friend weekend fun plus skeeball!

Last weekend I had some peeps come to visit! First it was Charleen who arrived Wed. night, Tom on Friday afternoon and Glenn Friday night.

So, now for the fun stuff we did! We'll kick it off with Golden Gate Park, where Tom, Charleen and I wandered around for a bit, taking in the sites.
Here's a Chihuly piece outside the DeYoung Museum Here's a 'Portal of the Past' which was basically an old facade from the top of Nob Hill marking the entryway to the railroad tycoon A.N. Towne's mansion. I guess this was all that was left after the 1906 earthquake. It was a little disappointing since, from the map, it appeared that there were 'portals' not just one, and also that the only one that was there would be encased in an ugly fence undergoing 'restoration' that was due to be completed in July 2008...but it didn't quite look like they were doing much of anything. On the upside, we saw this guy and we went home and looked it up (try 'red face duck' in google) and found out it was Muscovy Duck. So on the way back to the car, we decided to check out the log cabin listed on the map. Turns out its an administrative building of sorts ta-da!
I was pretty amused, it's not like they were lying to us, it was just hard to tell what exactly you were going to get when you visited these 'sites' on the map. On the way to the Sutro Baths we stopped by one of the windmills too bad we weren't able to go inside!
Then it was time for the Sutro Baths. I've been here a number of times already, and I love it every time. The link I posted actually has old footage from 1897 of people using the slide. It's really incredible. Now all we have are the ruins to run around and play on. look! waves! wee!
Later on we stopped by this graffiti alley down off Valencia St. It's always changing, so I love to go there every couple of months to see if there's anything new. Now, for this next one, there's a pile of poo down in the corner, I didn't feel like peering at it to determine what made it, but I will say it was quite unpleasant Jeremy and I actually saw this one being made a couple months ago, the artist had stencils of each section and would match it up then spray it, then do the next section, etc...

The next morning we got up early and, with Glenn who joined us the night before, we went to Muir Woods for some hiking. I swear, every time I go there I hike the same trail, but I always think it's a new trail. Ah well. It was fairly easy, and even though it's named Ocean View, we didn't go to the top to where the supposed view probably is. Even still, it was really nice, and fun for the whole family! Uh oh! Char tried her legs at some good old fashioned tree climbing Since the hike didn't take as long as we planned for, we ended up taking our lunches down to the Chrissy Field area and eating while basking in some sunshine and the view of the bridge Later on we tried hitting up the North Beach Jazz Festival but we slightly disappointed in what we heard, although their get-ups were cool So we grabbed some thai at King Cha-Cha's and went back to the mission to see The Breakfast Club in Mission Dolores Park mmmmm...captain crunch and pixie stick sandwich! we had a decent view, but couldn't hear much of what was going on. But we did get to holler at the people to 'sit down in the front' as they stopped to lolly-gaggle and whatnot.

So it was a great weekend, I loved having Tom, Char and Glenn in town!

Oh...and before I forget, I started a BrewSKEEball league (that's right - brewskees and skeeball) with Jeremy, Heather, Perry, Reid and Trina (with Mari and Rose as alternate-alternates!). Technically we are only supposed to be 3 to a team with 3 alternates, but we are, uh, taking turns and it seems to work lovely. Last weekend Rose subbed in for us, which we were very grateful to have her on our team. Go Rose! Hit those hundos Jeremy! oops, I mean...
Pure concentration (serious face)

Plus, if that wasn't enough, we hit up my coworker Reid's band Innaway's show at 12 Galaxies which is a cool venue due to its all around balcony. We were pretty dead tired, but the fog machine and rocking and rolling kept us alive.

Oh, and Tom has his own blog up as well documenting his trip if you just can't get enough!

Sequoia Birthday Weekend and Dinner too!

So, for my birthday weekend, Jeremy and I headed out to Sequoia National Park. I had been asked by Heather and Perry to join them and their friends Melanie, Damien and Brian on this camping venture back in February (? - may have been even earlier then that!). Apparently the bay area is teeming with campers who snatch up all the campsites up to 6 months in advance, so you have to be on it to get reservations in time for certain hot spots.

Anyways, since we left after I got out of work, we didn't even get there till 1am, so we just set up camp and hit the hay, so we could get up all bright eyed and bushy tailed for some hiking!

yipee! Actually, when we got up we watched some chipmunks tooling around our campsite looking for any scraps of food they could find (which was NONE! We were so good at keeping everything in the bear safe boxes!). We also woke to some mule deer that resided a little higher up the campground, behind our tents. That was pretty awesome.

