I am in major denial that summer is almost over. This has been the most jam-packed, fun summer I can remember, and I'm not ready for the fun to end. Not to mention that I'm not ready to admit that I have a child starting kindergarten (this Wednesday!) Eek! Well, this post is a long time over due and I've been working on it awhile because I had so much to type. For some reason the pictures are really out of order, but I'd like to just get it finished, so I'm not going to mess with them. This is a doozy of a post, so congratulations if you make it to the end!
Here's the finished rifle case that I gave you a sneak peak of last post. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
Two of my sisters, my mom, and I had a blast in San Francisco. In 3 1/2 days we saw a man that I swear was dead/unconscious on the sidewalk (an ambulance went by about 1 minute later heading his way.) We later found out we were in the sketchiest part of town when I saw him, and we avoided that area the rest of the trip. We walked around Fisherman's wharf/Pier 39, saw the sea lions, took a double decker bus tour, saw the Painted Ladies victorian homes, went over the Golden Gate Bridge, walked through Chinatown, ate at the Stinking Rose (a restaurant devoted to garlic), went to several beaches, drove down Lombard Street, Ate at Tartine Bakery, went to the Japanese Tea Gardens, saw the Sutro baths, hiked up to Coit Tower, went on night bus tour, ate a crab dinner at The Franciscan, rode horses on the beach, took the ferry to Alcatraz and toured it, escaped Alcatraz, ate at Boudin cafe, rode bikes 8 miles round trip to the Golden Gate Bridge, rode on a cable car, went to Muir Woods and saw the giant redwoods, walked around Sausalito, ran onto the sidewalk on the Golden Gate Bridge, and then flew home. I would have never guess we could have accomplished all that we did in such little time!
The picture above is us on the plane ride to San Francisco.
At Baker Beach.
I've always wanted to ride a horse on the beach, so I found an affordable place and made reservations for my Mom and I. (Kudos to her for being such a good sport for all of our different interests and activities). When we showed up they of course asked how much riding experience each of us had. I purposely told them it has been awhile since I've ridden because it has, and because I wanted to be on a leisurely and enjoyable ride down the beach. I didn't want to end up on their project horse that rarely gets ridden. I thought my plan was working because the person we first talked to put me down as a beginner. He wasn't the one matching people up with horses though. So when the wrangler (who spoke very little english) asked if I've ridden before i said yes. Then he asked if I have ridden more than ten times. Again I said yes and started to explain that "I haven't ridden for awhile though and I"...but he stopped listening after I said yes and started walking over to a separate corral. At this point pretty much everyone had a horse assigned to them except me. Then the wrangler walked out from the corral with a sorrel mare and pointed at me, then motioned at me to come, then pointed at the horse. The fact they got the horse out of a separate corral should have been a clue to me what my horse was going to be like, but I didn't think too much of it at the time. Then the guide motioned for me to get on, so I did. Whoever rode that saddle before me was one uneven legged person because the stirrup on one side was about three inches too long, and the stirrup on the other side was about three inches too short. The guide started adjusting them for me and asked if they were ok. At first they felt fine because they were actually even so I nodded, but then I decided they were a little too short (not to mention my saddle was about 1-2 inches too small for me). I started to tell the wrangler, but he just motioned for me and another guy to start moving. My mom was some where in the very back of the pack, and I was now one of the lead horses. In some regards my horse was a typical trail horse. It was not used to someone telling it what to do, and it knew it could normally get away with it. In other regards it was not a typical trail horse. It didn't want to follow behind the other horses and mosey along. My horse wanted to be the lead horse, and kept trying to pass even the guide. She even bit at a few horses as she was trying to get by. I felt bad to ride her with such a tight rein, but each time I'd give her her head she would try to take off past the guide. She was also ornery and stubborn and would not respond to any amount of pressure through my legs or the bit. She tried to stop at even the smallest amount of vegetation to get a snack and it took quite a bit of kicking and pulling on her head to get her on her way again (who knew I needed to pack spurs in my suitcase?) After about the first half hour she finally started to realize I was the boss and wouldn't let her get away with her usual antics and things started calming down. This was about the same time our trail made it down to the beach, and wouldn't you know it, my horse was afraid of the water. Our non-english-speaking guide brought us right into the water which my horse was obviously not a fan of. Each time a wave would come in she'd scurry away from it wide eyed and snorting. Then the tide would roll back out and she'd scurry back toward the group of horses not wanting to be left alone. Meanwhile my mom was riding a sweet old mustang that was very content being the caboose and she was quite entertained by the show. After ten minutes or so and some reassuring sweet talking to her, my horse finally started to calm down and I loosened up her reins and even let her trot a little (which was terribly uncomfortable on a too-small-too-short saddle.) She was practically a different horse on the way back. She only tried to stop to eat once and she responded right away when I told her no, and she followed behind the horse in front without any attitude. I had her on a loose rein the whole time back with no problem. I just wish it didn't take the whole ride to get her to that point. I did notice she was the only horse that had even broken a sweat and when we got back they tied up all the other horses, but took her saddle off instead and sent her back into her own corral. It was still a lot of fun and I can now say I've ridden a horse on the beach, but I kept wishing I was on my mom's horse instead (not that I wanted my Mom on my horse). My mom and I had a good laugh afterward because they had a designated photographer that took pictures of us along the ride and then put them all on the computer and tried to get us to pay a small fortune for them. Anyway, 90% of the pictures of me was me either saying "whoa" to my horse or getting after her in some way or another. It makes for a funny memory now, but next time I want to go on a leisurely ride along the beach I'll bring my own horse and saddle, that, or I won't show up wearing Wranglers and boots. :)
Mom and Julieanne and I on our ferry ride to Alcatraz island. I think Lori was on the other side of the boat looking into the water.
