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left coast part 1….san fran • 05.25.09

lil and i headed out west to see the best of no cal. i hadn’t been to san fran since i worked there back in 2000. hard to believe i could go 9 years without seeing a city i love this much. first stop was chinatown…..best bakery in san fran (as far as i know) is the golden gate bakery. PHENONEMAL egg custart tart. remember their baked goods for a subsequent blog post. or, should i say, “remember their baked goods for a subsequent blog post, lillis” as you are the only person who reads this and you bader me to post, even though you were there for every bit of it. i am toying with the idea of typing the rest of this post directly to lillis. thinking. nah. ok, anyway, we then proceeded on for some extremely authentic chinese food.
it’s a commonly known fact that you…um, i mean lillis….will eat anything, and she was not at all frightened by this place.
i took her picture in front of a trolley just moments before the great nob hill meltdown of ’09 occurred.
i took this pic of the trolley coming up hyde street (i believe) with alcatraz in the background as lillis was in the middle of her 4 hour nap.

and then i made my way over to lombard street. honestly, not that impressed, but i figured, it’s one of those things that eventually you should see.
that evening (after we woke the princess up from her slumber) we went to farallon. it is indubitably one of my most favorite restaurants ever and it did not dissapoint.
the next morning we got up and took the bus over towards the cliff house restaurant and seal rock
afterwards we headed out to the golden gate bridge.

lillis insisted on bringing big al, so he could see the golden gate bridge….

that evening we went to fisherman’s wharf (which was about 173% more touristy than i had remembered). the highlight there, however, was the sourdough breadbowl soup at boudin. that night we had considered going to catch some music at “top of the mark” (the restaurant/bar at the top of our hotel – the intercontinental), but instead decided that sleeping would be a good way to spend the evening. chance said this kind of behavior was indicative of growing up….i say it’s indicative of growing old.
the next morning, it was up and over to washington square for bfast and coffee and then on to coit tower on telegraph hill. i loved how peaceful it was over there and the views were splendid.

afterwards, we called for our rental car pickup, stopped by rei to buy lil some new shoes and to buy us both some power bars and some energy goo, and headed on out to yosemite.

Posted in Outdoors+Sports, Travelwith 1 Comment →

Weekend in Chi-town • 05.17.09

Lil had to be in chicago for work the week before Labor Day so we took the opportunity to hit the city for a weekend. we got off to a slow start. plane delayed an hour. they were offering $400 per ticket to catch a flight the next day b/c they were oversold. Lil wanted to take the money and run. i suggested we go ahead and get in. well, we got on the plane and two minutes later the pilot announces that the landing gear is messed up and we’re deplaning (9pm on friday night). i was kicking myself assuming we still wouldn’t fly out til saturday, and we’d be $800 poorer. well, as luck would have it, the next plane was even smaller (btw, lil was perfectly sweet thoughout this entire time period and never once got grumpy about the flight situation. at least, that’s what i have to say or else she triggers electric currents through my body). i held out for $1K and a hotel room and lil and i beded down at the airport marriot in atlanta to wait for our 8:30AM flight. flight went off without a hitch and we were in downtown chicago by noon. i was AMAZED at how “in bloom” chicago was. flowers everywhere (despite mid-day highs in the high 50’s, low 60’s). they were opening the modern art wing of the art institute just across michigan avenue from our hotel (the palmer house hilton – fabulous). so, there was music and dancers and people everywhere. good times.

here lil dips her toes in the slightly frigid water in grant park. really a much more phenomenal park than i had remembered.

the “bean” in grant park. i have no idea what it’s really called, but it is a pretty neat effect.

and it provided a good backdrop for lillis’ headstand

the bean, it’s great morning, noon and night!

the next day we met collie and christy and the kids for brunch in lincoln park and then went to a cubs game……anyone who knows lillis knows she’s pretty, um, frugal. so you can imagine how cold she was to spend 40 bucks on a wrigley field hoodie sweatshirt. she spent most of the game rocking in her chair like leo mazzone.

but it was all good in the sunshine afterwards. we had a great weekend and then set our gaze towards california.

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jeremy’s bachelor party in park city • 03.01.09

short post here…..we went to park city to celebrate jeremy’s bachelor party (he gets married in late may – i should know the date).

it wasn’t as wild as it might have been 5 years ago, but neither am i. we spent most of our time on the mountain or in the “hot pool”. that sounds a little gross, but it is just a pool, that is kept hot tub hot, not any sort of fetish-thing. so, it mostly consisted of hit the slopes all day long, then drink some beers in the pool and overpay through the nose for food at night before going to sleep and doing it all over again the next day. i was a little stunned that every restaurant in Park City is still WAY over priced and way packed. numerous places told us they could seat us at 5pm or 11pm, but not in between. it seems they are not aware there is a recession going on. maybe mitt’s people have something figured out and we should have listened to him…..i dunno?

anyway, we had a good time and returned with no serious injuries – no small feat indeed. the video below has a few clips of us snowboarding and several of us making fun of cory (who was a very good sport). enjoy

Posted in Outdoors+Sports, Travel, Uncategorizedwith Comments Off on jeremy’s bachelor party in park city

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