We started on a small hike within the Lodgepole campgrounds that we were staying in and headed to a small waterfall nearby. Saw this cool moss-covered tree along the way (one of many we saw)
You can barely see him with a picture this small, but Brian is crossing the riverbed rocks After this quick jaunt we waited out a small rain storm and then headed on a longer hike to another waterfall, the big one, that was feeding this little one near our campsite.
Off we go! There were a bunch of fallen trees The trail was cool, it followed this riverbed all the way This flower was awesome Tree huggers! Well, we tried at least...(and that is a small one!) At one point we made our way down to the river. It was flowing past quite fast, but it was cool how it just ran over these huge slats of granite (?) Heather was ready to dive in I thought it was amazing how old some of the fallen trees were. The rings got so small and thin towards the edges it was hard to count. Jeremy estimated about 200 years old, so it's just a baby... The rock cliff we were walking towards was also pretty bad-ass, plus there's sort of a hidden face in it too, which is cool. Arh! I am the mountain god 'rock face'! Ok, uh, ya, I should probably have come up with something more creative. That's ok, because this next one is like the viking tree I think it's dead, but it has that awesome vertical branch reaching up as if its holding a sword or something. I was supposed to be acting like a mermaid here, but instead I'm just throwing out the metal sign seems like a good alternative being in a 'rock' oyster shell and all.
This guy was cool, with his blue belly Towards the end of the trail the terrain changed and we were walking among a bunch of rocks up to the waterfall Jeremy scrambled up a couple rocks and took this shot Ah yes, we finally reached our destination. Look out Waterfalls Calendar July 2009, we're taking over!
Later on that day, before dinner Jeremy and I ventured out to catch a glimpse of General Sherman, the largest tree by Volume in the world! It's not the tallest, but it's pretty up there at 275ft! We had to take this one from the road just to get the entire tree in the shot Once we had hit General Sherman we were in the Giant Forest, and saw plenty of other awe-inspiring giants, like these four Jeremy being very 'tall' Me being very dwarfed! I say it's about yea big
Then we went on the big trees trail to learn fun facts about Sequoias and see this pretty meadow and we stumbled on this guy This tree was kind enough to include the rock, or maybe it's just using it for leverage
After the tree walk, we headed back to camp for some awesome fajitas and my birthday cake, made by Jeremy, decorated by me! Thanks mom and dad for the b-day package with the angel food cake mix! This totally made my birthday weekend complete! Yum!
On Sunday we headed out to the Crystal Caves before heading home. It was a quick hike to a from the caves, but you had to descend/ascend on the way back, the equivalent of a 30 story building or something. Not too bad, but still pretty steep. The caves themselves were pretty cool, dark and damp. Just what you'd expect! Plus there was this fun door at the entrance They said they used one with big enough holes in it so that the bats that lived in the cave could fly out with ease. The colors in the cave were pretty awesome, it was hard to capture on film, but here are a few really good shots On the way out, we stopped by this waterfall
We decided to find the tree you could drive through before heading out. We ended up going between these trees, which was pretty cool and saw this guy on the side of the road you would be surprised how many people were snapping photos and standing outside of their cars. It's like no one has heard of a bear mauling anyone before!
The roots to this tree were incredible, and they tried to swallow Jeremy! Then we drove thru this fallen tree Apparently there are even bigger trees to drive thru that are vertical up in Northern CA, we'll have to go there sometime to check it out.

Also, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks offer more than 850 miles of maintained wilderness trails...we probably saw like 5-6 miles of that, I totally want to plan a return trip there for next summer!

Then, since I was gone for my birthday, my roommates and friends wanted to go out to dinner, so we went to Cha-Ya Vegetarian Japanese Restaurant in the mission. Amanda playing with her food More food identification? Oh and Amanda was so proud of catching this moment, I have to include it and no, my jaw does not unhinge! Here's everyone enjoying their meal Here's the embarassing, let's get the entire restaurant to sing for you, moment (yes, that girl obviously wants a piece!) Here's everyone at the table going at it Thanks everyone for a wonderful dinner!!
And let's not forget the type of fun you have in San Francisco is always unpredictable. Check out this find on the walk home Looks like one of those telephone cup deals, but with a fish on the end of it.