Boat People

First in a series of catching up blogs now that I'm home from Virginia...

Saturday the 15^thbegan the 1- week countdown to my vacation and boy! I was in vacation mode already! The following work week dragged by quite a bit and the fact that I had very little to actually do at work last week made it even slower! It seems like I’m either going 10,000 mph at work or barely pushing 5mph. Oh well. In any case, last Saturday I really needed to get out and do something. Something unfamiliar, a bit new and fun. So I headed out and found myself at a great bay area park called Tilden Park. There are a ton of hiking trails and path in the park, plus a fun area with a steam engine, carousel and tons of picnic areas. I found a great hiking trail that wound through the bay area hills for miles and miles with incredible views of the SF Bay area:

So, making it through the slow workweek took me to Friday, which was incredible! Through a work contact I was put in touch with a bay area boating outfit which was hosting a Ladies’ Day Sail event. I left the office at noon, and by 1pm I was on the boat! Yay! I sailed with five other ladies of varying ages who love sail! It was wonderful. We spent the afternoon tacking and jibing our way around the bay. Captain Lisa even let me take the helm for a good while and I steered us around a big tanker and learned about right-of-way on the ocean and various other interesting nautical stuff. I’m so excited. Being around “Boat People” again after so long felt so immediately comfortable and at home. I’d missed it. Boat People are fantastic people. Easy-going, friendly, a breed of people who are immediately your best friend although the chance that you’ll never see them again in your lifetime is pretty high. They bond together quickly out of necessity; the ocean is a fickle lover. I’d missed my people. I’m excited to spend more time sailing again soon.

After sailing, I was dirty, exhausted and hungry – but as the dock the boat was berthed at was located at the famous pier 39 in San Francisco, I couldn’t help but want to stick around and have dinner where I was. I got ahold of my friend Erin (We went to school out in Virginia together and have kept in contact through the years. When I moved back to the Bay Area I found out she was living in SF and we periodically have dinner or go to concerts. She’s the coolest.) So we did something incredibly touristy: We ate hamburgers at the Hard Rock Café on Pier 39 in San Francisco on a Friday night. So fun! And YUMMY! Afterward, I headed my now overly full, salty, exhausted self back home via train and after a hot shower, parked my butt in my bed.