Happy birthday to me
I had lived in Sacramento for nine years, two months, and eleven days before I rode a Regional Transit light rail train. But eighteen days before my scheduled departure date, it finally happened! Better circumstances would have been nice, though...
The thermostat went out on my beloved, if slightly effeminate, 1994 Honda Civic as a potential buyer was driving it to a mechanic for a pre-purchase checkup on Thursday, so, long story short, the buyer left my overheated car on Folsom Boulevard and stinky_monky and I had to find a mechanic to fix the thermostat. We found one about a hundred yards from the car's smoking remains, and I got to take the aforementioned light rail journey to pick it up the next morning. So that was my birthday: dealing with an overheated car and a semi-hysterical buyer who was afraid of being stranded in strange territory.
But things improved when we went to El Novillero for my usual birthday dinner (I got a chicken chimichanga, beef taco, and carnitas burrito: oh yeah!). And what wild stuff did I do on my thirtieth birthday? Um, went to bed around midnight. I'm crazy...
The big birthday bash came over the weekend, though, as we fled from the Sacramento heat into the San Francisco fog. Even though I get a headache every time I set foot there and the crowds are horrific, I love SF. We stayed at the Ramada hotel on Market Street and met up with abigor60 (who was also celebrating his birthday) and cheshire_monkey on Saturday for a trip out to Alcatraz Island and prison. I took the island's tour about fifteen years ago and have been wanting to do it again for years. It's still very cool.
On Sunday we satisfied stinky_monky's science cravings with a trip through the Exploratorium, where we saw an incredibly sloppy dissection of a cow's eyeball and played with countless whosits and whatsits. Science is cool. The highlight, though, was an after-hours trip through The Tactile Dome, "an interactive excursion through total darkness, where your sense of touch becomes your only guide." We had to find out way through a small maze, crawl through tunnels, climb up ropes, and tumble down slides, all in the dark. The materials on the walls muffled sound, as well, so you have to rely on touch to get through. By the end I was a sweaty mess and giggling to myself. I don't think I'd do well with sensory deprivation.
In what has become a tradition when one of our group moves out of state, we all walked across the Golden Gate bridge and got random pictures. We did it when my former roommate moved to New Hampshire three years ago, we did it for me this weekend, and we'll see if stinky_monky wants to do it when she moves to Ohio early next year.
Other highlights: Pier 39, the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant, the Sony Metreon complex, the F streetcar's driver, buying a bracelet for stinky_monky, exchanging the bracelet because it was the wrong size, looking in vain for a Chinese restaurant in Marin City, the non-literary Walgreen's, and pretty good pizza at a seafood joint on Fisherman's Wharf.
A good trip. Thanks, guys.