Jon's Travels

Monday, October 7, 2013

San Fransico

Taken from on top of Fort Point

After leaving Marina, I made my way up California 1 to San Francisco. I made a stop along the way at Half Moon Bay.

The beach went on like this for miles.

I reached San Francisco around 3pm; just enough time to check in and relax a little bit before exploring for dinner. I go to check in at the Orange Village Hostel, where I had my reservations for the week. One problem, when I made my reservations, the date changed to the following week somehow (likely opening and closing the app). This meant that I had no where to sleep for the next 4 days!

Ok, no reason to panic, I will just stay somewhere else. Well, with such short notice everything was booked. I go back to the app that got me in trouble in the first place and find somewhere that says they have a room. Leary of trying the app again, I call them directly. They say they are full. I refresh the app and it still says they have a spot. I decide to book through the app again, this time triple checking the dates and getting "trip insurance" for $5.

I showed up to the hostel, they say that they actually were overbooked, but I had a place to stay for the next two nights. After that they would either move me to a private room, or just a block down the street to their other location. Victorious, I collapse in my bed for the next hour.

Taken in Union Square, the closest park I could find. There was live music that night!

I wasn't really sure what to do in a city as big as San Francisco. I walked around for a little bit admiring the size of everything. Outside of Dublin, I think this is the most densely populated city I have ever been to. Hungry, I decided to look for someplace to eat. I was astounded by the prices of food! $20 for a sandwich! I searched around and was able to find a bakery that had a huge meal for $7. It was a little bit away from the square, but I could take it to go and eat it there. I guess it all depends on where you look.

I woke up early the next day to make it to TwilioCon. My cousin, Rachael, works there and invited me to the conference while I was in town. I met a lot of really interesting people and got excited for some project ideas I had on the road. I participated in the "Hacker Olympics" and won a Portal 2 science kit and potato, and got to see Jonathan Coulton perform at the end of the conference! It was my first tech conference ever and it was absolutely fantastic.

Our team completed the most challenges over the course of the event!

Fantastic show! Really fun to see live.

After the 2 days at the conference stuffing my face, I decided it would be a good idea to get some exercise. I woke up, swapped backpacks for my light bag (a big mistake, more on this later), and set out to explore San Francisco. The first stop was the San Francisco Maritime National History Park. This was a pretty small museum, but had historic ships anchored in the marina.

A nice view of Alcatraz Island from the Marina.

That long bridge in the picture was closed because of the "America's Cup". I had never heard about this before, but it was going on while I was there. There were these cool, miniature, remote-control sailboats that you could learn to sail in the visitor area. It had me remembering everything from the sailing classes that I took when I was younger. I got to see part of the race that day, but without a radio I couldn't really tell what was going on.

My next stop was Fort Point, right under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an awesome step back in history.

Old Spanish cannon which was a spoil of war.

The original design for the Golden gate bridge called for the removal of the fort. I am glad the designer was able to alter the plans to save it.

From Fort Point, I made my way to Lands End park. The trail I took wound down along the coast through Baker Beach. The cliffs were really amazing. When the fog cleared out, I got a great view of the bridge.

After this point, I decided I should start making my way back to the hostel if I was going to meet up with Rachael. I had walked a lot that day, topping out at 24.4 miles (thanks to Fitbit for keeping that data well after the 7 day retention period!). I decided I would stop by my car and get my clothes ready for my last day, since I didn't think we would be back before the parking deck closed for the night. I was met by the pictures below.

Someone had decided to break into my car and steal my backpack. They hit the window hard, because there was glass throughout the car. In my backpack I had some clothes, my laptop, my retainer, things I got from TwilioCon, some of my camping stuff, and some other misc. items. Anger, frustration, sadness, hate, sorrow, helplessness. Yea, not the best end to an otherwise great day.

I called my insurance and they were able to setup a glass shop to fix my car the next day. It is a lucky thing too, because it would rain every day for the next seven days of my trip. As for the stuff, we are still working on that.

