San Francisco
The Golden Gate bridge, at golden hour
Sunday, November 1
Sunday morning brought the end to our time in Yosemite. We got up early to make it to San Francisco by lunch time. We loaded up the van for the first time in a few days and said goodbye to Evergreen Lodge and our cute little cabin. This is a great place to stay if you are ever in the area.
We had a couple hours ahead of us, with half of it through the windy mountain roads of the park and surrounding areas. You might be wondering why we got up early, and what this potential life changing decision could be. Well, most of you know that we lost our best friend and fur baby, Harvey, a couple weeks before this trip. This will be a post in itself later on. It’s tough and hard to believe even as I write this almost two months later. But let’s get back to this post and the “so what”.
Kelly and I knew that we would eventually want another dog in our lives because that’s just who we are and what we need. We talked a lot about it, and knew that another bullmastiff and a male dog were out of the question. I can’t do it yet and it wouldn’t be fair to the new wild child. We knew we wanted another big dog, one that was a little more apt to long days on the trail, but one that didn’t need to run 24/7. After scouring the interwebs, we landed on a giant schnauzer. With the females only getting up to ~75lb, this was perfect for our new apartment life while still being a dog that could enforce a situation. I had a miniature schnauzer growing up and loved that dog. He wasn’t the friendliest, he was considered the devil by most, but I always look back with fond memories.
Looking into the giants, I’m almost positive we’re getting a Lola-Harvey super child. Lola was Kelly’s dog when we got together. She always played hard to get and definitely wasn’t super excited about Harvey and me crashing on her parade, but she eventually came around. She was a super sweet dog, sassy and always on her own agenda. Mix this with Harvey’s goofiness and presence, you get the giant schnauzer. As we were learning more about their personalities and quirks, we stumbled upon a lady in San Francisco that has apparently been the trailblazer for black giants in the US. Her name is Sylvia and she runs Skansen Kennel right outside of San Francisco. Since I had never been around a giant and Kelly never around a schnauzer at all, we headed over during the hours they were open to the public. Needless to say, we fell in love and even got to see a German giant schnauzer (you see the American most of the time). Germans are leaner and have a more wirey coat…a pure working dog. We talked to the staff, grabbed an info packet, and let them know we’d be in touch.
We then left the kennel and headed south to San Francisco for an afternoon in the city and a sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge. We grabbed some amazing Italian subs for a late lunch and went down to the pier to chow down and enjoy the beautiful weather. We walked around the city a bit afterwards and then hiked down to the beach to setup for sunset. This is where it gets interesting.
Hearing that we would need to walk by a nudest section of the beach to get close to the bridge, we had a chuckle and brushed it off. It was late fall, 60deg outside, and had ridden by Austin’s Hippie Hollow. Let me tell you, 60deg in Cali is not parka weather like it is in Austin. And fellas, 60deg air temp on the beach doesn’t do you any favors! Save that mess for the summer and strut around proud. If you don’t get the picture I’m painting, we had to walk by a packed beach. I’m nervous because I have a camera in my hand and don’t want to give the wrong impression, Kelly is cracking up behind me…until she has to start climbing over the rocks separating us from the bridge in her sandals. Poor planning.
We get to the bridge and start setting up as the sun is making it’s way down for the day. The composition was a little tough with the higher tide that day. Setting up on sand isn’t fun either, especially when the tide comes up and resets things every few minutes. I finally had a composition and a solid solution to the wave problem. So I thought. Working on getting the water motion on the beach and liking what I was getting before I switched focus over to the bridge itself, the king wave came through and let it’s presence be known. Frustration quickly set in but what should I have expected. Some how, Kelly captured one of the funniest moments of the trip (to her).
Setting back up, the shot was captured, Kelly made a small fortune finding gold in the rocks on the beach, and we hiked back up the cliff before the sun set for the night. One side note, the batteries at the top of the cliff are super cool to see. I’d love to take a tour and see the inside. As we made our way to the car, the sky lit up in a super purple hue and a jet flying by left a pink contrail behind him.
To finish the night out, we grabbed lobster rolls for dinner (delish!) and headed to Sam and Christian’s house. Sam is one of Kathryn’s (Kelly’s sister) best friends from way back and he and Christian were so nice and offered to let us crash for the night. There place was beautiful and exactly what you’d want living in San Francisco. We went late into the night talking about a little bit of everything while being entertained by their three chihuahuas: Mrs. Butters, Cesar, and Hamburger. Mrs. Butters and Cesar were adopted, and eventually put their powers together to bring the amazing Hamburger into the world. I never really liked chihuahuas until this night, those three were super cool.
The next morning Sam hung out with us while Christian headed out of town for work (a good gig with VW). We grabbed coffee and breakfast, took a quick drive around San Bruno Mountain State Park, and then headed to the airport. This trip recharged us, helped us heal, and brought us even closer together. I always love traveling with Kelly. I hope you enjoyed the mini-series to kick off the blog and stick around to see what it develops into.
