San Francisco, The Epic Weekend

Thursday, July 1
When we arrived in San Francisco we meant to meet up with Mark, but he was shooting pool in his pool league. Little did Mark know that we didn't care he was shooting pool and met him at the bar he was playing at anyways. When Mark finished up, he hopped on his bike to trek home as we hopped in the car and drove. If you haven't seen the San Francisco streets they are not all too car friendly. There are hills upon epic hills and stoplights at every one of them. I couldn't imagine driving a stick shift in this town. After dealing with the driving is the epic ordeal of finding parking. With this knowledge, it is of no surprise that Mark, on his bike, beat us to his house.

At this point, it was getting late and we were all starving. Jen and I hadn't eaten since our early lunch and Mark said the same. We had a bunch of produce in the cooler so we brought it up and threw together a hobo dinner that consisted of random ingredients from our food as well as what Mark had.

Ingredients For Dinner:

• Rice
• Red Skin Potatoes
• Onion
• Garlic
• Hot Sauce
• Seasoning(salt, pepper, etc)
• Green Beans
• Squash
• Carrots
• Cilantro
• Spinach
• Corn on the Cob

The meal in itself was kind of thrown together in a pan with the corn on the cob eaten on the side. We ate the corn south of the border style, which means that it was doused in hot sauce with some parmesan cheese sprinkled on it. Delicious. Preparing and eating of the meal let us catch up with Mark. I miss having him around, he is one of the few friends I know I will be in contact with for the rest of my life. I wish he could fit in my pocket so I could always have a smart assed sidekick to make me laugh. Since Mark cannot fit in my pocket San Francisco is the best place for him. The city has everything he loves and is a perfect fit for all his epic craziness.

Around dinner time, Mark’s roommates popped in and out. Brian and Neil, who we have previously met, were there and were the same awesome dudes as the first time we met. Mark also has two new bunk mates Jessi and Jason. Jason was out for a few days so we will get to him in a bit. Jessi came by as we were finishing up eating and this German/Swiss chick is pretty crazy. She is well educated, speaks 5 languages, does crazy scientific testing for work, and surfs. She is a very nice person and was a pleasure to see and converse with throughout the weekend. There was a mix-up with her moving in so she has been playing Goldilocks by sleeping in pretty much everyone’s bed in the house while they were out of town, for the entire month of June. After talking with Mark and the roommates we noticed it was epically late and we all headed for bed as Mark had work in the morning and we were pretty tired ourselves.

Friday, July 2

Jen and I had a free day. Since we had already done most of the tourist stuff on our first visit to the bay area, we took it upon ourselves to use our season passes to Six Flags. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is part roller coaster theme park and part zoo and it sounded like a decent, and free, way to spend the day. The park was located in Vallejo which was about 35 miles north of San Fran. We hopped on the freeway and drove over the Bay Bridge. Soon after the bridge, we hit traffic. I should rephrase that and say the traffic hit us. Epically hard. We tried every which way to dodge it, but every time we moved out of the way, traffic had a right hook to counter. After all was said and done, we had spent two and a half hours driving to travel the great sum of 35 miles. Traffic knocked us out good, young Mike Tyson style.

The Park itself was nice except for the fifteen bucks for parking. Fifteen dollars for parking qualifies for murder in my book. Luckily, the girl working the parking booth said she could break a fifty, so we were pretty excited about that. We waited for the tram to take us in the park and we started riding. Discovery Kingdom had a pretty awesome wooden coaster that looks fairly new. It was quick but not nearly as fast or fun as El Diablo in Jersey. Over all the rides there were fairly mediocre except Kong, which would have been much more fun if the shoulder harness didn't jab us in the arms and neck the whole ride. I'm not sure what hurt more the beating we took in traffic or riding Kong. After riding the coasters we walked around and looked at all the animals, because what's better to look at after you get all discombobulated by a roller coaster than lions and tigers. It turns out they actually had a killer whale on the premises, but the show was packed and we didn't really want to sit around for the next one.

We navigated our way back to San Francisco, this time by route over the Golden Gate Bridge. In terms of bridges, the Golden Gate has to be in the top five coolest bridges out there. The bridge is a work of art. This was our first time actually driving over it, so that was pretty exciting. We made it over and into the city just in time to meet up with Mark as he got off work.

Neil, Mark's roommate, is going to be Mark's former roommate as of Wednesday July 7th. He is packing up camp and heading east like us only more North. Ithaca, New York north. He has a band and they were playing an acoustic show at a friends house, so we all walked a couple blocks over and hung out for a bit. The show was a lot of fun. The bands were all great, some more so than others, but we had a good time. The headliners, if you can call playing last in a living room headlining, went by the name Sands. Not to take anything away from Neil and his buddy ripping through an awesome set, but Sands were on a different level, an epic level some might say. From a musicians point of view they did everything perfectly. They not only knew when to play their asses off and really shine but also when to take it down a notch and emphasize other instruments. Basically they knew how to control the dynamics of their sound. In music it’s all about dynamics, especially in a small intimate setting of acoustic material.

