Last weekend, Taryn and I set out for yet another adventure. On Friday night, Taryn took the LAX to Bakersfield Airport sketch-machine-on-wheels arriving at 10pm. I picked her up with 2 cups of coffee and a bag of pirate's booty ready to travel. We drove with our adrenaline and TamTam the TomTom leading the way. We took advantage of the time and the maps to plan our trip home. With the mind-numbing combination of adren
aline, caffeine, and a large bag of booty, we planned and we even made a theme our week of halloween trip home. The 5 hour trip flew by, possibly giving the illusion that the trip was quicker than it was. We arrived to find our lovely host, Rupal, waiting for us. Any normal person in this situation would have gone to bed, but we spent almost 2 hours talking and sharing stories. We reenacted our first half of the trip, talking about our late night drives and our encounters at Zion. We told her about the rule of suggestions, and when she asked if we had really done all of the suggestions, we said yes, with the exception of the Pinnicles. We talked until we decided that it was way too late, and that we had a big day ahead of us.
Rupal lives in Mountain View, about 45 miles away from the city. We woke up, had some breakfast and hit the road. We changed worlds a couple of times, diving in and out of mountains in the clouds until we reached the land of San Fran. I find that cities are generally all the same, with their outskirts looking dirty and brown, and their insides full of tall buildings with tall executives. I was excited by the amount of color. Pinks and purples and greens and reds. All blended tog
ether with houses that are literally on top of each other, rolling along the hills like waves. The overcast sky
was a welcome sight, and the cool air was the most refreshing taste of fall that I could have asked for. Our first top was the market. We had brunch just walking around tasting fruit, cheese, and dips. The art for sale was impressive as well, but not your run-of-the-mill craft fair prices, and so my only souvenir, a bracelet, was from China Town, our next adventure. We walked downtown until we heard it coming. We stood, looking up an impressive hill, the parallel parked cars ushering us up, their front wheels in perfect synchronization, guiding us to the sounds of gongs, be
lls, and sizzling foods. We reached the top, each pretending not to be out of breath, took a good look around and said "let's go that way." We wandered in an out of street vendors and performers, looking at the sky filled the red lanterns backlit by the
sporadic sun and intensely blue sky.
Our next adventure took us to the piers. We parked by Pier 39 and walked to Ghiradelli Square. The fruit we ate was quickly burned off during the China Town excursion and our stomachs were suddenly rumbling. Rupal, enduring a cultural fast of only fruit and water, allowed Taryn and I to make the call regarding food. Our legs must have hoarded all the energy from the fruit to propel our curious bodies, leaving nothing for our hungry frontal lobes therefore creating the perfect situation for poor decisions and impulsivity. The scene plays out like this:
Walking down a busy San Francisco street, Taryn and Amanda spot an In-n-Out burger joint.
Amanda: Look. An In-N-Out.
Taryn: People always say that is good.
Amanda: Yeah, people say it is the best.
Taryn: Should we go there?
Amanda: Yeah I'm so hungry.
Taryn and Amanda order a burger and fries each. They pay, wait for their food and then devour it quickly.
Taryn: I feel like crap.
Amanda: This place sucks.
Taryn: We're idiots.
Amanda: Yup.
Tip of the day: In-N-Out sucks. Don't believe what they say.
Jealous of Rupal's inborn cultural sense to eat natural and healthy things, we continued on our way to the Square. Upon arrival, we were immediately distracted by the ships that closely resembled pirate ships and had to investigate. We took fun pictures, caught a great glimpse of Alkatraz, and moved on to the Square. We spent a quick 10 minutes to get a free piece of chocolate and move on to the next destination. We walked back to pier 39 to walk around and see the sea lions before heading to the car to go to a park with a great view of the golden gate bridge.
As we rounded the corner of the street that brought us to the park, our eyes immediately went skyward and so did our excitement. A kite festival! This was better than we could have hoped for! We saw dragons and pirate ships denying gravity its desire to ground them. We saw the opportunity to make our own kites and took advantage immediately. Such a simple craft brought so much fun into a blustery and overcast sky. There were orange papers and pink streamers swirling and diving everywhere you looked. Strangers were suddenly friends when
their kites bonded and danced with strings entwined together. We even took the opportunity to fly our own wings. We tied a kite string to my sweatshirt pocket and attached a tail out my back pocket and Taryn had to hold on tight to keep me from soaring off and away through the mist over the golden gate bridge, or from buzzing the tops of the sky scrapers that disappear when you stand below them.
