inland can be cool too

Day 24

Mileage 4185

The post-Big Sur depression continued from Carmel-by-the-Sea into the campground we found for that night (our first KOA of the trip, which was connected to an equestrian resort). You leave a place like Big Sur and it's hard to believe you'll see anything that beautiful again. You just keep wanting to turn around and go back. It was the middle of the week, and the KOA campground was almost deserted, so it was actually pretty nice. I thought so at least. Curt was annoyed by KOA's marketing. They call their restroom and laundry areas 'Comfort Stations' and the flat open field where we pitched our tent was called Amber Meadows or Golden Fields or something else that sounded vaguely like both a microbrew and a suburban development. Aside from that, though, since the campground was empty, so was the associated beach access. Having the ocean to ourselves for a little while helped us cope with no longer being in Big Sur. 'Surfing' the sand dunes also helped. (The following morning, we tried to jog the beach, though. I am now convinced that being compelled to jog through sand falls under the category of cruel and unusual punishment. That's the first and last time I'll be doing that.)

Later that day, we were in San Francisco, but I'm not going to talk about that yet since we went back to the city later...

This is a West Coast trip, for the most part at least, but we took a jaunt inland to visit Wine Country, attend a kickass wedding and venture out to a relative's hidden paradise in Chico. Remember pseudo-cousin Brittany from San Diego? We stayed at her dad's place in Sonoma, where Alison's (another pseudo-cousin) wedding was. In Chico, we stayed with my dad's cousin Marcia. Remember Ben from LA? That's his mom. And for all this, my mom, dad, sister Chloe and her boyfriend Alex were in California to enjoy the festivities with us. Now that you're thoroughly confused...

Alison and Graham's wedding was the most fun I've had at a wedding since my own. It's a little cliche to call a wedding magical, but it's sometimes also true. Set in a Sonoma ranch on a day with perfect weather, local wine, delicious home-brew beer, and unbelievable food, the bride was radiant, the groom couldn't have looked happier, and the overall vibe was peaceful and perfect. Not to mention the music. Alison and Graham and a good number of their friends are classical musicians, Alison's sister does musical theater in New York City, and Graham's brother and father are folk musicians. So the whole 'get your friends and family to provide the music for your wedding' thing was a little different at this one.

Sonoma in general (and Ross and Anita's place specifically) was a pretty great party as well. Anita is Ross's amazing Irish wife, who was the officiant at the wedding, is the best host anyone could ask for, and she can also play the flamenco on her guitar. I learned this late one night in Sonoma around the campfire. I learned a couple other things around the late night campfires there as well... and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Onto Chico then. Less of a party, more of a zen retreat. I've been missing my yoga classes while being on the road and Marcia's place made me miss them even more. You pull up to her house and you almost expect to see people doing sun salutations. And it suits Marcia, as she's about as zen a person as you'll ever meet. The first thing we did when we arrived, after being enthusiastically greeted by her chocolate lab Sequoia, was go swimming in the river behind her house. The water was cool, but not nearly as cold as the ocean, and Chico, being a few hours inland, was about 30 degrees hotter than the coast, so it felt great. Sequoia accompanied us and kicked our asses in terms of negotiating the current. That night we slept under the stars and I woke up thinking I might just move into Marcia's spare room for the remainder of the summer and say screw it to the rest of the coast.

But plans are plans (even when 'plans' means dodging responsibilities for the summer to travel the country), so we packed up the car once again and continued on. Not before making a pit stop at the Sierra Nevada brewery though. If you find yourself in Chico on a 94 degree day (and you're not lucky enough to know Marcia and be invited to swim in the river in the canyon and watch salmon leap in the water as you cool off), then your next best bet is to visit the Sierra Nevada brewery. The brewery itself is interesting, there's a great mural about the process of beer making, and the company is so environmentally responsible you'll feel like a good samaritan just by enjoying some of their tasty beer (and it is tasty). To top it all off, the food at their restaurant is incredible and we practically bought one of everything at the gift shop because the prices are nearly wholesale (apparently the owner of the company considers is advertising and thus doesn't want to mark up the prices). Seriously - we bought Sierra Nevada logo pint glasses on sale for a dollar. And then we bought everything else...

Okay - San Francisco. I think I dodged writing about it earlier because I'm not exactly sure how to write about it. I've been thinking about it a lot though and here's what I think it is. San Francisco is, for whatever reason, one of those cities I idealized in my head as I was growing up. The cable cars, the central California coast, Rice-a-Roni, etc etc. I did the same thing with Seattle (the birthplace of the American coffee house!), but the difference is that when I went to Seattle - knowing no one and with no objective other than to wander around the city and take it all in - it lived up to all my silly expectations. (Stay tuned in a couple weeks to see if it's the same the second time around.)

This isn't to say that I didn't like San Francisco. I just never got comfortable in the three days we were there. It was like an awkward first date. Or a first date with a guy you admired from afar but now you think he might be a drug dealer. San Francisco and I need a little more time to get to know each other.

But we don't have it. Not during this trip, at least. So for now, my mixed first impression will have to suffice.

Curt and I first arrived in San Francisco past-KOA campground/equestrian resort and pre-Sonoma. Our very first San Francisco experience was pulling into downtown having no idea where we were and being immediately confronted with streets so vertical it looked like you'd need a pulley system just to get your car up them and one-ways as far as the eye could see, somehow always going opposite the direction you expected them to. A bit of a rough start, maybe, but we've driven in Duluth, so the hills weren't so shocking (at least they weren't covered in ice) and every city has one-ways, so we were fine. Once the car was parked - and the emergency break set - the next job was finding lodging for the night. Downtown San Francisco has plenty of places to stay, but when you're on a budget in an unfamiliar city it's always a bit of a challenge. We're getting a little too old to do the 12 bed hostel room anymore and we also declined a very affordable private room at a hostel that was at the end of an alley next door to a 'massage' business with red lights and velvet curtains, settling for the somewhat less affordable though still very reasonable room at the Fitzgerald with a complimentary breakfast, a cool old school elevator, and less chance of bumping into a prostitute.

The Fitzgerald was also conveniently located close to a couple of the places my friend Sarah (who was a San Franciscan for a few years and is now back in Minneapolis) recommended. We tried The Hemlock, which was on a totally normal block in the city, and our hotel was on a totally normal block in the city as well, but the seven blocks in between were decidedly sketchy. Nonetheless, The Hemlock was a cool bar with a good beer selection and it seemed like one of those places where everybody knew everybody. While we were there, the bartender took off his shirt to show one of the customers his tattoos. And it probably would have been even cooler if we had known anyone there and not been the token non-tattooed Midwesterners, but whatever. Walking back down the sketchy blocks while it was still light out, we stopped at the bar Rye on our way back to the hotel. A little more of a yuppie crowd, and no bartenders taking their shirts off, but they served the best cocktails I've ever had. The back of the bar looked more like an organic salad bar than anything else, and it took the bartenders about 10 minutes to make the things, but the drinks were to die for.

Back in San Francisco some days later with Chloe and Alex, we found a great $2 Tuesday special at a great, ritzy little bar with a live deejay and friendly servers. Only problem was that we passed a minimum of five drug deals on our way there. No joke. The rest of San Francisco was much the same - very cool little places with some pretty uncool stretches in between. City Lights bookstore was the hangout for the Beats and is definitely worth visiting. Ritual coffee house in the Mission district was also great. I guess my San Francisco advice for now would be to take the cable car (which is not a trolley - San Franciscans will correct you) and ride it to as many places as you can. It's a little touristy, a little dorky, but it's also totally fun.