Day Thirteen: Oakland and San Francisco

In keeping with tradition, we failed to get out of Keith’s house for quite some time on the morning of Day Thirteen. But when we did, we cruised to the Oakland waterfront where Keith and Tammy operate California Canoe and Kayak. We got the VIP treatment and went out onto the estuary in several brightly colored vessels. None of us had kayaked before, but we got the hang of it reasonably fast, although we went very slow along the route. Zach, who inexplicably wore The Heaviest Shorts in the World, capsized around the middle of the outing. With Jason and Andy’s expert guidance, he got back into the boat, but his shorts retained the weight of the bay until he disposed of them.

There are no pictures of this because we didn’t want to waterlog our digital cameras, but other highlights transpired when:

• Andy pushed each of us backwards by luring us over with calls of “there’s something on the front of your boat!”
• Ferrett failed to navigate around a floating barrier set up by the Coast Guard.
• Jason fought a bloody battle with the barnacles.

All in all, it worked out swell, and here is the TVP (a very useful acronym coined by Keith--"Typical Van Picture") proof:

After that, we went to sunny, busy San Francisco. We waded through traffic on the Bay Bridge and then made our way to Fisherman’s Wharf, where we targeted an In-N-Out Burger for some West Coast fast food.

We ordered “animal style” burgers and fries, which are part of the extensive secret menu. Naturally, we then felt so cool.

Fisherman’s Wharf was chock full of tourists, so we escaped the out-of-town crowd and found ourselves in the midst of the local crowd on Columbus Avenue, where people had gathered in squares, side streets, and sidewalks for the North Beach Festival.

On Ferrett’s recommendation, we went to the City Lights Bookstore, a mecca of beat literature. Here we enjoyed the books along with the unique section headings.

After that, we hastened back to Penelope who was parked at a running meter (25 cents for 7.5 minutes). We hightailed it to the Golden Gate Bridge and took some nice shots, including another TVP.

Then we intended to head east to Yosemite, but we ended up going back into San Francisco for no apparent reason. Our navigating error allowed us to traverse each of the three Bay Area bridges in 30 minutes before we shot eastward for the night. The plus side: some nice sunset shots.

We stayed the night in the rather creepy Miner’s Motel about an hour outside Yosemite. More about this in the light of tomorrow.