This After That

The weather has been strange this summer. It was kind of cold and rainy throughout June and as the heat came with July, the rain stayed. Things at work have slowed due to what some refer to as ‘the economy’. Thankfully, I got a break from it all and went on a great vacation to San Francisco with Ali. It went like this:



So, I drove up to Minneapolis after work on a Wednesday. I awoke early the next day to ensure I would be able to get a chocolate croissant so that I might have the necessary energy to travel all the way to San Francisco. I got to San Francisco and met Ali in the airport where we got on the BART into the city. The moment we boarded the plane we were informed that Michael Jackson was dead. This set the stage for a certain vacation soundtrack as it was also pride week and from what I understand, gay folk enjoy some MJ.



The Lady and I saw many a wonderful sight traveling around the city via either cable car, train, or mini cooper. We stayed with some delightfully entertaining friends of Ali’s family, Tony & Lisa. The former is an Italian guy from New York. The latter was, and is, a hippie. They both used to work in, and met at, a zoo. He worked with wolves and she with Chimps. We ate an amazing amount of great food. Sourdough bread never tasted or smelled so good. We also had the opportunity to hang out with Ali’s friend Denise and her fiance Miguel as well as with my good friend Mason and his girlfriend Emily.



I know you might assume and even though we did go to it, our main reason for being in San Francisco was to go to Ali’s cousin’s wedding; not the Gay Pride Parade. The wedding was very Catholic and the reception was very fancy. We were taken to the reception after the ceremony via double-decker bus so we got to see a few things on our way to Ghirardelli Square where we arrived to find that we were in a private room overlooking the wharf and would be served wine and hors d’oeuvres on silver platters. Of course I had to be introduced to a multitude of really nice and interesting people and then we had our obligatory dance to Michael Jackson before calling it a night.



The last few days of our trip we were fortunate enough to be put up in a bed & breakfast on Haight street where we checked out Amoeba Records and dodged the homeless as best we could. All of the aforementioned goodness was captured with Ali’s camera and most of it can be viewed on her facebook page.



The images you see here are just a couple of pics from our last day when we rented a car and went across The Golden Gate Bridge to hike in Muir Woods. Fortunately for us but unfortunately for most of my pictures, this was the only foggy day of our trip.