Quick Vacation
I guess I should consider our recent trip to San Francisco the vacation of this year. Being unemployed, I did not arrange any major excursion. We chose to attend the gay west coast advanced and challenge fly-in because of various friends that we knew were planning to be in attendance. I checked in with my friend Rob and he agreed to host us for a couple of extra days. We flew on miles.
Last Thursday, I trimmed up my mohawk, packed, picked up Patrick and we flew out. The delay wasn’t too bad, and Rob picked us up at the airport and brought us to his apartment in the Castro. Unfortunately it was already pretty late, and he had work in the morning so it was straight to bed.
Friday morning we briefly met his new roommate, then headed out for a quick breakfast at Posh bagels. We wondered in and out of a few of the stores after making a quick stop to check on Enhydrasf who wasn’t working. We were fortunate to meet up with an ex-square dancer who we haven’t seen in about six years. Chuck met us outside of Rock Hard and we went to lunch at Squat & Gobble. We went over to the Mission district to check out his new pad. On the way back someone passing by called our names. Looking up I recognized the partner of a friend of mine. I knew Frank from the Big Apple Ranch. He was from Long Island, and moved to the Netherlands to be with Dick. We had just run across Dick. How mind-blowing that we were connecting on some obscure corner in San Francisco! New Jersey meets Utrech.
When Bob got home from work, he drove us to our hotel after a nice dinner at Chevy’s. He was planning to cut out on a family camping trip, so we were glad to get to spend a bit of time with him. At the Embassy Suites the dancing had just begun. We checked into our huge room, picked up our registration packets and proceeded to bump into friends. The hotel atrium was lush with greenery and a little pond filled with koi.
Saturday was filled with dancing. We enjoyed lunch with redsquared, and though we met his good-looking partner Kevin, they were eating separately. He also ended up at our dinner table along with allanh, Bendoutdoors, Drew, Apparentparadox, wooddragon, fyellin, Patrick & I, and the calling husband of dceder. We danced with many other LJers as well. I believe squaredancing has a complete list. It’s always so nice to see everyone (even those that aren’t on LJ!).
Evenings were spent hanging out by the little bar. Some of those present to chat with were birthday girl ewe_bull_akr, Sandy, rfrench, Scott A. from NM, Travis from CO, and Bill & Jim from CA.
Sunday we danced some more and eventually decided to move on. allanh had previously expressed interest in hanging out some, and proved to be a most gracious and accommodating fellow. He drove us back to the Castro for luggage dropping, and then over to the beer bust at the Eagle, which was also having a bare chest auction.
After filling up my glass I decided to scope out the outdoors with the hopes of finding anyone that responded to my earlier post, specifically pklexton and sftallguy. I first ran into Nathan (someone I met last year at GNI), and then Jack in his yellow leather (from MAL). Tall Shaun then became visible and Phillip was right there with him. These two were planning to move onto the Powerhouse though. I eventually found Paul on a beer line in the back. It took him a bit to realize it was me standing in front of him and just staring. Once again the magic of live journal assisted and I found the experience very pleasant with no awkwardness. We had trouble finding a place where the announcer’s speaker did not overpower our chat. I brought him over to meet Patrick and Allan. I also ran across Jonathon and Dan, a couple from NY that I originally met at the Ranch. They have been transplanted to SF for the last year and a half now. I think it’s great that I can be roughly 3,000 miles from home and run across so many recognizable faces.
When the beer stopped flowing, Allan took us to a Chinese restaurant called Eric’s, where we got a back table and split 3 dishes with an appetizer sampler. The food was quite tasty and we had a pleasant chat, this being the first time that we really had some one on one time. I later realized that there are so many topics that we could have brought up (from journal reading) but we did not. I guess we’ll hit them at another time, as conversation also flowed freely here. He dropped us off at Bob’s and we had our last night in San Francisco.
On Monday morning we were able to meet Jayme for lunch near his office before flying back to NJ. We got in after midnight and I had an early morning chemistry lab the next day.
Last Thursday, I trimmed up my mohawk, packed, picked up Patrick and we flew out. The delay wasn’t too bad, and Rob picked us up at the airport and brought us to his apartment in the Castro. Unfortunately it was already pretty late, and he had work in the morning so it was straight to bed.
Friday morning we briefly met his new roommate, then headed out for a quick breakfast at Posh bagels. We wondered in and out of a few of the stores after making a quick stop to check on Enhydrasf who wasn’t working. We were fortunate to meet up with an ex-square dancer who we haven’t seen in about six years. Chuck met us outside of Rock Hard and we went to lunch at Squat & Gobble. We went over to the Mission district to check out his new pad. On the way back someone passing by called our names. Looking up I recognized the partner of a friend of mine. I knew Frank from the Big Apple Ranch. He was from Long Island, and moved to the Netherlands to be with Dick. We had just run across Dick. How mind-blowing that we were connecting on some obscure corner in San Francisco! New Jersey meets Utrech.
When Bob got home from work, he drove us to our hotel after a nice dinner at Chevy’s. He was planning to cut out on a family camping trip, so we were glad to get to spend a bit of time with him. At the Embassy Suites the dancing had just begun. We checked into our huge room, picked up our registration packets and proceeded to bump into friends. The hotel atrium was lush with greenery and a little pond filled with koi.
Saturday was filled with dancing. We enjoyed lunch with redsquared, and though we met his good-looking partner Kevin, they were eating separately. He also ended up at our dinner table along with allanh, Bendoutdoors, Drew, Apparentparadox, wooddragon, fyellin, Patrick & I, and the calling husband of dceder. We danced with many other LJers as well. I believe squaredancing has a complete list. It’s always so nice to see everyone (even those that aren’t on LJ!).
Evenings were spent hanging out by the little bar. Some of those present to chat with were birthday girl ewe_bull_akr, Sandy, rfrench, Scott A. from NM, Travis from CO, and Bill & Jim from CA.
Sunday we danced some more and eventually decided to move on. allanh had previously expressed interest in hanging out some, and proved to be a most gracious and accommodating fellow. He drove us back to the Castro for luggage dropping, and then over to the beer bust at the Eagle, which was also having a bare chest auction.
After filling up my glass I decided to scope out the outdoors with the hopes of finding anyone that responded to my earlier post, specifically pklexton and sftallguy. I first ran into Nathan (someone I met last year at GNI), and then Jack in his yellow leather (from MAL). Tall Shaun then became visible and Phillip was right there with him. These two were planning to move onto the Powerhouse though. I eventually found Paul on a beer line in the back. It took him a bit to realize it was me standing in front of him and just staring. Once again the magic of live journal assisted and I found the experience very pleasant with no awkwardness. We had trouble finding a place where the announcer’s speaker did not overpower our chat. I brought him over to meet Patrick and Allan. I also ran across Jonathon and Dan, a couple from NY that I originally met at the Ranch. They have been transplanted to SF for the last year and a half now. I think it’s great that I can be roughly 3,000 miles from home and run across so many recognizable faces.
When the beer stopped flowing, Allan took us to a Chinese restaurant called Eric’s, where we got a back table and split 3 dishes with an appetizer sampler. The food was quite tasty and we had a pleasant chat, this being the first time that we really had some one on one time. I later realized that there are so many topics that we could have brought up (from journal reading) but we did not. I guess we’ll hit them at another time, as conversation also flowed freely here. He dropped us off at Bob’s and we had our last night in San Francisco.
On Monday morning we were able to meet Jayme for lunch near his office before flying back to NJ. We got in after midnight and I had an early morning chemistry lab the next day.