After the sweet music sesh, we walked down to the corner bar where a couple of friends where hanging out. When we arrived, I think there were more people that were previously from Vegas in the bar than there were San Francisco natives. We went there to meet up with Bryan Novello but ended up seeing others like Matt, his girlfriend, another Jen, and others as we made our way to the pool table. Anyone who has ever been around me and pool table knows one thing, I am not good at pool. Mark on the other hand is very good at pool, hence the pool league he is in. I am however fairly good at one handed pool. Now before your mind starts to wander, it is basically pool where you can only shoot by holding the cue stick with one hand. It requires the skill of balancing the cue stick on the edge of the table and striking the cue ball with great precision. It also has a bit to do with luck since no one really practices playing with only one hand. The one handed games continued for a good hour or so until we all decided that it was time for tacos.

Mark took us on another walk to his favorite late night taco joint. We proceeded to wait on the sidewalk at the stand and we ordered up our tacos. Jen and I each got a carne asada taco and another with carnitas. Suffice to say they were nothing short of great, but at a dollar fifty a piece they were on the small side. They were the same tacos you could get in Mexico for about fifty cents or even in Vegas for about seventy five cents. They were tasty though, and we were hungry, so, it was a good match. This is where we called it a night and walked back to Mark's house for we had an epic adventure planned for the next day.

Saturday, July 3

Mark had planned for us and some other people to meet up and hike to a lake up north of the city. The day started with Mark trying to coordinate the driving situation and having everyone meet up in time. After a little bit of phone calls everyone managed to show up and we were off. The lineup included Jen and I, as well as Mark and his friends, Jeff, Austin, another Jen, and Stephen. Austin owns a mini van and thus was designated as the driver. Austin's girlfriend Jen sat shotgun while Mark and Stephen sat in the middle row of seats. This left Jen and I to sit in the third row with our new best friend Jeff.

Jeff may be one of the funniest/nicest/coolest people I have met in a while. Easily my most favorite person I've met within the last year. He has an off sort of humor that just hits me right in my funny bone. It’s an awkward type of humor, but as in everything else, it’s his timing that is impeccable. Sitting and chatting with him made the ride pleasant, despite the little offshoot of getting lost for a bit.

As we pulled up towards the hiking parking lot, some girls yelled to us and told us the lot was full so Austin parked on the side of the road. We ate some sandwiches and started the epic hike that would be the death of the balls of my feet. I had forgotten that Mark likes to underestimate much of everything. This includes time(for he is sometimes known to be late), distance, and just about everything else imaginable. He told us the hike wasn't that bad. He was correct on the two and a half mile distance but was wrong when he said it was a fairly easy hike. It was a lot of big ups and downs. The hike had very little straight walks. We either went up a decent sized hill or down a decent sized hill for two and a half miles each way. At the end of the epic hike was a nice little lake, which was a bit too cold for me and Jen;s taste. Everyone else didn't seem to mind and they all hopped on in and rode on the rope swing. Some people got fancy and did back flips off of it and some other people, Jeff and Austin, got fancy by almost hitting the tree pretty good.

After our epic hike back to the car, we were all very tired and hungry and started thinking of ideas for dinner. After throwing ideas around we decided on the grand idea of pan frying some hamburgers at Austin’s place. There were a lot of people cutting up food and preparing things that it was a little too congested so I sat down, for I felt that I was just getting in the way of things. When all was said and done Jeff had made these massive patties for frying. They were so epic we had to break out three pans, because one patty took up most of a frying pan. They were so damn amazing it was ridiculous. I don't know if it was the five mile hike we just went on or what, but it was easily one of the top three burgers I have ever eaten.

Sunday, July 4

Sunday morning consisted of Mark, Jen, and I doing a decent amount of laundry at Mr. Burbujas. That's correct the Mr. Bubbles of Mexico right there in San Francisco. As the clothes were washing we walked over to the bakery and scored some sweet empenadas and some other pastries. We then read for a bit and folded our clothes and headed back to the house.

