Mr. W and I went to Northern California to visit friends over the long weekend. It was a nice 5.5 hr drive during most of which Mr. W listened to an audiobook with headphones attached to his iPhone, and I texted friends for entertainment. Time passed swiftly. We stopped at our usual Marie Callender’s at Magic Mountain for lunch, which meal was nothing compared to the sake-marinated Chilean seabass college roommie prepared for dinner that night! The four of us (including Diana’s boyfriend Eric) had a leisurely dinner with lots of wine and a specialty cupcake dessert. Good thing we were staying there! I really like Sunnyvale.

Saturday, Diana had planned for us a visit to San Francisco to see the King Tut exhibit at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. I bought us audiotours and Diana treated us to the admission, which tickets are sold and scheduled in half-hour increments, and we got a late enough entry time so that we could have lunch at a nearby pho restaurant. Mr. W and I had seen the exhibit before, but can’t remember where. We’re thinking it was probably in Fort Lauderdale in ’05, during the same vacation where I met Jordan. (Speaking of Jordan, she decided yesterday to come visit the same weekend Bat is coming to visit, so YAY, par-TAY! Did I mention it’s also her birthday weekend? I’m so excited!) Despite the museum’s best efforts to stagger visitors, it was very crowded and as usual because of my lack of vertical prowess, I saw lots of lower backs and asses. Live ones, not even exciting wrapped mummified ones. After the museum, we took a stroll in Golden Gate Park and visited various gardens on the grounds.

This garden had a few rules.

After leaving Golden Gate Park, we were off to the second activity Diana had planned for the day. She had suggested we bike ride across Golden Gate Bridge, but given all the rain predicted for the weekend, we didn’t set it in stone. Since Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day, we decided to just walk it. Eric would drive the car across and meet us at the other side.

Diana was a little pensive and Eric reassured her he won’t drive off without hearing from her first, but I didn’t think anything of it. Here we are about to start.


The Bridge was a wide paved 6+ lane highway with a separately fenced off pedestrian walkway along the outskirt. We started walking, and just as we were ALMOST over water, a large truck drove by and its weight vibrated along the bridge where we stood. Diana had already been slowing down, and now she froze. “I’m sweating,” she announced. And then, “I can’t do it.” She whipped out her cell phone and called Eric, who luckily had not left to drive over to the other side yet. She instructed us where to meet them on the other side and practically ran off back to the parking lot where Eric was with the car. I had no idea she was THAT serious about her acrophobia until then. I mean, the girl climbed the pyramid at Chichen Itza with me! She voluntarily leaps off tall mountains on her snowboard! I did learn later on in the weekend from Mike that Diana had attempted that same pedestrian crossing before, and also aborted that mission before making it very far.

Mr. W and I made the walk across, taking photos along the way — he with his camera which yielded the weekend’s photos that you see here, and I with my cameraphone since I forgot my camera. Halfway across, Diana and Eric overtook us on the bridge, honking and waving at us. They joined us on the other side as light sprinkling started. Perfect timing!

One of the cool things about hanging with locals is they know the best spots for photos.

Eric drove us up a mountain road to this great spot overlooking everything, and up there, Eric smacked Diana’s arm, Diana punched him in the face, it rained on Mr. W’s camera, and we got thrown out by a cop. Good times.
Next, we drove deeper into the City (San Francisco) to meet up with people for dinner. We had some time before our reservations, so we stopped for drinks and appetizers at Yoshi’s Jazz Bar a few doors down from the restaurant. We had to park a ways, and got rained on walking there, but it went with the atmosphere of San Francisco.

Soon, we were joined by Dardy, Jimmy and Sabrina.

And then Andrae, Dwaine’s twin brother, showed up. I was happy he put all his crazy plans on hold so that he could come spend some time at dinner with us. I hadn’t seen him since the wedding!

We walked down the street for dinner at 1300 at Fillmore (the address AND the name of the restaurant! What a koinkidink!), which served Southern food done up fancy. There, we met up with Jen and Caroline. Yes, I’m texting. Mr. W thought it would be funny to take a picture of me with Andrae on my cell and send it to Dwaine with the message, “Remember when we met up in San Francisco?” I don’t think Dwaine found it that amusing, cuz I never got a response. =P

One of the most noticeable differences in hanging with these people now, is that after dinner, we all hugged and waved our goodbyes, and went home to bed. If we were in our 20s, this meeting would’ve no doubt moved on to bar/club hopping as it had before. Aww, we’re all grown up now.