Where on earth is...

Sunday: Scavenger Hunt Day.

Every once in a while a friend (JaNaie') throws a scavenger hunt. It's a pretty big deal... She has a flow chart she uses to keep track of where people are, and what clues each group is supposed to find and in what order... Fun times. We finished the day at Columbo's eating pizza, drinking beer, and playing the video games there until Colt broke them. Ruined our fun, AND ruined the fun of every child in the room. Thanks, Colt.

The Team fresh out of Hastings. On to the next clue! On the right, we're putting together one of our clues...

Hunting in the bowling alley. Colt got a strike on the first try and Whitney had to take a picture of the score.

Clue: impossible to find because it's in the wrong section children's book. We had to find a ball at the end of a tangled string on the car. Last pic is in the car.

Pics taken by cellphone.

COIT Tower

Stacie and I went on a hike to COIT tower. Apparently some lady that was romantically involved with a fireman donated a bunch of money and some stupid tower to the city of SF. Not a lot of pictures of this, but I'll give it my best description.

Stacie insisted on going WAY out of the way to hike some stairs (like a million stairs) to get to this tower. There are a couple pictures from that. Once we got to the tower, there was a gift shop roughly the size of a shoe-box if it were wrapped around a tall garbage can (that would be the tower). You have to buy a ticket for a few dollars to go to the top of this mega-trash can.

Once yo uhave your ticket, you pile into an elevator roughly the size of a toe nail (sticking with the trash-can/shoebox analogy scaling). Standing room only. You'd better have good breath or keep your goddamn mouth shut. The tour guide rambled on about the history of the trash can, but I couldn't understand a word of it. His breath was't very good either.

Once you reach the top of the elevator, you have to go up a spiral flight of stairs - more stairs... Along the way, you pass by all the other people that got to the top of the trash can, and decided they wanted to go back down. This line is a long line. It's nice they give you something to look forward to...

The rim of the can: big windows, extremely crowded with both tourists trying to get a good view of the fog and people who saw the fog waiting in line to go back down the elevator. FAIL. We looked around, elbowed a bunch of people, laughed at some people doing Segway Tours, and then got in line to go back down. The tour guide had a second speech for the trip back down which was equally stinky and muddled.

We left the tower in search of Lombard Street. Stacie had the map and was reading it upside down. More walking... Apparently, Lombard street was on the EXACT OPPOSITE side of us...

Pictures:

Some rich person's back yard, and some other rich person's outside wall...


A view from the top.

Hey Stacie, find Lombard Street!!! "OOh, here it is!"

Exploratorium!

This was a detour going across the bridge. Lots of fun to be had tinkering with things. I felt like a kid again, except taller, and disappointed at having to pay to get in (something I never did as a kid).

Standing outside the Exploratorium. Cool "us" pic on the left. Top right: Stacie trying to figure out her camera... On the bottom: Dogs walking Dogs. Not as cool as Dogs Playing Poker, but a good photo-op nonetheless.


Sitting on the blue seat, you can talk to someone on the other side of the room sitting in a similar blue seat. Doesn't sound cool, but the effect is neater than you think. Stacie did not appreciate some of the demos as much as others...


So we left for the rest of the Golden Gate.

Stacie and Denver do The Golden Gate

One fateful Friday of my visit to SF was dedicated to bikes Stacie and I rented. We toured the piers, the Exploratorium (a HS science teacher's wet dream), biked the bridge, drank in Saucelito, waited in line for 4 hours to catch a ferry back to the city, returned the bikes, got in a fight which resulted in the only 5 peaceful minutes of my entire visit to SF, found Safeway, showered, got drunk, had my pizza stolen, and finally passed out after finding Stacie's apartment without using a map or a compass (a god damned miracle).

The bridge from a distance. This is near when we started our little journey.

And we're off!!! Neat picture of a park, also, Stacie riding along the bay. No pigeons were harmed biking this day.

My favorite picture of the bridge.

The bridge up close... You can only see 3 people now, but there was a serious opportunity to rack up an impressive body count biking down that narrow path... Our situation got desperate, as Stacie demonstrates reaching for the "Don't jump, somebody cares about you." The prospect of drinking in a new town was enough to keep us going...


This is the only real photo taken in Saucelito. Another one exists on my phone, but it is very poor quality. This was a very brave pigeon, needless to say, so I took his picture. He wandered around in the sandwich shop where we ate and made his way behind the counter eating scraps off the floor. I'm sure this was in some violation of a health code, but it would have been a shame to stop him, having worked so hard to get back there...

The great bicycle bell protest of 2008. Waiting in line for 4 hours to ride a ferry back into the city. The ferry was not accepting bicyclists. The line to get on the ferry was several hundred bikers long. We protested the only appropriate way we knew how. When that was ignored, we resorted to boo's, angry yelling, and re-routing non cyclists (who were given priority) to a different line entirely.

We did finally get on the ferry to go back to the city. In these photos, Stacie demonstrates the meaning of "photogenic." Nice. Also, a lovely view of the bridge from the Ferry.

I couldn't resist adding this one...

Alcatraz and the city from the ferry.

Happiest 20 minutes of the day - trying to get off the ferry.

Sadly, there aren't any other pictures from the rest of the day. The short version is I got annoyed and told Stacie she couldn't talk to me. I found Safeway. We both got drunk. I cock-blocked Stacie. Stacie stole my pizza. I got frumpy, angry, and disoriented. Stacie and I were drunk and yelling at each other. I ended up back at her place but don't remember how. Went inside and passed out.

Denver and Stacie Do Alcatraz

I was bored one afternoon at work, and found a ride on craigslist headed to SF. Found another one headed back to MT later in the week. Thursday night I called the guy headed to SF, Friday I found coverage at work. Saturday I typed out a To-Do list for the guy covering me. I was gone on Sunday, and drinking coffee with Stacie Monday morning.

First thing's first... Lets get drunk and go to Alcatraz! We are most definitely anti-prohibition.

Next stop, The Rock!

The ferry captain told us "If you two stand out in front like that you will get wet!" We took funny pictures and DARED him to soak us.


Famous last words: "You know, for warning us about getting wet, I'm REALLY dry right n...*SPLASH*" We were splashed several times after the initial spraying, and remained outside until the salty wet was too much to deal with. We were almost to the door to get inside and got NAILED by the biggest wave yet. We didn't stop laughing for 10 minutes.



As you can see, Stacie was still wet upon incarceration. I've been trying to think of a good caption for this picture and only came up with "You must be 56" tall (the green line) to go on the tour." and "Welcome to OZ bitch!"

Misc pics from inside Alcatraz. In the picture on the top right, I was learning something. Top left is a cell (a guest bedroom of sorts). The bottom left is a view of the solitary confinement cells. Bottom right is the playground. This is where the inmates were allowed to play kickball, four-square, handball, and their own special version of UFC.

Thug Life with a view...

More misc pictures. No good captions. Ending the tour and headed back to the city. We sat on the back of the ferry this time, and didn't get wet.



Stacie and I were CLEARLY drunk and loving life when this picture was taken. Standing in ferry line to get to The Rock, the tour people take pictures of you against a background showing the island.

Tour Tickets: ?? (Stacie paid...)
Beers: $18
Pre-Tour Pictures: $22
Ending the tour by taking a picture OF a $22 picture, re-racking the picture and calling everyone else standing in line waiting to pay $22 for a picture suckers: Priceless.