Jail cell at Alcatraz. The audio tour was very fascinating, but a little gruesome and violent as well. This is one of the cells that a prisoner escaped out of. (Under the sink, you can see the wall chiseled out.)
Boudin Bakery had all sorts of cute sourdough creations. I've never been a huge fan of sourdough, but the sourdough in San Francisco (its everywhere) was really good. We paid a nice sum to eat an authentic crab dinner at a restaurant that had been recommended to us, but none of us left very impressed. I love crab, but it was only mediocre. We should have chose the other restaurant that my sister had eaten at before and had nothing but good to say.
The same day my mom and I rode horses for two hours, we all rented bikes and rode 8 miles round trip. This was on our bike ride to the bridge, which ended up being another crazy adventure. The bike path had tons of people on it the entire way to the bridge. By the time we got to the bridge it was starting to get dark, but we figured we had time to hurry and ride out, take a picture and head back (going back was mostly all down hill). One sidewalk of the bridge is designated for walking and the sidewalk on the other side is designated for bikes. We could not for the life of us find the bike path to take us under the bridge and over to the designated bike side. We tried several different sidewalks and wasted a lot of time trying to find it. We finally gave up and decided to lock our bikes up and walk onto the bridge since we were on the walking side. So we locked them up and hurried back up the hill to the sidewalk. By now it was 9:01 pm and the gate locks at 9:00, which we didn't know until then. It was now dark and I was wearing dark clothes and we had to ride down a winding road for part of it to get back. Everyone's cell phone was about to die, except mine, so I turned the flash light on my phone on to blink so that we'd be noticeably visible and I took the lead. It was bright though and each blink would illuminate everything, and then it would go what seemed like pitch black. I thought for sure I was going to crash, but we made it back down the road safely and back onto the bike trail. It was completely deserted. There was not a soul in sight. The path was not lit, and everyone else with a brain had gone home. Now a new nervousness took over. Four naive non-city dwelling women riding through the dark in an unfamiliar city. Great. I could see the headlines already. I haven't prayed that hard in a long time. I was running on pure adrenaline, but had to keep slowing down and waiting for my sweet mom who was pretty exerted and sore after two hours horseback riding that morning and then about six miles on a bike. I have never been so glad to make it back to city lights!
We made it onto an authentic San Francisco cable car...again, I'm not sure where Lori is in this picture.
I can finally say that I've seen Giant Redwoods. We went to Muir Woods on Sunday morning. It's hard to take a picture to show their magnitude, but they are amazing trees. (These were the really tall, really old ones, not the really wide ones that you can drive a car through.)
On our way back from Muir Woods we had to drive over the bridge, so we decided to stop at the parking lot and run out onto the bridge since we didn't get to the night we rode our bikes. We had to head to the airport though, so we really had to book it (and you have to go pretty far down the sidewalk before you're even over the water.) I was panting by the time we got out there, but it was fun to look down into the water. One time I even looked down and saw a sea lion swimming.
On our way to the airport, my friend called me and frantically said, "Are you with your husband?" I told her no, and then she told me that lightning had started a fire on the ranch and she wanted to make sure that he knew. So I called Jonathan and he said he was on his way up in the dozer to deal with it. (It was actually on the border of the state ground and the ranch). A while later he called and asked me to put a message on facebook to let everyone know that he was aware of the fire (his phone was ringing off the hook.) So I left a message on facebook saying that Jonathan was aware of the fire and was headed up in the dozer to take care of it. I worried about him the rest of the way to the airport and on the plane. Everyone started commenting on facebook about how crazy Jonathan was on the dozer and how amazing he was at getting the fire put out. So then my worrying felt justified and I was a little jealous that the one time I leave something major happens (the lighting started quite a few fires in the area). Anyway, come to find out, someone else had headed up from the landfill with their huge dozer because they saw the smoke, so Jonathan didn't end up using his dozer. So everyone was watching this guy and thinking it was Jonathan.
