Go West, Young Man!
So, last month I went on vacation to that West Coast I hear we have. You might already be asking, "Gee, update on time much?" Yeah, well, sometimes you just get lazy. Just for that, here's a long photo-intensive story. Serves you right.
To preface: My good friends fizrep and ladybugbutt recently got engaged. Not to each other; that would be hilarious if you knew them. The point is, they live in San Francisco and Seattle, respectively, so we planned a joint vacation to celebrate their happy future unions.
HG joined me on this merry escapade, because who needs work when the great West Coast beckons? That's right. Vacation uber alles.
1 December 2007:
Flying out bright and early from Newark Airport brought us to the moderately sunny city of San Francisco, where fizrep acquired us. After we unloaded and played a few rounds of Frighten His Wussy Cats With Our Strange Ways, we went off to partake of something called Nature.
The Botanical Garden in Tilden Park is small, but packed with education and flowery goodness. But before all that, fizrep stopped for a bite to eat:
The park rangers managed not to notice our consumption of their precious plants, and so we proceeded through the park.
Here we realized that botanists are silly people.
Nonetheless, the garden was not without hazards, like these bridge-trolls, who demanded gin and pudding before allowing passage:
Finally we drove to a scenic overlook and watched a nuclear weapon destroy the city.
The evening ended with us rendezvousing with AB, fizrep's newly acquired fiancee, and then we went to Coach Sushi. "Coach" is a very excitable Japanese man (short for Kochihiro I believe) whose sole goal appears to be "get his customers smashed on sake". The sake was served in small 3"x3"x3" wooden cubes, and he wandered about the restaurant, filling people's boxes and smiling the whole time. To add to this, we consumed an insane amount of sushi, as tends to happen when fizrep and I go on the fish-eating prowl.
2 December 2008:
The goal of the day was to hike around the notorious Mount Diablo. It's nothing like the computer game; I can't believe Blizzard would lie to me like that. They always seemed so upright and wholesome.
Our path was simple: follow a three-mile trail around the base of the mountain, view the famous seven cascades, get some good hiking in, breathe the fresh air, and then all done, back home for more drinking.
This, of course, was so much hooey.
fizrep, I think, set us up for failure almost immediately. He spotted this:
...and immediately had to put it in his mouth.
We also found what had to be the world's largest pine cones. They were the size of a modest quail, no lie. And they were spikey. One could easily envision sticking them on the end of a stick to create an impropmtu morningstar. Instead, we went bowling.
We thought we were following the correct trail, but the path wound higher and higher through the ravine...
...draining fizrep's will to live...
...until we came to the first cascade, which was dry as a bone. fizrep's expression sums it up quite nicely:
Still, we would not be daunted. We paused at a rocky outcropping, not far from the third, and dry, cascade. Yes, the second was dry too. This word, cascade... I do not think it means what they think it means.
We wandered around several smaller peaks, approaching the taller spires of Mount Diablo itself. Then we dove back into the ravine and begin a long curve to the other side. We had walked a good bit longer than three miles by that point, and we weren't even halfway finished. Luckily, AB was around to properly motivate us.
And then, finally, after a few more false leads and false cascades, we come upon truth, in the form of the seventh and final cascade, complete with running water:
With that, we felt a sense of closure could return to our point of origin, having travelled a great many miles around the park. We arrived just in time to save a woman from driving away with her passenger-side door open. Also, she had a tree in her car. A whole tree. That was a bit peculiar, now that I think about it.
More, stranger adventures awaited ahead! Tune in next post for more!
To preface: My good friends fizrep and ladybugbutt recently got engaged. Not to each other; that would be hilarious if you knew them. The point is, they live in San Francisco and Seattle, respectively, so we planned a joint vacation to celebrate their happy future unions.
HG joined me on this merry escapade, because who needs work when the great West Coast beckons? That's right. Vacation uber alles.
1 December 2007:
Flying out bright and early from Newark Airport brought us to the moderately sunny city of San Francisco, where fizrep acquired us. After we unloaded and played a few rounds of Frighten His Wussy Cats With Our Strange Ways, we went off to partake of something called Nature.
The Botanical Garden in Tilden Park is small, but packed with education and flowery goodness. But before all that, fizrep stopped for a bite to eat:
The park rangers managed not to notice our consumption of their precious plants, and so we proceeded through the park.
Here we realized that botanists are silly people.
Nonetheless, the garden was not without hazards, like these bridge-trolls, who demanded gin and pudding before allowing passage:
Finally we drove to a scenic overlook and watched a nuclear weapon destroy the city.
The evening ended with us rendezvousing with AB, fizrep's newly acquired fiancee, and then we went to Coach Sushi. "Coach" is a very excitable Japanese man (short for Kochihiro I believe) whose sole goal appears to be "get his customers smashed on sake". The sake was served in small 3"x3"x3" wooden cubes, and he wandered about the restaurant, filling people's boxes and smiling the whole time. To add to this, we consumed an insane amount of sushi, as tends to happen when fizrep and I go on the fish-eating prowl.
2 December 2008:
The goal of the day was to hike around the notorious Mount Diablo. It's nothing like the computer game; I can't believe Blizzard would lie to me like that. They always seemed so upright and wholesome.
Our path was simple: follow a three-mile trail around the base of the mountain, view the famous seven cascades, get some good hiking in, breathe the fresh air, and then all done, back home for more drinking.
This, of course, was so much hooey.
fizrep, I think, set us up for failure almost immediately. He spotted this:
...and immediately had to put it in his mouth.
We also found what had to be the world's largest pine cones. They were the size of a modest quail, no lie. And they were spikey. One could easily envision sticking them on the end of a stick to create an impropmtu morningstar. Instead, we went bowling.
We thought we were following the correct trail, but the path wound higher and higher through the ravine...
...draining fizrep's will to live...
...until we came to the first cascade, which was dry as a bone. fizrep's expression sums it up quite nicely:
Still, we would not be daunted. We paused at a rocky outcropping, not far from the third, and dry, cascade. Yes, the second was dry too. This word, cascade... I do not think it means what they think it means.
We wandered around several smaller peaks, approaching the taller spires of Mount Diablo itself. Then we dove back into the ravine and begin a long curve to the other side. We had walked a good bit longer than three miles by that point, and we weren't even halfway finished. Luckily, AB was around to properly motivate us.
And then, finally, after a few more false leads and false cascades, we come upon truth, in the form of the seventh and final cascade, complete with running water:
With that, we felt a sense of closure could return to our point of origin, having travelled a great many miles around the park. We arrived just in time to save a woman from driving away with her passenger-side door open. Also, she had a tree in her car. A whole tree. That was a bit peculiar, now that I think about it.
More, stranger adventures awaited ahead! Tune in next post for more!