Labor Day Trip to SF
Sep. 1st, 2013 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aWith fatigue and sickness inundating the house, Kimberly and I haven't had that much of a chance to do fun stuff together lately, so I'd hoped we could this Labor Day weekend ... and we did!
My plan was a picnic lunch in Glen Canyon Park, which is toward the middle-to-south side of San Francisco. It looked great because it sounded pretty, we'd never been there, and it was really close to BART. We headed out there on BART a bit before noon. BART, I should note, sucked, but no surprise. It was super crowded because the idiots that run BART were still running a Sunday schedule, despite the closure of the Bay Bridge. So, it was standing room only until we were into the City. As I said, not a surprise, and the only real downside of the trip (But you just have to shake your head at BART's inability to more reasonably deal with the Bay Bridge being closed).
We got off at Glen Park Station and went to a small grocer I'd found called Canyon Market. I picked them because it looked like they had excellent sandwiches, and they did! So we picked up sandwiches (Kimberly got "House roast turkey with provolone cheese, mixed greens, tomatoes and pesto mayonnaise on house baked focaccia." and I got "Smoked Turkey served hot with applewood smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, mayonnaise and sun dried tomato spread on housemade sliced sourdough.") and macaroni chicken salad and some terrific desert, and them took them up to the Park, which was only a short distance beyond.
We did have one nasty surprise in the park, which was that all of the buildings and facilities were fenced off (and in some cases bulldozed) due to renovation that's going on through November. Fortunately, that didn't affect the rest of the Park. We ate lunch not far from those facilities at some tables that remained unfenced and found it good.
I didn't really expect to do much hiking because Kimberly has had so much trouble with fatigue, so I was quite surprised. We hiked through the whole park! And, it was a very beautiful park. Some of the lowland park was just trees with the canyon rising ever higher around us. However, as we got further in, the trees and shrubberies started to form tunnels, where foliage surrounded us on all sides. It was like secret nature paths. I loved it. It reminded me in sights and smells alike of the Ed Levine Park that I used to spend summer days at when I was young.
We climbed out of the canyon on the far side of the Park (and saw some great views from there, including clouds rushing over the far side of the Park). From there we decided to head out to the 24th & Mission BART Station, rather than just back to Glen Park. This turned out to be a longer walk that we realized, but we both enjoyed it and since we walked through the Diamond Heights, then down into Noe Valley, we got some magnificent views of The City. I'll have to go through my camera tomorrow and see if I have any good pictures. Google says we walked about 3.2 miles, a bit less than half of that from Glen Park BART to the edge of Glen Park Canyon; and a bit more than half of that from the edge of the Park down to 24th Street BART (24th Street Bart *seemed* a lot further than the walk up from Glen Park had been ... but we were more tired by then, and didn't take a lunch break in the middle).
Overall, a terrific day. We were out and about for about five hours, and it was so nice that Kimberly was able to actually do all that hiking and walking. She didn't even seem too wiped out tonight.
Tonight I finally broke down and did some writing: a first draft of the AP for my Saturday game. I wrote that at about 10, so I managed to have pure R&R over this holiday weekend for about 50 hours. Yay me! (And I wrote that first draft in about 45 minutes, and that's all I'm doing tonight.)
Tomorrow: a first draft of a review I have pending, and second drafts of both the review and the AP. I may also think about my next Mechanics & Meeples article. And reading! And ice cream! Then on Tuesday night I'll get started on the research for new company history #5 in Designers & Dragons: The '00s.
And with 25 miles of biking yesterday and 3 miles of hiking today (+1 mile or more here in Berkeley), I don't feel any need to head out Monday or Tuesday to get more exercise! (And come Wednesday I'll of course bike down to Endgame.)
My plan was a picnic lunch in Glen Canyon Park, which is toward the middle-to-south side of San Francisco. It looked great because it sounded pretty, we'd never been there, and it was really close to BART. We headed out there on BART a bit before noon. BART, I should note, sucked, but no surprise. It was super crowded because the idiots that run BART were still running a Sunday schedule, despite the closure of the Bay Bridge. So, it was standing room only until we were into the City. As I said, not a surprise, and the only real downside of the trip (But you just have to shake your head at BART's inability to more reasonably deal with the Bay Bridge being closed).
We got off at Glen Park Station and went to a small grocer I'd found called Canyon Market. I picked them because it looked like they had excellent sandwiches, and they did! So we picked up sandwiches (Kimberly got "House roast turkey with provolone cheese, mixed greens, tomatoes and pesto mayonnaise on house baked focaccia." and I got "Smoked Turkey served hot with applewood smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, mayonnaise and sun dried tomato spread on housemade sliced sourdough.") and macaroni chicken salad and some terrific desert, and them took them up to the Park, which was only a short distance beyond.
We did have one nasty surprise in the park, which was that all of the buildings and facilities were fenced off (and in some cases bulldozed) due to renovation that's going on through November. Fortunately, that didn't affect the rest of the Park. We ate lunch not far from those facilities at some tables that remained unfenced and found it good.
I didn't really expect to do much hiking because Kimberly has had so much trouble with fatigue, so I was quite surprised. We hiked through the whole park! And, it was a very beautiful park. Some of the lowland park was just trees with the canyon rising ever higher around us. However, as we got further in, the trees and shrubberies started to form tunnels, where foliage surrounded us on all sides. It was like secret nature paths. I loved it. It reminded me in sights and smells alike of the Ed Levine Park that I used to spend summer days at when I was young.
We climbed out of the canyon on the far side of the Park (and saw some great views from there, including clouds rushing over the far side of the Park). From there we decided to head out to the 24th & Mission BART Station, rather than just back to Glen Park. This turned out to be a longer walk that we realized, but we both enjoyed it and since we walked through the Diamond Heights, then down into Noe Valley, we got some magnificent views of The City. I'll have to go through my camera tomorrow and see if I have any good pictures. Google says we walked about 3.2 miles, a bit less than half of that from Glen Park BART to the edge of Glen Park Canyon; and a bit more than half of that from the edge of the Park down to 24th Street BART (24th Street Bart *seemed* a lot further than the walk up from Glen Park had been ... but we were more tired by then, and didn't take a lunch break in the middle).
Overall, a terrific day. We were out and about for about five hours, and it was so nice that Kimberly was able to actually do all that hiking and walking. She didn't even seem too wiped out tonight.
Tonight I finally broke down and did some writing: a first draft of the AP for my Saturday game. I wrote that at about 10, so I managed to have pure R&R over this holiday weekend for about 50 hours. Yay me! (And I wrote that first draft in about 45 minutes, and that's all I'm doing tonight.)
Tomorrow: a first draft of a review I have pending, and second drafts of both the review and the AP. I may also think about my next Mechanics & Meeples article. And reading! And ice cream! Then on Tuesday night I'll get started on the research for new company history #5 in Designers & Dragons: The '00s.
And with 25 miles of biking yesterday and 3 miles of hiking today (+1 mile or more here in Berkeley), I don't feel any need to head out Monday or Tuesday to get more exercise! (And come Wednesday I'll of course bike down to Endgame.)