work that day and found a Colombian bakery and brought home some savory Colombian pastries, which we had for supper.

Today, we're going to go hiking through a giant redwood tree forest, which I'm very excited about, and also get some more Golden Gate Bridge pictures, and maybe the Tiled Steps if we have time.  It's my last full day out here, and it's supposed to be relatively warm and sunny.  Hopefully the woods have dried out a little and we're not hiking through miles of mud, but it will be fun regardless.  Then tomorrow I don't have to get up super-early, but I probably don't have time for a whole lot of sight-seeing before going to the airport.  I'm scheduled to get home late Thursday night/early Friday morning, then I'll have the weekend to recuperate, unpack, upload pictures, etc., and it'll be back to work.

California Day 4: Trolleys and Sea Lions

Today we rode the famous old-fashioned trolley, walked around the wharf, and saw some of the famous hills.  All-around touristy fun.

It was cold and rainy the first half of the day, but the sun eventually came out for the majority of our walking, so it was alright.  Riding the trolley down to fisherman's wharf was fun.  The car was so close to passing traffic and other trolley cars that you could reach out and touch it if you wanted to (though it would be dangerous to try).

Walking around the wharf was nice.  I thought it was funny that even the mannequins had rain gear on in front of this store, and there were pirate statues everywhere.  We got some fish and chips from one of the many vendors near the piers and no sooner did we leave with it than we were dive-bombed by some asshole seagulls who stole our food.  The guys in the food booth laughed at us when we went back, but they gave us a free replacement, and this time they also gave us an empty tray to hold over the food so the gulls wouldn't get it.  I've seen some aggressive seagulls in my time, but this was downright uncalled for.  I generally have respect for wildlife, but not in this case.  They were being total jerks and I had half a mind to kick them in the face to teach them a lesson about stealing, but I didn't.

Then we went down to the pier where all the sea lions hang out.  I could seriously have watched them all day.  They were so close to the boardwalk, closer than you get to them at an aquarium, and they were so cool.  Most of them were just lying in the sun, but a few of them were barking and asserting dominance and pushing others off the docks.  It was really fun to watch, and probably my favorite part of the whole day.  Here are a couple more pictures (I took a bunch) of the sea lions.

This guy was my favorite, with his sleepy little face, just trying to nap away from all the ruckus.  Just adorable.

Then we went and climbed some of San Francisco's famous hilly streets, and got some good views at the top of the whole town.  Most of them were on my actual camera, but this picture should give you an idea of what it looked like.  We also stopped at Ghirardelli Square, where the famous chocolates were invented apparently, and visited their store, which had candy, hot chocolate, ice cream, you name it.  We got some fancy hot chocolate to fuel our hilly hikes, and it was very good.

Then we went back and just chilled at Gabby's place while Cata finished up some work and we all went to Coit Tower and then Twin Peaks to get some really pretty views of the city all lit up.  It was nice, and cool to see the bridges all lit up.  Then we came back and Gabby made supper and we just watched some TV and went to bed because it was late by then and we were all tired.

Today we're doing more fun touristy things, like visiting Chinatown, the Haight, and some other famous districts.

California Day 3: Exploratorium

I liked this mural across the street from the brunch place we went to, called The Kitchen Story (they bring your check over in a book!), so I took a picture of it while we were waiting for a table.  We waited at least an hour to seat 4 (myself, Gabby, her girlfriend Cata, and their friend Johana who joined us), and it was very cold, and windy, and it rained on and off during that time.  We wound up with an outside table (lest we wait another hour), and they had heaters overhead and flaps on the sides to keep out the wind, but I hardly felt any difference because it was just so cold.  While the others ordered bottomless mimosas to keep warm, I kept the hot chocolate coming.  The food was very good, though.  I had the Franciscan scramble (very good), which is halfway between scrambled eggs and an omelette, and it had sausage, mushroom, avocado, and cheese, and Gabby had deep-fried, ricotta-filled french toast, which I tried and it was also good.  Johanna and Cata had sandwiches of some kind that also looked very tasty.

