lake tahoe

while whitney stayed in SF, i headed out to north lake tahoe for my very good friend gabe's bachelor party.  a great time with old and new friends.  saturday was a very full day: before sunrise fishing, cube and ping pong competition over lunch, mountain biking in the afternoon, grilling, drinking, and the board game dominion in the evening.  a very fun time.

mountain biking was super fun but not without some trouble.  while trying to execute a cool skid, i went down.  road rash.

san francisco

steve and i were both anxious to get to san francisco - steve to meet his gang of best men for the weekend and skip town to tahoe for gabe's bachelor party, me to explore the city. from our vantage point, SF is a west coast city with an east cost mentality. it feels like a mix of so many places we have visited and lived, but yet it is so distinct. it's easy to fall in love with this city and fall hard.

steve-less for the weekend, kate and her sister-in-law, rachel, came up from LA to explore the city with me. i wanted a real introduction to SF's neighborhoods from the perspective of a local. we got just the kind of intro we needed from kate's cousin, who gave us a glimpse of life in berkeley, and from leslie, a great friend who moved from arkansas to SF five years ago by way of spain and france.

we dropped our stuff at the hotel, said goodbye to steve, and struck out up a steep hill to grab a quick cocktail at the the top of the Mark Hotel to take in a panoramic of the city. the fog already blanketed our view of the golden gate bridge, but we happily sipped our $14 martinis like the tourists that we were.

next, we hit the BART at rush hour to meet kate's cousin, ashley, at little star pizza in albany, a charming suburb of SF near berkeley. visiting with ashley and her three engaging sons (6, 3, and 9 months) was rejuvenating, as she warmly described the pace of work and life in the bay area.

saturday morning, we hopped the MUNI to meet leslie in cole valley for brunch at zazie. leslie arrived early to snag us a prime seat on the sun-lit back patio, and, after one of the best mimosas of my life, i knew immediately leslie knew exactly what was up. brunch turned into a full day and night of neighborhood hopping.

from there we blazed a path across the city, leslie leading the way through the haight district, the castro, and into the mission. we stayed put to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather at zeitgeist, a dive bar where we set up shop on the patio with the hipsters sunning themselves over pitchers of lagunitas and stiff bloody marys. we continued down valencia street for some authentic grub at a local taqueria and then made the obligatory stop for a cone at bi-rite creamery next to delores park.

after a cloudless afternoon, we made it through golden gate park to the bridge to find it once again completely covered in fog. the obligatory bridge picture just wasn't meant to be this trip! leslie and her boyfriend dropped the three of us off at the hotel after a family-style dinner in chinatown.

thanks to leslie for proving what we suspected to be true - public transport is prevalent and efficient. good food is ubiquitous. the hills are steep, and the weather is moody, but people are active and interested. san francisco is an amazing place to visit and to live.

Big Sur

the drive from los angeles to san francisco via big sur was the segment of our road trip i was most excited about. steve had driven highway 1 a few times before but had never stopped in big sur. i had only read or heard about the scenic cliffs and seascapes from kerouac, travel journals, and friends.

after our unplanned overnight stay in santa barbara, we knew we had to make up time on the road to stay on schedule. after navigating the santa barbara "rush hour," we were immediately transported into a steinbeck novel. the rolling landscape was arid and dry but fertile and green all at once. old pickup trucks transporting livestock and produce passed us on the road, and we reluctantly passed opportunities to sample fresh cherries, strawberries, blueberries, and avocados sold in stands right off the highway. we had to push through to make up time.

instead, we made a quick grocery run at a natural foods market in san luis obispo where steve, after much deliberation over fancy hummus, gave in to his soft spot for reubens. finally, we pressed on.

big sur is a national treasure. it is just ridiculously gorgeous, reminiscent of the irish or scottish coastline with an edge for drama and laid-back cool that can only be found in california (at least in my mind). we had the perfect day for our drive - blue sky and a few rolling clouds overhead and lush greens, yellows, white, pinks, and purples of spring on the fields, hills, and cliffs along the highway.

we made several pull-offs to take in the views, snap photos of a huge elephant seal colony who have made their home along the coast, and to hike the redwood trails at pfeiffer state park. on our hike, steve and i had our first close encounter with wildlife on the trip - a baby rattlesnake! we strategically hopped out of there before we ran into mama.

the coolest part of the hike were the ruins of an abandoned mansion built by a wealthy family in the 1920s on a particularly spectacular, yet precarious, cliffside overlooking a cobalt blue cove of Pacific. to get to the house, the family had to take a cable car down the mountain side to their front door. perhaps because the land was prone to landslides, the family packed up and left in the 1940s, leaving the land to the state of california. the old flagstone steps of the back patio lined with non-native palm trees were about all that remained of the once gatsby-worthy old settlement.

while the scenery was breathtaking, the drive itself was, too. several times, i found myself white-knuckling the car seat or steve's thigh as we navigated the switchbacks hugging steep drop-offs to the rocky shoreline.

leaving the park, we drove through the carmel valley into monterey around dinner time. we stopped into a casual seafood pub that's a favorite of the local crowd before calling it a day, looking forward to the weekend ahead up the road in san francisco. steve and i will certainly be back down this road again.