We drove until we got to a "secret" beach with a great view of the bridge. Taryn and I couldn't resist climbing the biggest rock we found to get an even better view. After a few minutes of taking fun pictures, we all decided we were tired and drove around the city for a bit before we headed back home.
Despite the fact that my esophagus felt like I swallowed a lighter and a match, we decided to go out to a sketchy local bar for some pool and darts. Although we discovered that there was no dart board (I use discover quite concretely because it was news to the bar tender that it was gone) we kept ourselves amused with games of ping pong and the local crowd. We stayed until close and snuck out without fulfilling the obligation to leave our numbers with the increasing amount of sketchy men.
We awoke early the next morning so that we could head to San Jose to visit a friend from college. Unfortunately due to technical mishaps and miscommunication, we realized as the time got later and later that we would not be able to make it there, eat, and then get to the bus at 5:30 for Taryn to leave at 6. Discussing options, we decided to go just a little west and hit up Salinas and Monterey Bay. We hit the road immediately to enable us to see as much of Steinbeck's home as possible. We whisked our way down route 1, trying to find out where in the mist the ocean was. We finally found it and laughed as we tore down the hill leading to the water. The waves were impressive, and the surfers tackling them were even more impressive. Knowing we were pressed for time, we left quickly and decided to head further south on route 1. The scene before us grew increasingly beautiful. The clouds disappeared almost immediately, leaving a view of the bay that was better than a postcard. The blueness of the water rivaled that of the sky, and the beach glistened in the sun. We took the next exit in hopes of finding a cafe with a quick breakfast. We found a perfect place just inland, where we were the only ones and the cook took our order and made us sandwiches that weren't even on the menu. While we waited, we calculated what time we had to leave. How long would it take to get from Salinas to Bakersfield? Let's see, mapquest said 3.5 hours. Lets say 4 to be safe. And we have to get there at 5:30? So if we leave by 2:30 we'll be fine. And no, that isn't a blogging typo.
With emotions as high as kites in San Fransisco, we found the road to Salinas and soared over the hilltops until we arrived into town. A quaint place that was inspirational to on
e of the greatest inspired us to grab a cup of joe and take a walk. When we failed to find the house that Steinbeck grew up in, we decided to get in the car and use the map to get there. We found it,
took some pictures, and made sure to get back in the car because we definitely had to make it back to Bakersfield by 5:30 so Taryn could make the last bus out of town. When we got in the car we realized we went over our time by 10 minutes. Could be worse. We turned on the GPS and plugged in home. And then we realized. We are idiots. Apparently not only does it take 5 hours, but we counted wrong too. The GPS estimated we would be back at 7 pm. The bus would be halfway to LA by the time we got to Bakersfield. Our only option was to get Taryn to the 3 AM bus. Knowing that the mistake was entirely ours, we laughed. And laughed. The only option we had was to find something fun to do along the way. Taryn opened up the map and scanned down the 101. The only option almost made our jaws fall off our face. The Pinnicles. You've got to be shitting me.
And so at that point we just decided that some sort of fate or destiny had stepped in allowing us to make the simple calculation error that caused us to be so late and for us to have decided to go to Salinas in the first place which would be taking us down the 101 to Bakersfield. Obviously, we had to go. We took the incredibly winding one lane road to the park, where we had no idea what to expect. We went inside the rangers office to get an idea of what to do. She gave us a map with the advice to take a trail up to the rim, and if we had a flashlight to come back through the cave. Perfect. Another splunking adventure! It was about 4:30 when we arrived, and we hiked for a short while. The bouldering was amazing, but without gear we were hesitant to do too much. We scrambled up rocks and laughed at the world and shouted "I love my life!" from a cliff. We occasionally just burst our laughing at ourselves, and really appreciated each other as a traveling companion. We decided that most people would probably be really angry that they had to catch the 3 am bus, or that they made a stupid mistake. For us, we couldn't have been happier. Anyway, what could we have done? It was meant to be.
Whether it was meant to be or we just have a wonderful tendency to only see the positives in life, I have decided that the mindset should be applied not only to travels and adventure, but all aspects of life as well. To be positive and productive in life is infectious, let's start an epidemic.
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