On the last day, I ran my car to the shop as early as I could. This allowed them to see me right away and fix it. After dropping it off I went to Sidewalk Juice for a smoothie based on a suggestion from Tim Ferris. I walked back to Rachael's place so we could go grab some breakfast and talk. It was really good to chat with her. We have had opposite schedules for about 4-5 years, so even around the holidays we got to see each other for a few hours at best. Everything considered, the trip was worth it just because we got to hang out.

San Francisco Pictures

Friday, October 4, 2013

Back in Business and Marina Take 2

I recently made it up to Seattle, where my friends Max and Cait were kind enough to hold a computer for me while I made my way up there. So, I am back in business!

A lot has happened between my last post and now. I will try and release them slowly so you don't get buried in stories. Some future highlights: my car was broken into, my hiking backpack broke, I went spelunking, I climbed some mountains, and the government shut down.

This post will concentrate on what I did in Marina after driving up California 1.

The first day back we didn't accomplish much. I needed to catch up on some blog stuff and Quinn needed to finish up a project she was working on. So we sat around, typing and working, most of the day. We did get out to see "World's End" that night. I loved it because it was in the same spirit as "Hot Fuzz" and "Shawn of the Dead". Very good fun.

The second day back we were a bit more active. We went to downtown Monterey Bay to see the aquarium. Now, having just seen the aquarium in Long Beach, it gave me a unique opportunity to compare the two. Monteray Bay had the coolest Jelly exhibit I have seen. Long Beach looked like it had more sponsors, so it was a little bit bigger, with more varied exhibits. Both were pretty cool, but I think I am done with aquariums for the time being.

We walked around downtown for a little be after the aquarium. There was a classic car show going on downtown, and it was packed. There were people giving out food samples on the street (really tasty clam chowder!) and LOTS of families out. It wasn't really our thing, so we went back home to continue doing some work.

The third day we went to Point Lobos State Reserve. We got to walk around on the cliffs and through some old growth forests. There was also a section you could walk out onto the rocks and check out the tide pools. There were some sea anemones that would grab your finger and try to digest it, very slowly. Quinn called them sea anemone kisses.

We finished up with a nice diner at Frutti De Mar Grill, which was really tasty, and ice cream from the CVS.

Marina Photos

Friday, September 20, 2013

Blog Postponed

The blog is currently in hiatus. My car was broken into tonight and they took my backpack with my laptop. I will pick this back up when I get a replacement.

Jon

Monday, September 16, 2013

Long Beach California

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Destination: Long Beach, CA
Duration of Stay: 4 days, 3 nights
Cost: $54 at Beacon Inn, $53 for AirBnB, $37 for Aquarium and Harbor tour, $37 for Queen Mary and Russian Scorpion

I left about 11am from Pinnacles to head down to Long Beach. I had mentioned that when I was in Pinnacles I was completely cut off from the world (no cell phone coverage, no WiFi). As such, I added a little bit of time to my drive since I was more or less guessing to head south without my phone to guide me.

I reached LA at the best time possible (4:30pm, the start of rush hour). I made a decision that while I was there, I would try to check out the Nerdist (Chris Hardwick) at the NerdMelt Theater. I was able to find it, and find a parking spot, but found out the tickets for the show that night were sold out. Defeated, I decided I would head down to Long Beach, find a park at the beach, and just camp out for the night.

Failure part two: it is illegal to park overnight at the state, county, and city parks in the LA area. Well, shit. Time to check if there are campgrounds near LA. Not really. Well, I guess it is time to check for a Hotel. Drat, pretty expensive. I ended up going on Priceline and found a pretty cheap motel call the Beacon Inn.

Now, the Beacon Inn was an interesting experience. Priceline had the place at $45 per night. Well, this excluded the 15% tax, as well as a $2 fee for using a credit card, and a $5 deposit for the key. All this was explained through an inch thick piece of glass, with no holes for sound. This meant I heard everything through the slot for the credit card. When I got into the room, I threw down my stuff, hopped on the bed, and flipped on the TV. Static. Changed the channel. Static. Changed the channel. Porn. Turns out, in order to access the normal stations, you need to turn on the satellite first. Like I said, interesting place.

The next day I decided to hit the Aquarium of the Pacific. They had a special where you also got to take a harbor tour. I spent about three hours at the Aquarium before running to get lunch before the harbor tour. I took a lot of pictures, but a lot didn't turn out. You can see all of them here.