Then we went to the Exploratorium.  It's like a science museum, where all the exhibits are interactive and show some kind of science concept.  There were a lot of kids there, but we still enjoyed it.  It's more of a do-things museum than a take-pictures museum, so I don't have a lot of them.  The one below is from a dry-ice-melting table that was very soothing and hypnotic to just watch these little chunks of dry ice fall onto the water table and slowly dissolve while spinning and running into each other.  I wish I could have that as my coffee table; it'd be so cool.

I did learn from this museum what those weird ponds were from my flight in.  They're salt ponds.  They trap ocean water, let the water evaporate, then harvest the salt.  The different colors indicate the salinity (red & white = more salty).

There was an observation deck on the top floor of the museum, and this pigeon came to say hi to me while I was taking a picture of the Bay Bridge below, so I took one of him too (or her, as I don't know the difference).

After the museum, we went to a bar and played darts, which Gabby and I both are terrible at, but Cata and Johana both did pretty well.  Then we went to get food at a Japanese hot dog place.  They take hot dogs and put different toppings on them, like seaweed and Japanese sauces, cold vegetables and warm bacon, and other things you wouldn't necessarily see together and on a hot dog.  It was surprisingly very good.  Some of the group wanted pizza, so we went to a pizza place too (these were all on the same block), before going to a different bar (the one we went to my first night here) to play pool, which Gabby and I were also bad at but Cata and Johana rocked.  They also sold these chips there, which are basically the same as potato chips, but they're crunched up on purpose and you're supposed to just pour them into your mouth like you do with the crumbs at the bottom of a regular chip bag.  Of course California would come up with something like this.

Some of Gabby's other friends joined us later for some more pool, and they were also better than me and Gabby at it, and then we all called it a night.  We were within walking distance of home, and on the treck up the hill, the doughnut shop on the corner was still open (leave it to San Francisco to have a doughnut shop open all night).  We stopped in and got doughnuts, which we then had for breakfast the next morning.  They were quite good.

Today we're off to do San Francisco tourist things, like ride the old trolley, visit the Golden Gate bridge again, take pictures of the really tall hills, etc.  Cata has to work, so she won't be joining us for a lot of it, but it should still be fun.  'Til next time!

California Day 2: Wine Country

Today we went to wine country.  The plan was to go all the way to Napa, visiting vineyards on the way, but we only got as far as Sonoma, which I'm okay with.  I'm not a huge wine person and I don't think I'd have been able to handle that much alcohol.  The drive was really pretty.

Before we went, though, brunch was in order.  Brunch must be a huge deal here, because on the block we stopped at, there were at least three other brunch places all open and doing good business.  I had mint tea with my meal, and when they say "fresh mint tea", they sure as shit mean "fresh".  I'd never seen tea in a french press like this before.  It was, indeed, quite fresh, and very good.  Like they had just picked the leaves and thrown them in the hot water a minute before they brought it to the table.

We had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to Sonoma, and so we of course stopped off and took some pictures.  I have better ones with us in them on my camera that I haven't downloaded yet.  For blogging purposes, it's easier to upload directly from my phone with the app than to take the SD card out of the camera, put it on the computer, then upload to the blog.  I may do a photo dump at the end before I leave, just so that I know they're safe.

The first place we stopped at, Jacuzzi family vineyard, also had fancy olive oils and balsamic vinegars for tasting.  They had little bread cubes and cups and you could use to mix and taste the different ones.  I wound up buying two fancy olive oils that tasted really good, Sevillano (which they later told me was very rare because of the type of olive that it uses and how it takes more to make the same amount of regular olive oil...who knew I had expensive taste?), and Limone (lemon-infused, which was also really good).  The guy doing the pouring for our tasting was funny (I think he'd had a bit of his own wares), but nice enough and explained the proper wine-tasting steps and techniques to us.

