stripethree

For the long weekend and in celebration of me getting that much closer to ‘old’, which according to my 11 year old cousin hits at precisely 30 (thanks Alyssa), Summer and I spent the weekend in Pinetop, about 4 hours northeast of Tucson. It rained a bit over the weekend, but we got in some hiking and generally had a relaxing time. The place was nice, built on the outside to look like a log cabin but well furnished inside. The balcony even had a gas grill, which we certainly made good use of. Summer described it as, ‘This is camping for people like you, the people that don’t actually want to go camping’. I think she got it about right; I do like pools, hot tubs, grills, and real beds and roofs where I choose to ‘camp’.

Summer and I flew off to San Fran for the long Independence Day weekend where we did a lot of walking and I took a lot of pictures.

We did a lot of the touristy stuff I didn’t do when I was in town last March like ride the trolley cars and we spent a lot of time down in the Fisherman’s Wharf area including Ghirardelli Square. Thursday evening we did a boat cruise to Alcatraz Island which included a walking and audio tour (which was much better than it might sound) of portions of the prison. It was foggy, which certainly contributed to the already creepy atmosphere created by the slowly decaying structures.

Walking around the inside was pretty intense.

Friday we walked around to sight see, including walking through Chinatown, hiking up to Lombard Street then down to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream.

We also went to Olivia’s for a BBQ on the 4th, which was great since I haven’t seen her since last March and because Summer had never met her. After that we got on a boat again for another cruise, this one went down to the Bay Bridge, around Angel Island, over to the Bay Bridge, and finally settled in with other boats for us to watch the fireworks.

Saturday we walked around more, I swear we walked 5 miles last weekend, and met up with Rebecca and Chuck who drove down from Sacramento, where they just moved about a week prior. It was great to see them because I don’t think I had since their wedding two years ago! We got food, walked through Chinatown and back down to Fisherman’s Wharf, then got more food. =)

It was an excellent weekend and we came back with sore legs, good chocolate, and lots of pictures. Part of this visit was to see if we were interested in moving to San Fran, and I think we are pretty sure the answer is no. The expense and the weather, and, well, another city we have in mind play a role in that.

Oh monsoon season. How I was not thrilled to experience your effects through the ceiling of my bedroom. Nothing awful, but there was the small irony of coming home from buying a new, real bed (thankfully not here, but will be next Monday) to leaks in the bedroom ceiling. Looks like the drainage above my place and the apartment adjacent to me could not handle the wind and rain, got clogged, and thus, water in the bedroom! The apartment place has fixed the drainage issue, and a day’s worth of airing out the bedroom seems to have gotten rid of any musty smell. There’s some nice stains on the ceiling and I’ll have to make sure they come back to make sure there’s no standing water to grow something ugly. That was Saturday.

Sunday we went tubing on the Salt River up in Mesa, which was pretty fabulous. There were ten of us and multiple coolers of beer (ok, and some bottled water) floating down the river for a few hours. Yes, you can rent tubes to float your cooler with you. It’s obvious some other groups had this down to a science, including multiple person floats that could hold a party our size all at once. People had radios, one group even had marshmallows, more of which they seemed to throw at others than actually eat. We simply rented tubes and had some good will sourced sheets to wrap them in since sitting in a black rubber tube in the Arizona summer heat is about as comfortable as putting our hand on a hot stove. We attempted such glorious feats as: shotgun that beer because the cooler is full, how fast can three people drain the bottle of Arbor Mist, can I stand on my inner tube while floating down the river and if so can I empty a Miller Lite while doing so, and how much river water did that beer get into it and should I keep drinking it. There was even the occasional projectile seaweed fight.

Good times, and the weather was good too, wasn’t even that hot. For Arizona, at least.

Life is rough in Tucson on a long weekend.

Friday night, went to the usual Starbucks VW gig at Grant & Swan, good times as always. Something about going to one of these things when your car is running right just feels good. Skipped out on the Applebee’s portion of the evening to head down to a bar/club for some drinks and shakin’. Very good times. Saturday was a lazy morning, followed by some much needed wardrobe additions thanks to a graduation gift from my grandparents, then to the pool. Sunday, more pool time and Pirates 3. Hello Keira Knightley. Good movie, very entertaining, I think better than the second. Today, went hiking up at Mount Lemmon and to Rose Canyon Lake.

Beautiful scenery. Company was great too.

I will finish off this evening with laundry, ice cream, and Sporanos reruns. All great weekends end too soon.

Another Friday and another full weekend ahead. Last night was the first night in over a week and a half I didn’t have somewhere to be or something that required attention after work. Spent most of it on the phone catching up with people, something I get told I do not do enough of. It brought some surprises and some understanding, yeah I know that’s vague. I had this whole thing written yesterday about the whole enjoying the single life freedom versus missing having a significant other dilemma written and myspace ate it when I tried to post. I don’t feel like re-writing it, but it goes with the phone conversation comment. Oh well, I don’t know what to do with my situation (or lack thereof?), so I’ll do the smart thing (sarcasm), do nothing about it, and let it work itself out! Yeah, that’ll work… I just don’t have the energy at the moment to really write coherently, but I don’t think anyone reads this anyway, so that doesn’t matter either! Yeesssssss! So yeah, it’s Friday…

…and only a week until Waterfest weekend. I am very hyped. Never been to Waterfest before and it should be a blast. Car is about as ready as it’s going to get, but could just some detail attention. Nothing else is going on until after the weekend in dirty Jersey and after the next round of additions, that will likely be it for a while. Who am I kidding, I keep saying that something else comes up, haha. Oh well. Is it the weekend yet?