I guess my worrying about the fire might explain why my mind seemed to be clouded when we got to the airport. Before the trip my family knick-named me TSA because I checked all the travel regulations before we left to make sure everything was ok to put in my carry-on since that's all I packed. My sisters and mom kept asking things like, "is this hairspray bottle too big to pack?" "Can I pack scissors?" 'Do I have to have all my liquid items in one bag?" etc. and I had answers to all their questions since I had read all the regulations. Anyway, we got to the airport (airports give me anxiety) and started going through security. I went through the stand up body scanner and got out and the TSA agent told me there appeared to be some areas of concern on my chest, but it was probably just the sequined shirt I was wearing (which I wish someone would have warned me of...I just put on the last shirt I hadn't worn yet that morning not even thinking anything about the airport later.) She told me she needed to pat me down over my chest and asked if I wanted to have a private screening. I told her just to get it over with. Lori and Julieanne at this point are watching me and laughing, because of course if anyone is going to have problems going through security, it would be me, "TSA". She got done patting me down and then swabbed my palms and told me I was good to go. Then I went over to get my bag and another TSA agent is holding my bag up asking, "Whose bag is this?" I palmed my forehead and said mine. Then he said, in a thick accent, "It appears there's a bottle of water in your bag" only "bottle" was pronounced "puddle" so now I was really confused and frazzled about what he meant and how a puddle of water got in my bag. He told me he was going to need to search my bag. Lori and Julieanne at this point were about rolling on the floor laughing. He found the water bottle (I still don't remember putting it in there, and wonder if my sisters set me up) and asked me if I wanted to exit to drink it and then come back through security, or if he should just toss it. Lets see, go through all this humilation again? I didn't think so. When they found the water bottle I was so shocked that I said, "Someone put a water bottle in my bag!" and then realizing maybe it was me when we were leaving our rented house that morning in a hurry, and also realizing that that could sound like I had left my bag unattended, so then I said, "And it might have been me." That was the icing on the cake for Lori and Julieanne, they didn't stop laughing at me for a long time. On a side note, my friend recently flew to Oregon and had been painting their new house the night before. When TSA swabbed he palms, she got her own private interview with two TSA agents because the paint and stain she'd used made explosive chemicals show up on her hands during the swab test. I'm glad I didn't have paint on my hands on top of all that!
Maggie and Lane getting into the rodeo spirit at the Preston rodeo. This was our first time bringing Lane with us. They both had fun. It's my favorite weekend of the year.
I made this medicine bag for a friend who had seen the one I made for my brother-in-law. I thought it turned out really nice.
When we went to the beach I found a cool rock with a unique hole in it that i thought would be really fun to plant a succulent in, but I also didn't want to haul it home with me. We did have one checked bag that we all shared and there was plenty of room in it, so everyone talked me into bringing it home. Once I got it home though and it dried out, it cracked and crumbled and seemed more like a big chunk of clay soil. So I guess I won't be planting any succulents in it. Good thing it wasn't some radioactive ocean waste. Then I really would have been in trouble at the airport!
I took the kids fishing one day as bribery to get them to clean the house with me. It worked, and we had fun, so I guess that's all that matters :)
A few days later we decided to invite some friends and do it again. It was slow fishing and we were having no luck until I gave up on the bait and tied a few flies on. Then I started catching a bunch a tiny little bass that I let Maggie and Lane release. They thought that was pretty neat.
Oh look, we're back in San Francisco now. I loved watching the sea lions and Fisherman's Wharf. They're such funny animals.
I can't believe I walked all the way down China Town and only bought one souvenir. We all bought a matching scarf that had crowns on it since we're King girls.
We went to the Japanese Tea Gardens which were amazing and peaceful.
The first beach we went to had treasures all over it. Shells, crab molts, dead jellyfish, pebbles, etc. I was really nervous to go into the water because of how many jellyfish were around, so we mostly stayed on the beach gathering shells (and my big non-rock rock.) I have a friend that's a marine biologist and I asked her when we got home what kind of jelly fish they were. They're moon jellies and would have only given us a minor rash if we were stung by one. Better safe than sorry though.
This is my rock in its humid home environment.
What the beach looked like.
We drove down Lombard Street at night. Actually we drove down Lombard Street several times, but we only drove down the curvy part once. "The Craziest Street in the U.S." is a very accurate title.
We drove through a few old military bases. These used to be pilot's homes, which are beautifully maintained and can be yours for a meager sum of millions of dollars. The cheapest housing in San Francisco is $4,000 per month for a one bedroom apartment in the "Tenderloin." They call it the tenderloin because the area was so bad the cops wouldn't touch it, so the cops ended up getting bonuses and incentives to work it, so they knick-named it the tenderloin because the officers who worked it could now afford a higher standard of living. The guy that I saw that I'm pretty sure was dead was in the tenderloin. That is the only time we drove through it. San Francisco has no middle class, your either homeless or filthy rich there.
What the intersections look like with all of the transit cables overhead.
Alcatraz Island. It was a very fascinating (and stinky) place. The whole island smelled like rotting crab.
This is the type of ferry we rode.
This picture made our scary night time bike ride worth it. I love how it turned out!
One more redwood picture. Muir Woods was fascinating too, but it get to a point where once you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. Not totally, but kind of. It would be a fun place to hike for a day, but to stay on the main board walk it pretty much gets to feeling like more of the same at some point.
No comments:
Post a Comment