san francisco

We arrived in San Francisco Sunday afternoon. We had meant to be there Saturday evening, but we took out time getting there.









We drove over the bridge, because you have to. I felt victorious. We had arrived in one piece.



At the same time, It's just a bridge. other than the sentimental value, the only thing special about it is the colour.

So we had left 2 days earlier on a whim, which is excellent. However, it meant that when we arrived that afternoon we were going in completely blind. We had no maps, no knowledge of the city, no contacts, and no place to stay. I had assumed we would just sleep in the car, as that would be the cheapest way to survive, however by that time the car was starting to smell, and the reality of living in it with another person for 4 days was probably far more problematic than we imagined. So we assumed that hostels would be a far better, only slightly more expensive way to live.

We started driving aimlessly, looking for parking, or just whatever. I wanted to find an internet cafe to look up places to stay, tyler wanted to find amoeba records and ask the clerks what to do. This because he has a romanticized idea of how useful record store clerks and is inherently social, and I have a extremely low expectations of humanity and charity in general, and I am inherently anti social and don't like meeting new people. I like knowing new people, but i find meeting them weird. So we end up just driving around with no map looking for stuff, and this proves to be EXTREMELY stressful. SF hates cars. a LOT. Their streets are cramped and about half are one way, you can't turn left anywhere, there are several 5 and 3 way intersections, bus only lanes develop with no warning, there are cars everywhere, people everywhere, and literally no parking anywhere. This would all be hard enough in a regular car in a city I knew, but being lost, and driving an suv with very poor rear visibility it all amounted to an overwhelming stress level. This was the first part of the trip that was genuinely unpleasant. The flat tire the day before had almost meant losing a day and a half to waiting, but that was all part of the adventure and the new tire and the oc song made that all happier still. This was different, this was me getting freaked out and being difficult, and it sucked.
We managed to find parking and an internet cafe staffed by super sexy Korean girls. We ask them where to stay and several locals pipe in with suggestions, everyone is super friendly. Tyler sends a message to the guys at fecalface.com asking if anyone wants to house us. fecal face is an awesome site and has provided tyler with most of his knowledge of the city.
So we head towards the hostels, yell at each other over driving, and let him out on a very cracky block to check us in while i make a spiral search pattern looking for parking and discovering that to drive in this city you have to be Aggressive with a capital A. I am freaked the fuck out by now, and my mental state is made far worse by the news that there are no hostels available, period. Tyler called them all, no vacancy. So we drive more and discuss options, and to calm down we go to an awesome little diner and get great burgers and are given free crab cakes, continuing the get something free everywhere theme of the trip. We stay there for like two hours and I calm down, and we discuss the possibility of going to LA, and also get confirmation that Greg is going to fly down to meet us, and will arrive tomorrow. Tyler really wants to go to disneyland and get drunk, I really want to go to mbar and go surfing. surfing was a major goal this trip. A two year old kid who with gold chains and khakis, who looks like he should own a two year old dry cleaner has been running around the restaurant and starts throwing up everywhere. We drink coffee and feel better and decide to stay in sf, since just getting to L.A and back will eat almost all of our remaining days, and plus L.A is widely considered to be a terrible place. We are looking for sunday night hipster action so we went to Valencia st, and wander around. We pass an indie rock show that sounds good, but move along with the intent to come back. We find a crowd of people and ingratiate ourselves. They tell us that a good place to go if you want to meet the people instead of seeing the tourist facade, we should go to a hole in the wall called the phone booth. We go and it has the best bartender ever, so friendly. He makes my double screwdriver by filling it with 85% vodka and just dripping orange juice into the top. It's great. We meet some people and have awesome talks about movies and c+c machines, and bakeries and the growing meth epidemic and how much we hate anime. It's really fun and relaxed. Then we go back to the indie rock club but the show is over. We start talking to the people outside and they invite us to go have burgers with them and one of the bands.
"They" are three girls. Natalie, Anna, and ultraattractiveyogainstructor whose name I forget. Natalie and U.A.Y.I.W.N.I.F live an hour inland in the desert, with husbands and kids. Both are incredibly attractive. Natalie is super funny and has 4 kids and is 24, ages 6-2 weeks. She is taking everyone out to dinner and is awesome. UAYIWNIF is a little older, also super hot, The band is called Skybox, and the other girl works at the local radio station, is a little hyperactive and has rolly shoes. We eat awesome burgers with avaocado and the band is then a little less starving and full of nice guys (at least, on my side of the table). We talk about stuff and life and music and I have a good time. ADVENTURE! We decide not to go crash at Anna's house with the band cause we're both afraid of aids, but we don't say that. Natalie and UAYIWNIF (who might be named Beth, but either way has become far more attractive the more she talks. Girls like them give me hope in life, they hit all the right notes and make having a wife seem like the best idea ever) drop us off at our car, and we wish that we had a hotel room to invite them too, but they had to take their kids to preschool the next day. but holy shit, MILFS.



We decided to sleep at the airport that night ina glamorous overnight parking lot, to more easily pick up greg the next day.



After a good sleep with an unpleasant wake up, covered in sweat and lying in the sun, I found these sunglasses that I thought looked awesome. I wish I'd been drunk always so I could have an excuse to keep wearing them. Waiting at the airport didn't work out, so we drive back into the city to wait.





You must admit, it piques the curiosity.

We picked up Greg with no real issues, then drove around for a bit and eventually found the Treasure Island naval base. This is the view from the gates.








It was a good thing that Greg came down when he did. By that point, three days in with the stress of driving and parking in the city, Tyler and I were getting close to strangling each other. With a new person to balance things, tensions faded.

We went north to Petaluma to find a campsite. We had a burger king eating contest and then we stayed in a cabin at the KOA. it was some much needed downtime.