6 Blocks

    As most of you can see from my Facebook page, my parents visited me for the weekend.  They left super early Wednesday morning, taking the Amtrak from Hastings, NE and arrived in California around 4:30 on Thursday.  We had supper, I showed them their hotel, we sat around and talked for awhile, then turned in early.

    Friday was a lot busier.  We got up early, sat with the commuters on BART, and arrived in downtown San Francisco around 9am.  I took them to the piers at Embarcadero, then to Yerba Buena park (I told them it was the best park in SF and they said “………really…..?”).  Then we went to THE MOST FANTASTIC FABRIC STORE IN THE WORLD.  One of the Spanish interpreters at work told me about it.  FOUR FLOORS of fabric.  It was SO AWESOME.  I found some adorable fabric with matroyshka dolls on it (hello new dress!) and another chunk with pileated woodpeckers (hello new skirt!).  The fabric store was close to Chinatown, so that’s the next place we visited.  It was close to lunchtime, so we stopped at a restaurant off the beaten path, where our waitress knew next to no English.  The food was pretty good, but they got literally every part of our order wrong.  Oh well, I guess. 

    After lunch, we walked back down the hill and took a bus out to UCSF, where I work, then took a light-rail out to the ocean.  Mom and Dad had a pretty good time walking around in the water, and I had a great time keeping my feet dry and picking up about 50 sand dollars that were just laying around on the beach.  We also saw a dead sea lion.  Next on the schedule was Fisherman’s Wharf.  We wanted to take a bus, but for whatever reason, none came for 20 minutes, so we decided to just hoof it.  Good thing, too.  A bus never did show up.  Fisherman’s Wharf is kind of a giant tourist trap, so we just skimmed the surface, looked at things, and did manage to find some reasonably-priced clam chowder for supper, and a 3-way split of a Ghiardelli sundae, which was totally delicious. 

    On Saturday, Ben was available to drive us around, which he did with much good humor.  We got up early to go to Muir Woods (tip: if you get there before 9am, you get a good parking spot and you don’t have to pay the $7 admission fee!).  We took a 3 mile tour of the forest, admiring the redwoods, and trying to spot birds in the canopy, and then left just as hordes of people descended on the park.  Ben took us up the coast on Hwy 1, where we encountered a bike race.  Passing bikes on the wiggly Hwy 1 is a terrible idea, but driving behind bikes on Hwy 1 (or anywhere) is worse, so we risked life and limb and managed it. 

Mom wanted to see some shorebirds, so we tried to find some, but it was mostly a fail.  We saw a long-billed curlew, and she was pretty excited about that, but that was about it.  Stinson Beach was the next stop.  But it was cold and windy and kind of miserable.  The most interesting part of that stop was a big grey Suburban whose panic button kept going off.  Two ladies were desperately trying to get in, but each time they tried, the panic went off!  Turns out they had the wrong big grey Suburban!  Theirs was parked (exactly like the first) between a large white CRV-type car and a small black car.  It was easy to see how they’d be confused.  We laughed about that for a good long time.

    Then we drove back down the wiggly Hwy 1 to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Like every trip back from Muir Woods, I took a nap.  Idk what it is about that place, but I get sleepy just writing about it!  Mom and Dad decided to walk all the way across and back, just to say they did.  I said “well phooey with that!”  and sat with Ben in the shelter of one of the towers.  It was cold and windy and my feet were just about walked off. 

Sunday was church at FMCSF. Mom and Dad met all the Kansans there, of course, and Dad ended up having a 20 minute conversation about broken ankles with this guy from Moundridge.  Afterwards, we went to the dog park and tried to spot some Austalian Shepherds, but there weren’t many.  Dispirited, we climbed to Alamo Square to see the Victorian houses, walked through a farmer’s market, and then finally headed back to the East Bay.  We tried some more birding, with limited success, then walked around Lake Merritt a bit, saw where Ben worked, and crashed a mass at the Cathedral of Christ the Light.  We had more success at Fenton’s Creamery, however, where we ordered half burgers and GIANT AMAZING SUNDAES.  The one I split with Ben had chocolate in every ingredient.  Delicious.

    Ben had to work on Monday, so he couldn’t drive us around anymore.  So we walked.  And walked. And walked.  Through UC-Berkeley, down Telegraph Avenue (where we ate grilled cheese and tomato soup), to Berkeley Bowl (BEST PRODUCE EVERRRR).  After Berkeley Bowl, where I stocked up on “used” fruit, we had to make a stop by my house to sort it and freeze it.  Mom and I sorted through 4 clamshells of raspberries ($1.69 for the whole shebang!) and found maybe a pint’s worth of decent ones.  Not really worth the trouble.  The big gallon bag of strawberries was a significantly better investment.  So we cut those up and threw them in a few quart bags in the freezer.  Dad sacked out on my bed while Mom and I looked at wedding dress ideas on my Pinterest board and tried (and failed miserably) to find dress patterns.  Guess that means we’ll just wing it.  Surprise, surprise.

    Ben’s parents were unexpectedly delayed on their way back from China, so they ended up being in Berkeley at the same time as my parents, which, while unfortunate, was serendipitous in that we’d never had all of us together at the same time. So that was nice.  We met them for supper and milk tea in the Asian Ghetto near Telegraph.  It was a really good time. 

    So that’s about it.  My parents should have made it to Kansas by about now or so.  They took the train back (including navigating BART by themselves!). 

    I think this post is about long enough without adding photos to it.  You can look at my Facebook photos and kind of match things up, I guess.