Returned from trip
I just came back from a complicated California trip!
I started out by having a day in San Francisco, where we (me and the friends I was visiting) walked around and did touristy things down on the waterfront, walking from the hotel to fisherman's wharf and all the way to the ferry dock, and then taking the cable car back to the vicinity of our hotel, eating sourdough (nevermind the fact that I occasionally whine about wheat sensitivity) among other yummy food, watching boats and other waterfront sights.
We spent the evening playing boardgames - pandemic! Like my previous pandemic play during the pandemic, we lost. So, I guess the pandemic will last longer or something. Maybe I should go play the "easy" version :-)
Sunday I went square dancing with the California group, which was only 11 people for this day. We had live callers for the morning and tapes for the afternoon, dancing outside some of the time and inside with masks the rest of the time. I had two drive by visits, one on the way from San Francisco down to the dance, and the other on the way from the dance to Chico. Spent about half an hour with the first and an hour with the second, just kind of catching up and showing videos of Jocelyn (which I guess I should find where we're storing them online and point to them sometime.)
My parents seem to be about the same as last time; it wasn't all that exciting; I just accompanied my mom to a few appointments, and went to the store and bought her some more clothes, some of which I then accidentally brought home with me (oops). Wednesday evening, Jocelyn flew into Sacramento. At some point we had the idea maybe we could use transit, thinking that maybe there should be a $25 airport shuttle thing to get to Chico Center or something. But no, they have limos for $200, or the city bus, which due to connections, takes four hours. So I went to get her.
Jocelyn had a nice visit, doing random things with my mom, including lunch and walking around in the gardens at the assisted living place, and in the afternoon, we all visited my cousin, who lives in Chico and I haven't seen in any of my recent visits. So it was nice to see them.
Then we drove back to Sacramento to have our stay near the airport for an early flight. When I originally planned my trip, it was very complicated because I was staying in four different places, getting two different rental cars, taking flights on three different airlines (four, if you count Jocelyn's Wednesday flight that I met). So, it's not surprising that I screwed up. The way I screwed up was to have one extra day of the Chico hotel (which I prepaid). It turned out to be pretty useful, though, because there were several times in which my mom needed to nap or whatever and it was very convenient to walk back to the hotel and hang out a little bit, rather than having to have packed up all of our stuff in the morning, including random food that we planned to eat at later points in the trip, which might not have been happy in a car in the 95° weather. Since I prepaid, I was saving $20 per day, and therefore the total cost of the mistake wasn't that large.
Off to Portland! We arrived around 10 AM, and since I was leaving 23 hours later, I checked into my next flight at the little kiosk on the way to rental cars. They rented me a Camry hybrid. It thinks it gets 58mpg. Maybe so, I could only get about a gallon of gas into it at the end of the trip. Wish I had had that on my earlier trip, where I drove all over creation. We successfully picked up Jocelyn's stored gear, which was at a friend of mine's house. I hadn't known this at the time when I asked them to please store Jocelyn's gear last April, but one of them's grandfather had a big part in establishing pieces of Reed College, so it was kind of fun to learn that.
We had lunch in a sidewalk café all day breakfast kind of place, and it was very Portland to be able to get gluten-free French toast with marion berries. Then off to college to check in, find her dorm, move all of the stuff in, including all of my stuff because I had a bunch of her stuff in my suitcase and it was easier to take in the suitcase and dig around and unpack there than to dig around and unpack in the car. Her dorm room is spectacular. Not only is it a single, but it has a loft! Unfortunately the loft does not have any window, so it will get kind of stuffy up there, so it might end up just being for storage. But it has carpeting and electric outlets, so you could have your bed up there or something.
I walked around the campus while Jocelyn worked on unpacking. There is a ravine down the center of campus. The river that goes through the ravine is kind of stagnant and there were a lot of snags and fallen trees and the water part wasn't very pretty, but the trees and bushes and stuff growing up the side of the ravine were pretty. There was one particular tree that looked very climbable. Also, there weren't any bugs, despite being right next to a bunch of stagnant water. In New England I would've been batting away mosquitoes the entire time.
