Napa Valley, Aquarium and Golden Gate Bridge

My friend Robin came out from Massachusetts for a weekend to visit and we hit a couple of things on my 'to-do' list in San Francisco:

1. Chinatown
2. Napa
3. The Aquarium
4. The Golden Gate Bridge & Golden Gate Recreation Area



















Golden Gate Recreation Area

Squaw Valley and Kirkwood

This past weekend I stayed with yet another ski club, the Snowdrifters in Truckee. They are the youngest group I've encountered so far and and their house has an energy I really like.

Saturday I drove to Squaw and hit their very windy, icy slopes for about 3 hours. The place has great terrain, but the conditions were really tough, like a 3000+ acre version of Wildcat in NH.

Laura made Margaritas when I returned and made all sorts of snacks for everyone.

Sunday came and I headed off to Kirkwood. It south of Lake Tahoe and it took over an hour to drive there. I was fortunate enough to run into a large group of people from a Solar panel manufacturing company, they had a few 'guides' among them that showed me some hidden gems of terrain at Kirkwood, areas that would take a season for me to find on my own.

On my way back to the City I discovered a really amazing part of California: Calaveras County, Stanislaus National Forest and San Joaquin County. I only found out on Monday that I was just north of Yosemite National Park. What a treat this part of the state is, between Lake Tahoe and Stockton.

A nice treat was Patty, who was visiting californis and skiing with the group. She and I did a bunch of runs together at Kirkwood and she called me Tuesday afternoon, the 17th. We met up and walked through the Haight-Ashbury part of town. We walked through part of Golden Gate Park, then drove up to Twin Peaks for an amazing view of the city. At 11PM we had some food and she took BARt back to her friends house. I woudn'd ahve seen Haight-Ashbury or any of that with out her visit. I'll have pictures of this night out on the town in a week or so.

More pics of the truck

I cleaned up the truck and took some more snapshots of it with the new tires.





It looks great with the black tonneau cover, new rims and new tires.





Did I mention that the old set of tires had one tire dead, another tire had a gash in the sidewall ready to pop and all four were running down tread at 70,000 miles.






It really looks great when its clean. Thats the trick with black vehicles, they don't look good dirty.



In total:

1. New Windshield
2. new wipers
3. Aftermarket: Tonneau Cover
4. Aftermarket: 17" rims
5. Aftermarket: Bridgestone All-Terrain tires.

Surprising thing about the tonneau cover was how much more utility I got out of the whole truck. I store stuff in the back differently now than before, usually with bungee lines running side-to-side along the tailgate. Its secure because its "out of sight, out of mind" for anyone who'd break in, the tailgate locks, too, so a thief would need to cut through the vinyl to see whats inside. The weather doesn't get under the cover, so tarps and stuff are not needed, it has free'ed up room in the cab, where I can have things strapped in the bed that used to be in the supercab. I finally have a truck I really love.

Another great weekend in Lake Tahoe

I made arrangements over email and a phone call to stay at the Carmel Ski Club. This is a gold-plated version of every other ski club I've been to.






The equity arrangement has this club set up with all the funds it needs to upgrade/repair/replace anything it wants to.

Unfortunately, it was a singles club until about 5 or 10 years ago, now its solidly in the 'family' ski club category.

Anyhow, I finally discovered Squaw Valley. My friend Jennifer in Boston was on-target. I should have started here, this is where there the active social scene is to complement the great terrain. The village area had a 'Whistler' typ layout (Whistler/Blackcomb Ski Area, B.C., Canada) and there was tons of energy there, energy that was missing from Kings Beach and South Lake Tahoe. I got to get back to this place fast. One strange thing, there was an illuminated 1000' high rock face and a strange glow coming over the top of the mountain. I have to ask about this. The Glow was propably light from the grooming machines refracting through snowmaking operations at the top.


















On Sunday morning I drove around the East side of lake Tahoe and met up with Rich and Hilary. We had 5 great hours at Heavenly; spent a lot of time in the rocks.

Chetmobile; California style

After two weeks of cruising on my spare tire, I really needed to upgrade the wheels on my truck. I ended up with OEM 17" rims for $150 (all four) and Bridgestone all-terrains for $160 each. The truck sits ~2" higher, rides a lot better and runs at 25% less RPM at highway speed. It looks like a real truck now, too. The great thing about wheels in CA, so many people lift their trucks and put monster-truck tires on their vehicles that there is a great after-market for stock stuff like what I wanted.



















Pimp my Ride :-)

Apartment Photo Tour

I scored my San Francisco Apartment really last minute, in the mad scramble to get my life picked-up and moved accross country in a week. It was found through Craigs List, of course.





The landlord made a leap of faith with me, as I wasn't able to get her a check before I arrived on March 3rd.








The House is on Folsom Street, in Bernal Heights, San Francisco. The landlord keeps a small unit in the ground floor, the upper floor is the larger unit.

There are views from the large picture windows in the fron, west face of the house. The back deck has views to the south and there is a small, fenced-in back yard.

The place as an '80's' feel to it, but its a big improvement over the clean but plain Allston Bachelor pad.

Most of the house has Brazilian cherrywood floors. Very nice touch. The bedrooms are carpeted.

The entryway and the bathroom both have skylights. This is a very nice 'industrial' designer touch.

The pastel exterior is also cool.