CA trip: San Francisco's a treat

After recovering from my previous night's drive, I got up early to do some hiking in Point Lobos State Reserve. It was a beautiful area along the shoreline. I saw sea lions, harbor seals (or at least a bunch of things that might have been harbor seals and one that for sure was but that I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of), a very personable squirrel, lizards and some very nice plant life. But I'll let the pictures do the talking (follow the CA set to see the photos in order):



After doing that, I had a nice seafood lunch in Monterey and headed north into San Francisco. I met Chief of Staff and another college friend for dinner and got to see Sausalito. I also saw the Golden Gate Bridge without fog, although I was driving over it and didn't stop for pictures. I should also mention that the restaurant we ate in had a retractable roof. We were in an enclosed outdoor seating area and a little while after it got dark, we heard this whirring sound and the roof rolled over the area and suddenly we were in indoor seating! That's right, retractable domes ... not just for sports stadiums anymore.

After that, I met up with Punk Bassist and her fiance for a drink. The next day, I spent a lot of time in Golden Gate Park, which has a TON of stuff to do in it. There's a Japanese tea garden, several botanical gardens, lakes and buffalo. It's quite a park. (For more pictures, follow the picture link above.)

P.B., P.B.'s fiance and I had dinner in the Castro district at an excellent restaurant called Home. The food and atmosphere are ... well, homey. And the cornbread is to die for. I highly recommend it if you're ever in town.

The next morning, I flew back to Virginia, and thus ended my California odyssey.

And now, I'm off to Tennessee for Wedding No. 4. I'll fill you in next week.

CA trip: The fog of bore

Bad situation: Driving along a windy road in the dark.
Worse: In the fog.
Worst: The only radio station you can get is playing opera.

But let's back up.
(As an aside, in honor of this retelling of my journey, the cool clip is an old music video by Journey. Watch them rock the air instruments...)

(If this were a TV show, this is where we would switch scenes and the subtitle would read: "14 hours earlier")

I left San Diego bright and early and headed north in my sporty ride for a trip up the California coast. I hurried through Los Angeles as fast as anyone can hurry through Los Angeles, as the area wasn't really of interest to me. I did, however, hear some radio DJs talking about a celebrity's engagement ring, which was worth $200,000 to $300,000. Their comment: "That's worth a down payment on a house!" I busted up laughing, telling the radio, "Or an actual house!" Crazy Californian housing prices...

I also skipped through Hollywood -- my apologies to any of the celebrity women whom I passed up the chance to meet and, no doubt, begin a torrid romance with. We shall meet another time.

I had lunch with a friend from high school a little north of L.A. and had a lot of fun catching up with her. Then I hopped on to the Pacific Coast Highway (or "The One," as I believe the Californians call it.) It was sunny and beautiful for a bit, but it wasn't long before the theme of my day began to creep in -- the omnipresent fog. It just sort of sat out there along the coast as I drove in and out of it, depending on far inland the highway went.



I had planned on taking two days to drive up to San Francisco, so I was in no hurry, figuring I would stop where I wanted in order to hike or go to the beach or whatever. Unfortunately, the conditions weren't really ripe for that sort of thing. I did stop a few times, one of them to go explore an area full of tidal pools. Unfortunately, most of what I found was seaweed and lots of flies.

I thought about stopping in Cambria about 6:30 p.m., but decided to press on because I wasn't tired or hungry and didn't feel like stopping. I could stop in Monterey for the night, I figured, an easy 90 miles or so away.

That's when things got a little complicated.

First, it got dark. And then the road, which had been a pretty regular highway up until this point, got really windy as it twisted and turned along the coastal hills. It was like driving on a mountain pass -- for hours. And then it got really foggy. Like, visibility-of-15-feet foggy. It was the sort of conditions where you expect to encounter someone along the side of the road and find out later they've been dead for 20 years.

And then, about the time I was really getting sick of the tedious drive on the windy, fog-enshrouded road, I stopped getting any radio stations except one. It was playing opera music.

God has a cruel sense of humor sometimes.

I got into Monterey, exhausted and starving, at about 10 p.m. What I thought would take me about an hour and a half actually took three and a half hours. I hadn't been so happy to see a city since Shutterbug and I pulled into Moab at, like, 3 in the morning after a late night drive from Salt Lake City.

On the bright side, there were a few moments where the highway pulled above the fog bank and I got to see part of the sunset (follow the picture link for that and other photos). Later, I was witness to a beautifully starry sky. You could see the bands of the Milky Way and so many stars it made you dizzy. Breathtaking would be an understatement.

When you're in the middle of the drive from hell, it's nice to be able to glimpse a bit of heaven.

CA trip: Wild things

After a lovely post-wedding brunch on Sunday, I went to San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. It's a huge reserve that serves partly as a large zoo, but mostly as a breeding ground for animals. It re-creates their natural habitat as much as possible so most of the animals don't even know they're not in the wild. Very cool. If you're ever in the San Diego area, I highly recommend it. I also recommend taking a camera with a zoom lens. I spent much of the day regretting not having my nicer, nondigital camera with a big zoom on it that would have let me get some really great shots. Oh well, you can still enjoy what I've got here. (Again, just follow the link and click on CA set on the right side.)

CA trip: Night of the Getting Wed*

I've never seen myself as a West Coast person, particularly not a California person. But I have to admit, if I were going to live in California, it would be in San Diego. That place is ridiculously nice. The five-day forecast for the entire time I was there was sunny and nice, temperatures in the 70s. And it was. It seems unfair somehow; like maybe the city is stealing all the nice, warm weather, which is why Duluth has to suffer through eight months of blood-freezing winter.

Of course, it could also have to do with latitude, but whatever.