Jocelyn's dorm has a fully functional kitchen, so she took advantage of the fact that we had a car to stock up on food things she might like to cook, and also a trip to the thrift store to replace blankets and pillows and things that she had abandoned back in April.
We also checked up on whether her bicycle had been stolen (no) and moved it to the new dorm. Apparently there's a lot of bicycle theft, and a lot of bike racks had "do not store overnight" signs over them (warning about theft, not a rule). Unfortunately her room is on the second floor, with a narrow winding staircase, so there is not going to be any getting it up the steps. And there's not a lot of space on the first floor, so there's not really a lot a choice about where to store it. So, it is currently locked to a bike rack. While she was in San Diego she stored it in a bicycle lock up, but that is only accessible by calling the campus police to be let in. So, your bicycle is more likely to be there, but it also is much less convenient. And, on the opposite side of campus from her dorm room. Really inconvenient. She's thinking about learning to skateboard as a "faster than walking" transportation plan. I asked her not to do all the things they were doing in the Olympics!
For dinner, we went back to my friend's house, because Jocelyn was feeling a little shy about socializing with her brand-new dorm mates. I had told her that she could come if she wanted to, and if she was just going to mope in her room, I would recommend coming. She said that probably she would just be moping in her room if she stayed. We had another boardgame event, where we played seven wonders. I didn't do very well; I've never played with as many as six people before, the dynamic is a little different.
I dropped her off with a hug and headed to my motel, which was a bit of an adventure because apparently I dropped my phone in Chico and the GPS antenna stopped being connected or something - no GPS works for me. I ran a little "where are my satellites" app and it said zero satellites at all times. I am sad. So, I had it give me directions by typing in my location, and studying them, and driving for a while, and then pulling over, and studying the next leg. I did eventually get to my motel and all was well. Flight was nearly uneventful - it took off 20 minutes late due to crew issues, but my connection was plenty long and there wasn't this nonsense where every 20 minutes they say "well actually it will be an additional 20 minutes, sorry about that", which is so stressful.
This entry was originally posted at https://nosrednayduj.dreamwidth.org/99070.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I started out by having a day in San Francisco, where we (me and the friends I was visiting) walked around and did touristy things down on the waterfront, walking from the hotel to fisherman's wharf and all the way to the ferry dock, and then taking the cable car back to the vicinity of our hotel, eating sourdough (nevermind the fact that I occasionally whine about wheat sensitivity) among other yummy food, watching boats and other waterfront sights.
We spent the evening playing boardgames - pandemic! Like my previous pandemic play during the pandemic, we lost. So, I guess the pandemic will last longer or something. Maybe I should go play the "easy" version :-)
Sunday I went square dancing with the California group, which was only 11 people for this day. We had live callers for the morning and tapes for the afternoon, dancing outside some of the time and inside with masks the rest of the time. I had two drive by visits, one on the way from San Francisco down to the dance, and the other on the way from the dance to Chico. Spent about half an hour with the first and an hour with the second, just kind of catching up and showing videos of Jocelyn (which I guess I should find where we're storing them online and point to them sometime.)
My parents seem to be about the same as last time; it wasn't all that exciting; I just accompanied my mom to a few appointments, and went to the store and bought her some more clothes, some of which I then accidentally brought home with me (oops). Wednesday evening, Jocelyn flew into Sacramento. At some point we had the idea maybe we could use transit, thinking that maybe there should be a $25 airport shuttle thing to get to Chico Center or something. But no, they have limos for $200, or the city bus, which due to connections, takes four hours. So I went to get her.
Jocelyn had a nice visit, doing random things with my mom, including lunch and walking around in the gardens at the assisted living place, and in the afternoon, we all visited my cousin, who lives in Chico and I haven't seen in any of my recent visits. So it was nice to see them.