Brian, Mark's roommate, had a friend that was throwing an annual Fourth of July BBQ at the panhandle section of the Golden Gate Park. We shared a cab with Mark and Neil and when we arrived at the park there was a ton of people just hangin out all over the place. It was really something else to see this many people just hanging out in the grass of a park, with nothing except themselves as entertainment. After setting up a blanket to sit on, Mark told us we could eat, so we jumped at the occasion and scored some free grub. The food was amazing and had everything from hamburgers to food I've never even seen before. It turns out that the guy who threw the party also runs a restaurant and is therefore responsible for all the kick ass food. Random friends started showing up as Jeff, Austin, and (other) Jen all came to hang out. I also saw and hung out with Sara Anderson, who went to high school in Vegas and I hadn’t seen her since. I didn't recognize her as she had long hair and I had only known her to have really short hair. Never-the-less it was fun to catch up with everyone and hang out. The party in the park concluded with a game of ladder ball as the wind started to pick up and it started getting rather cold. Jeff, Mark, Jen, and myself came to the conclusion that it would be in our best interest to make chocolate chip cookies, which then morphed into oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, which then morphed into eaten oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

It was now time for fireworks. You can't have an Independence Day without fireworks, because that would be un-American. Shortly after leaving the house a war zone broke out. Fireworks were shooting off in every direction. Mark and Jeff ran through the hardest fought corner like it was the Gaza Strip. They ran through a Roman candle fight and Mark literally jumped right over a shot that skipped under his legs. It was a jump of epic magnitude. Mark said we would go a short twenty minute walk up to Bernal Hill to watch the fireworks. If your memory serves you correct, you will remember that Mark likes to underestimate. The Bernal Hill walk was up maybe the steepest hill in all of San Francisco and then up and slightly less steep grass hill known as Bernal Hill. It took longer than twenty minutes and both Jen and myself were very angry at Mark until we sat down and looked out onto the city. It was fabulous. I immediately took back all the bad things I was saying to Mark in my head because the view was amazing. Despite the fog that rolled in we could see most all of San Francisco and even though we missed the main fireworks, people were still shooting off there own illegally bought ones which were just as good.

On this trek up the hill we met Austin's brother, Brian. Brian was another person that was of great interest and conversation. He and Austin had made a couple of documentaries and were just great to talk too. Brian was in awe of our journey that we are embarking on, and I was just as much in awe of the things he has done. We both shared an interest in America and all its greatness. We discussed how by getting in a car and driving, you can see so much, and although going to foreign countries is great, this country of ours is just as good. It's easy to forget just how much beauty is in ones own backyard.

The night concluded with the walk back to get tacos. On the way to the taco shop Bryan Novello whipped out some bottle rockets, because it is not officially a Fourth of July celebration unless someone gets shot with a bottle rocket. The girls all fled in horror as fireworks shot off from every direction. After shooting off a good amount of bottle rockets at each other, we all ate tacos at the taco joint. Jen and I split a pretty sweet carne asada breakfast burrito. All in all it was probably one of the most fun and memorable Independence Days in recollection.

Monday, July 5

Our stay in San Francisco was supposed to end on this day, but sometimes things just don't work out as planned. Our buddy Nick Whalen was in town for a couple days and we had not seen him in a while. He is also about to embark on an epic journey of his own that will take him to Japan with the means to teach English in a small town south of Osaka. For us to not stick around and see him would be an epic fail on our part. Not wanting to fail, we decided to stick around and pick Nick up from the airport. After grabbing him we met up with Mark and Neil and headed down to Delores Park to hang out and have some lunch. We grabbed some sandwiches from the deli and proceeded to eat them at the park. Following lunch, Nick broke out his hacky sack. We then did our best impersonations of hippies and kicked the sack around for a little while.

Later that evening Jessi had planned a going away dinner for Neil as he was leaving the house later on in the week. She made risotto dishes, one with beef and another with only vegetables. It was a good meal and was a good send off for Neil. The meal also was of the welcoming kind as Jason, the other roommate, came back from his "farm". Once again we sat around talking and discussing one thing or another. Shortly after dinner Nick was picked up by another ex-Las Vegan Jon Losey. Those who knew him came out to visit and send Nick off. We then went back inside for some more chatting with Mark's roommates. I was glad we got to meet Jason as he was a great guy and was another person that was just really fun to be around.

Mark and his house mates were nothing short of amazing to us. We stayed with them for five epic nights and not once did we hear a grumble. For this, we are truly and honestly grateful for them to share their space with us. We really do appreciate that you opened up your house to us. We wish them all the best of luck and hope we can meet again.

Random Facts

Times the word epic was said in San Francisco = an epically large amount

Miles walked while with Mark = at least 15

Days Mark slept on the floor = 5

Times Jen offered to sleep on the floor = 5

Days we wish Mark were with us = every single one

Thanks again to Mark and Brian and Neil and Jessi and Jason

as well as all the new friends we made in San Francisco.

Yes, this is indeed, a walrus godzilla