Penguin feeding time!

Jellies are the coolest.

Also know as the "Finding Nemo" exhibit.

You could feed these guys. One person had them covering both arms.

We could touch these guys. Pretty cool.

The harbor tour captain was very knowledgeable and pretty funny. He talked a little about the history of Long Beach and some of the other attractions on in the area.

Nice public park.

Sea plane!

The Queen Mary

These guys sleep all day, and hunt all night.

Cranes loading a cargo ship. With LA and Long Beach harbors combined, it is the 3rd biggest harbor in the world.

After I finished up with the harbor tour, I walked to the lighthouse to try and set up my room for the night. I sent a message to some from AirBnB offering a couch for the night. The issues was that I was giving pretty short notice and I was brand new to AirBnB. Normally they want you to have referrals from your friends, or people you have stayed with. I decided I would give them a while to respond and I would go check out the Queen Mary.

The Queen Mary was a transport ship along the same lines as the Titanic. It was repurposed in WWII as a troop transport, which earned it the name "The Grey Ghost". It went back into service after the war, but eventually took up permanent residence in Long Beach as a Hotel. You can tour it, but you need to buy a ticket for the tour. They had a few different ones, but mine was "Ghosts and Legends". It was more or less a haunted house. You got to see the first class swimming pool, as well as the boiler rooms. Their size was astonishing. No photos during the "Ghosts and Legends" tour though.

Very fancy hotel

I also saw the Russian Scorpion. It was a Russian spy sub during the Cold War. It was very tight quarters, manned by kids not much younger than me. I am hoping they were at least a bit shorter, because I was hunched over most of the time. All the photos can be seen here.

One of the more "spacious" quarters.

The mess

Aft torpedo tubes. There were more in the front.

Docked next to the Queen Mary.

After dinner, I still hadn't heard back from the person I contacted on AirBnB. I was starting to get a little nervous, so I thought of plan B: sleep in a Wal-Mart parking lot. They normally allow this, but alas, the Wal-Mart in Long Beach had a parking deck, not a parking lot. I decided to go with plan C: pick someone else on AirBnB who was a little more than I wanted to spend, but could accommodate me for the night.

I looked and found Wendell's condo in Cityplace Lofts. Very nice place to sleep, very accommodating (he responded to my request in 10 minutes), and a very interesting guy to talk to. If you are in the area, I would recommend his place if you want to go the AirBnB route.

Day three of my visit was a nice, lazy one. With all the excitement yesterday, I wanted to take it easy. I woke up kind of late, ate some of the fruit Wendell had left out for me before going off to his interview, and walked down to Long Beach. I walked along the beach for about an hour before deciding to hope in. I was blown away by how cold it was! Wendell said that the beach, unless it was an El Nino year, was fed by an Alaskan current. There goes my plan of swimming all day.

Later in the day, I drove down towards Huntington Beach, but ended up at Bolsa Chica instead. I lounged around in the sun for a bit, walked the beach, and generally just took it easy. The beach was more or less abandoned except for the one lot of RVs and around time for sunset.

Classy lunch :)

After sunset, I met up with my friend Jonas from elementary school. We hadn't seen each other in six years, the last time being at his High School graduation party. We went to dinner and chatted, got some groceries and chatted, drank a little and chatted (joined by his roommate and another friend), and chatted a little more. We stayed up until 2 am talking. We woke up and had breakfast before I took off. I had a blast seeing him again and hope we can meet up again, in something much shorter than 6 years.

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On the way back to Marina, I took the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). This is a really beautiful drive. I don't have too many pictures, since I was driving and didn't want to hold my phone up while trying not to drive off the side of the mountain. I made three main stops along the way at Malibu, El Capitan State Park, and Morro Bay. I didn't anticipate the length of this trip because my GPS kept routing me away from PCH since it adds about 3.5 hours to the journey. I made the last 60 miles or so, which was driving on the mountains right next to the ocean, in the moonlight. If you enjoy driving, that is a really fun road. If you hate driving, it might give you a heart attack. It reminded me of the road to Hana on Maui, except it was better paved and a little wider.