Then we drove back to Sacramento to have our stay near the airport for an early flight. When I originally planned my trip, it was very complicated because I was staying in four different places, getting two different rental cars, taking flights on three different airlines (four, if you count Jocelyn's Wednesday flight that I met). So, it's not surprising that I screwed up. The way I screwed up was to have one extra day of the Chico hotel (which I prepaid). It turned out to be pretty useful, though, because there were several times in which my mom needed to nap or whatever and it was very convenient to walk back to the hotel and hang out a little bit, rather than having to have packed up all of our stuff in the morning, including random food that we planned to eat at later points in the trip, which might not have been happy in a car in the 95° weather. Since I prepaid, I was saving $20 per day, and therefore the total cost of the mistake wasn't that large.
Off to Portland! We arrived around 10 AM, and since I was leaving 23 hours later, I checked into my next flight at the little kiosk on the way to rental cars. They rented me a Camry hybrid. It thinks it gets 58mpg. Maybe so, I could only get about a gallon of gas into it at the end of the trip. Wish I had had that on my earlier trip, where I drove all over creation. We successfully picked up Jocelyn's stored gear, which was at a friend of mine's house. I hadn't known this at the time when I asked them to please store Jocelyn's gear last April, but one of them's grandfather had a big part in establishing pieces of Reed College, so it was kind of fun to learn that.
We had lunch in a sidewalk café all day breakfast kind of place, and it was very Portland to be able to get gluten-free French toast with marion berries. Then off to college to check in, find her dorm, move all of the stuff in, including all of my stuff because I had a bunch of her stuff in my suitcase and it was easier to take in the suitcase and dig around and unpack there than to dig around and unpack in the car. Her dorm room is spectacular. Not only is it a single, but it has a loft! Unfortunately the loft does not have any window, so it will get kind of stuffy up there, so it might end up just being for storage. But it has carpeting and electric outlets, so you could have your bed up there or something.
I walked around the campus while Jocelyn worked on unpacking. There is a ravine down the center of campus. The river that goes through the ravine is kind of stagnant and there were a lot of snags and fallen trees and the water part wasn't very pretty, but the trees and bushes and stuff growing up the side of the ravine were pretty. There was one particular tree that looked very climbable. Also, there weren't any bugs, despite being right next to a bunch of stagnant water. In New England I would've been batting away mosquitoes the entire time.
Jocelyn's dorm has a fully functional kitchen, so she took advantage of the fact that we had a car to stock up on food things she might like to cook, and also a trip to the thrift store to replace blankets and pillows and things that she had abandoned back in April.
We also checked up on whether her bicycle had been stolen (no) and moved it to the new dorm. Apparently there's a lot of bicycle theft, and a lot of bike racks had "do not store overnight" signs over them (warning about theft, not a rule). Unfortunately her room is on the second floor, with a narrow winding staircase, so there is not going to be any getting it up the steps. And there's not a lot of space on the first floor, so there's not really a lot a choice about where to store it. So, it is currently locked to a bike rack. While she was in San Diego she stored it in a bicycle lock up, but that is only accessible by calling the campus police to be let in. So, your bicycle is more likely to be there, but it also is much less convenient. And, on the opposite side of campus from her dorm room. Really inconvenient. She's thinking about learning to skateboard as a "faster than walking" transportation plan. I asked her not to do all the things they were doing in the Olympics!
For dinner, we went back to my friend's house, because Jocelyn was feeling a little shy about socializing with her brand-new dorm mates. I had told her that she could come if she wanted to, and if she was just going to mope in her room, I would recommend coming. She said that probably she would just be moping in her room if she stayed. We had another boardgame event, where we played seven wonders. I didn't do very well; I've never played with as many as six people before, the dynamic is a little different.
I dropped her off with a hug and headed to my motel, which was a bit of an adventure because apparently I dropped my phone in Chico and the GPS antenna stopped being connected or something - no GPS works for me. I ran a little "where are my satellites" app and it said zero satellites at all times. I am sad. So, I had it give me directions by typing in my location, and studying them, and driving for a while, and then pulling over, and studying the next leg. I did eventually get to my motel and all was well. Flight was nearly uneventful - it took off 20 minutes late due to crew issues, but my connection was plenty long and there wasn't this nonsense where every 20 minutes they say "well actually it will be an additional 20 minutes, sorry about that", which is so stressful.
This entry was originally posted at https://nosrednayduj.dreamwidth.org/99070.html. Please comment there using OpenID.