In continuing with my theme of doing something water-related before weddings, my brother and I went kayaking the morning of the wedding. We paddled around Mission Bay and out into the ocean for a bit. We spent about two hours kayaking. After about an hour and a half, I declared that next time we were going to rent something that had a motor. My brother pointed out that my kayak had a motor -- me.

Next time, I need to rent something with a better motor.



The wedding was at a beautiful spot north of San Diego on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It was gorgeous and a very nice ceremony. I spent some time before the reception walking along the shore and watching people surf and enjoy life as the sun set. (For more photos, click on either of these pics and click on the "CA Set" link on Flickr.)



The reception was also fun, although I was definitely more of a wallflower at this one than I have been at past weddings. I tend to either keep to myself or be the crazy dancing guy; there's very little in between. Usually it depends on how many people I know at the wedding. At this one, it was pretty much no one but the bride and groom, and there weren't really any single women around, so I pretty much stayed off the dance floor. Sometimes, though, that's really for the best.


*This title is in no way intended to imply that anyone attending the wedding was a zombie or zombielike in any way. No brains were eaten in the making of this matrimony.

CA trip: From coast to toast

My trip out to California began two Fridays ago with a trip from East Coast to West Coast. I have never been so jet lagged in my life. Of course, I worked the night before my early flight and only got three hours of sleep, so that didn't help. I got in to San Diego in the early afternoon and rented a sporty-looking Pontiac G6 coupe that I would have to return the next day because I didn't originally notice the check engine light was on when I got it. Oops on several people's parts.

I met up with my brother and had dinner with him and his roommate at a nice Mexican restaurant that had outdoor seating and a band. And because it's San Diego, the outdoor seating also had space heaters, even though it was in the 60s at the lowest. Oh, funny California.

By the time dinner was over, I was ready to curl into the fetal position I was so exhausted. But first we stopped by a grocery store that had some sort of wacky lighting for its parking lot. The lights are designed, I assume, to reduce light pollution, but they have the interesting side effect of making everything appear black and white. It's like you suddenly stepped into the first part of "Pleasantville." Or, as we three wise guys preferred to interpret it, a film noir. It made the trip to buy groceries seem much, much cooler.

We got back to my brother's apartment, and I promptly passed out on the floor.

My flight back to Virginia out of San Francisco (more about how I got from one place to another later) was an even longer day since I lost time. But I did get to have lunch with a friend in Phoenix during a layover, and I got my luggage when I returned home -- something that's never a given when I arrive here.

While there were no problems, both days did cement my dislike of flying. I'm not concerned about safety or anything, it's just not at all enjoyable. You're in a cramped seat for hours, you rarely get food that you don't have to pay out the nose for and when you do get a movie, it's something crappy like "Just My Luck." Which is exactly what I thought when I was subjected to it.

Rated Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

This week's clip is to get you in the mood for Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is Tuesday.

I would also like to apologize to anyone using Internet Explorer. I didn't realize until last week that adding the YouTube clips totally screwed up how the blog shows up in IE. (I use Mozilla Firefox, which I highly recommend. Tab browsing is the greatest.) Anyhow, it should pretty much be fixed now. And I promise to blog about my trip to California soon. I've been busy showing a job candidate around and still have to organize my pictures.

Oh, and word to the wise: Don't eat the spinach. Seriously.
Further proof that vegetables are bad for you.

Go west, young man

I'll be in California for the next week (wedding No. 3 or 4 this year, for those of you keeping track), so this clip will have to give you the warm fuzzies that I'm sure my blog usually does.

Also, I was wrong in my last post about the gelatinous goodness. I haven't even finished the whole pan and I can already tell you that those old ads lied:

There's not always room for Jell-O.

The good, the bad and the disturbing

First, a word about this week's clip: Finally, a compilation that shows what I've long believed -- John Cusack is contractually obligated to be in the rain in pretty much every film he makes.

Now then ...

The Good
I made Jello for no particular reason tonight. Mmm, mmm ... gelatinous goodness.

The Bad
After hearing so much about Fergie's new song "London Bridge," I listened to the clip on iTunes. Why is this song so popular? I honestly couldn't get through 30 seconds of it. I lasted about halfway and then had to turn it off because it was making my ears bleed.

The Disturbing
So John Mayer is dating Jessica Simpson now?!? Ick. And when did John Mayer start looking creepy? It's like he's about to audition for a role in a remake of "The Crow." Not good.

An ode to superheroes

In a world where most reality shows feed on the basest of human desires -- greed and selfishness -- there is one show that dares to challenge the status quo. That show is "Who Wants to be a Superhero?"

The show takes 11 contestants, each with their own superhero persona, and puts them through various challenges. Obviously, they can't test who's faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive or who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. They can test who has the character of a superhero, though. The challenges test compassion, courage, quick thinking, perseverance and other traits that superheroes must possess.

It's this that sets the show apart from other unscripted shows. Where most of those shows bring out the worst in people -- lying, backstabbing, cattiness -- this show strives to bring out the best in people. And it does. There are some unforgettable moments that show just how amazing people can be when you give them the opportunity. Several people overcame their fear of heights to save a helpless victim. In another challenge, contestants were tasked with getting across a backyard that had two attack dogs in it. While most contestants either completed the task or gave up in about a minute or two (some lasted only seconds), one woman, through sheer force of will, literally clawed her way through the backyard with both dogs attached to her and shaking her like a rag doll. It took her 15 minutes, but she refused to give up. And I can't even begin to recount the moments of incredible compassion the contestants showed for one another and others, not to mention the truly touching moments born of the contestants' personal lives.

If the show is rerun on the SciFi channel, you should catch it. If not, it comes out on DVD Sept. 21.

In real life, superpowers may not exist. But if they did, these are the people you would want to have them.