I signed up for this about a week ago, and I'll hopefully be able to run a marathon by the end of the year. I've been running a lot lately trying to increase my stamina. I can run about 4-5 miles right now, but this weekend I'm going to try a long run of at least 10 miles. I just need to find a route long enough to accomodate my run...

I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time last weekend. As I was driving across, I did the tourist thing and took pictures. I'll get the pictures up by this weekend I think, but they'll mostly be of my arm and various parts of my Jeep. It's hard simultaneously driving and being a photograhper.

Last Saturday, Scott, Gina, Karla, Michelle, and I went up to North Beach in the city for some pizza and drinks. I was the chauffeur that night. Whenever I'm the driver I always seem to have little adventures. Originally I was just going to drive Scott and myself up to the city, but then Michelle asked for a ride, then Gina, and then Karla. So I picked up Scott, headed up the 101 and then picked up Gina, so far no problems. I didn't get back on the freeway but instead went up one of the major roads here called El Camino Real to then pick up Michelle. Again no problems. No here's where the fun begins. I have no clue where Karla lives, so I asked her to give directions to Scott for her place because I would forget if she told me. We're driving up another freeway called the 280 looking for the "Monterrey Rd." exit as per Karla's directions. We keep on driving, and driving, and driving, until we reach the city and the end of the freeway. Gina calls Karla up and Karla says the exit is on the South bound side of the freeway! lol. I make a U-turn, which isn't necessarily an easy thing in the city, and get back on the 280 south. We find the Monterrey exit and then off into the side streets we go. Karla lives in a very hilly neighborhood where the roads are steep and narrow. Gina calls Karla again so Karla can give us step by step instructions to her place. About 15 minutes and 1000 vertical feet later, we find Karla's place and pick her up. She and her boyfriend have a really spiffy place. Well with all my passengers in tow, we now finally head into the city again.

The fun doesn't stop yet...

So we get into the city again and head into North Beach. Gina mentions that there is a parking lot with cheap rates right next to a police station. We head into North Beach on Washington and make a right onto Columbus, the main street in North Beach. Just as I do this, Gina sees the parking lot across the intersection. So of course we have to head back, but it's not as simple as making a U-turn. A lot of the streets in San Francisco are one way so in order to make a "U-turn" you have to go around for a bit until you find a block which you can make a loop and then head back to where you came from. Well it took me about 15 minutes of maneuvering in and out of traffic until we finally made it back to the parking structure that Gina saw earlier. We drive in and find parking relatively easy. As we were walking out we see that the "cheap" rate aren't really that cheap but are rather expensive. Evidently this isn't the parking structure Gina was thinking about earlier. We ask the attendant where the police station is so we can find the other parking strcutre and head out again paying the $3 for the 2 minutes that we were in parking structure. Gina finally remembers that the police station is on Pacifica a few blocks up. However she remembers a bit too late and I miss the turn onto Pacifica, so again we have to do the convoluted u-turn to get back onto Pacifica. As we turn on to Pacifica we see the parking structure shining like a beacon piercing the thick coastal fog. We park and head out to the pizza place, which she says has awesome pizza.

Thing was though, she couldn't remember where the pizza place was except that it was on Green and across the street from O'Malley's. We find O'Malley's but rather than the pizza place being across the street a funeral home is there instead. We wander around a bit and finally ask someone for directions while Gina repeatedly mumbles "I thought it was opposite O'Malley's" to herself making her seem quite the asylum candidate. So we get directions and head to the pizza place, which was across the street but it was across a different street.

We settled down, had a few slices, got a pitcher of bud light, and talked for a bit. After we went to Savoy Tivolis just down the block and remained there for the night just hanging out. A good night despite the parking adventures, which I found fun anyway.

This entry was posted on 1.27.2005 at 08:34. You can skip to the end and leave a response.