Fleet Week in San Francisco

Weekend of Oct. 12, 2009

San Francisco and Monterey

(here is proof that these stories are actually true)


Most of the base had Columbus Day off, so we had a nice three-day weekend, which we used to drive up to San Francisco. Hogan was visiting one of his friends in the city, and I went and visited my friend Rebecca, one of the funnest people/fastest talkers I've ever met. She actually lived in Marin, just north of San Francisco, but we explored the city and the entire surrounding area. It was an awesome time, and I'm sure the fact that we drank wine in her outdoor jacuzzi every night didn't hurt.
Hogan and I drove up and took the BART into the city (at our manager's insistence), exploring a bit of the wharf area before nightfall.

Get out of the way seagull, you're blocking my view of the water!

Then we went our separate ways and Rebar picked me up to check out a really cool cafe for dinner. It was fairly late already, so we just hung out in the outdoor jacuzzi LIKE BALLERS for a bit before heading to bed.
The next morning, we woke up and were like "know what would be good? A nice sunny bike ride." SURPRISE JACKASS. It was cold and foggy, but whatever, we did it anyway.... or at least tried to. We went up by a really sweet lookout of the Golden Gate (would have been a bit cooler without the fog, but I GUESS I'll have to make do) and started riding down a "bike path." It turns out that after a quarter of a mile, it became a "MOUNTAIN bike path," and were we more certainly not riding mountain bikes. Long story short, Rebecca's bike chain breaks, so I have to bike back up the long hill to get her car and drive down to meet her. And it was freezing. But hey, that's of no concern, because I got a LOT warmer when the chain on MY bike broke and I had to carry the bike up the rest of the hill. We opted not to ride bikes for the remainder of my stay.

Just another thing to check off the list of "things I've peed on"

We then did a little hike... somewhere. I'm not actually sure where. But I do know it was visible from Rebecca's house and was her favorite mountain. Somewhere in the Marin area. Hey, I CAN'T BE EXPECTED TO MEMORIZE EVERY MOUNTAIN I'VE EVER CLIMBED. But it was good. AND THEN we went to Point Reyes seashore, where I went into the Pacific Ocean FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. SO PUMPED UP. It was a cool place, despite all the bird watching dickheads out there.

Lighthouses? Billions of steps? LET'S DO IT.

It was an awesome day seeing the beaches, walking around outside, I think we had some mexican food in a quaint-as-shit little nearby town where the woman didn't speak english, so I was just like "surprise me." It was good nonetheless.
When we got back for dinner: BOOM. IN N' OUT BURGER. Visits to this glorious establishment were clearly the highlights of my stay in California. I remember each one as a vivid and beautiful dream.
The rest of the night was pretty hilarious. I don't remember all the details, but it definitely included visiting the Marin brewery, having some jacuzzi wine, and eating a shitload of delicious cupcakes. That combo of things is among the highest caliber of of things you can do in a single night, and if you disagree, then shut off you computer, smash the hard drive, and cancel your internet, because you are hereby banned from visiting this interblag ever again.
Know what's great about long weekends? Just like longcat, long weekends are looooooooooong. We had another day to hang out in San Francisco! And we used it to go into the city to check out the airshow for Fleet Week.

Jet engines and crazy colored smoke and Alcatraz? I don't know about you, but these are things that I don't typically experience all at the same every day.

Airshows in general are awesome, but when you're sitting by the bay, watching jets zip around by the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, it's just a little bit awesomer. THAT IS A WORD NOW. We also saw the Blue Angels. I had never seen them before. I managed to shout up at the sky "hey! I design your engines!" in their general direction. But they may have been flying past Mach 1. So I'm not sure if the sound got there in time...

Great day for an airshow on the bay

We probably ended our evening in a similar manner as the previous two nights. In fact I guarantee it.
The next morning was time for me to head out, so I met up with Hogan and we were like "OH WAIT. Why don't we continue the adventure rather than waste a single moment in a state we might not return to in a while?" "GREAT IDEA BRO." So we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway (aka the greatest road EVER) to Monterey, a cool coastal town with the best aquarium in the country. We spent our day watching sea otters frolic and sharks swim and jellyfish... jelly. It really was a great aquarium.

So adorbs

I think we spent about half an hour, at least, just watching those fucking sea otters. Then we had to drive back inland to our gross valley town of Hanford. Yep, just living in CA, working on a naval air station during the week and trekking out to every cool location in California every single weekend. Wow, I can't believe that was my life for four months...