They had a statue fountain in the back with a sassy Poseidon in the middle that someone had put sunglasses on, and I could not resist having my picture taken with him.  We went to another winery that also served cheese and crackers, and between the two of them, I came home with three bottles of dessert wine.  I know what I like, and even though I went in with an open mind and tried all the types, I'll always go for the dessertiest dessert wine that ever desserted.  Speaking of dessert, we passed a chocolate-tasting bar on the way to our second place and decided we needed to stop on the way back.  It worked just like the wineries, where they gave you little pieces of all these fancy chocolates to taste and you could pick which ones you wanted to buy more of.  I got a sampler, because they were all good.  Chocolate tastings really need to catch on on the east coast.

The original plan after that was to go out to eat and then to karaoke, but it had started raining pretty hard by then and nobody really wanted to walk around in it to go out on the town, so we wound up ordering in and watching netflix, which was fine with me.  I don't think I could really have kept up with all the young'uns for another night out after drinking wine all day.

Today, we're hitting up another place for another brunch, and I'll possibly also be meeting some of Gabby's friends who we were going to go out with last night before we all decided against the rain.  After that, I'm not sure what kind of adventure awaits, but it'll probably be fun, fancy, and alcohol-fueled.  Off I go.

California, here I come!

  This is the travel/welcome post for my little vacation to San Francisco & surrounding areas in California to visit my sister Gabby during her spring break from law school.  I felt like I was coming down with a cold while packing, took a nap, finished packing, still felt wonky, but went to bed and hoped for the best.  I woke up at 3:30am, said good-bye to my husband and my dog (both of whom miss me terribly, I'm sure), and drove my newly-repaired car to the airport.  Got there at around 5:00 and got through all the check-in and security stuff no problem.  Felt like the cold went away, or maybe wasn't awake at that hour of the morning either.  We took off at sunrise, and it was quite pretty.  I alternately looked out the window and nodded off during this flight because I was too tired to concentrate on any of the things I brought to do in my carry-on.  Landed in Chicago after an uneventful flight. The attendant did say, "Welcome to Houston" over the speaker and for a moment I was worried I had gotten on the wrong plane, but everyone around me was also worried and it turns out I did, in fact, land in Chicago as intended.  I read a bit while awaiting my layover, and then off it was to San Francisco.

There were these strange lakes we passed over on our approach to the runway.  No idea what they are, but they're cool-looking.  I landed, got my luggage without any problem, and Gabby picked me up.  I was starving by that time (neither flight had a meal and granola bars only get you so far), so Gabby took me to a California classic eatery.

The food was good, and they have secret menu that will put extra stuff on your burgers and fries.  I let Gabby figure out all that and just enjoyed the delicious, grease-laden meal, which was just what I needed after traveling.  Then we went to Gabby's apartment and picked up a few things to bring to her other apartment (she's in the process of moving).  You could see the Golden Gate Bridge from both apartments on opposite sides of town.  I took a much-needed shower (traveling always turns me into a goblin; I swear I could take a one-hour flight and look like I haven't slept or showered in three days), then Cata, Gabby's new girlfriend, came home and the three of us walked to Golden Gate Park, and walked around a little before the park closed at sunset.  There are museums and cool gardens and stuff that we'll be checking out for real later on.  Cata seems pretty cool and smart and makes Gabby happy, so I'm glad.

'Twas quite pretty.  Then, of course, a vacation with Gabby is not complete without a drinking excursion, so we all walked to this bar for happy hour.  They had great mixed drinks, and of course the drinking continued at the apartment along with cheese and crackers afterwards.

It is now day 2, and I've slept in and am surprisingly not hung-over or jet-lagged (at least I don't feel it quite yet).  The three of us are going to Napa today, and I think everyone is just about ready to go now, so this is me signing off.  I'll try to update this daily, for anyone so inclined to follow my adventures, but this blog is mostly just for me to remember the fun times.  Ciao!