For those who didn't notice (and even for those who did), I was away from general Internet and blog usage for the past week. I was attending a training in the San Francisco area and, while I did have some internet connectivity, it was pretty pathetic (I did a couple of bandwidth checks and I probably averaged ~30kbps most of the time...yikes). So, apart from some quick email checks to make sure there were no fires to put out at work, I stayed mostly offline.The training was alright...it started out a little dry/slow and made me worry at first that I should have signed up for the more advanced class. But by the end of the second day, I saw some good potential and by the end of the week I had learned some cool things and felt like it was really worthwhile (I've actually used some of the knowledge already on this, my first day back at work).
The class was ~9-5 each day which left me the evenings free. The training was a few miles south of San Francisco proper (just a little south of San Mateo) which meant that getting out at 5 provided some crazy traffic depending on the direction I wanted to go.
The first day, I headed west to the coast. I've got some definite 'beach bum' tendencies, so it was only natural that I made a beeline for the beach. I spent the evening in Half Moon Bay as well as driving along Highway 1 a bit and making a few pit stops here and there to watch the ocean splash on the sand and rocks. I found a little restaurant by one of the pier's and had some great Snapper.
The second day I made a trip to Oakland to see the temple there. The San Mateo bridge and subsequent roads were pretty packed, so I got there just as the sun was dipping in the distance (the westward view from behind the visitor's center was pretty cool). Still, I was able to go in and do a session as well as wander the grounds a bit. Unfortunately the timing didn't let me do much in the visitor's center which looked pretty cool based on the brochure. It was pretty late by the time I got back to my hotel.
The next few days I alternated time between downtown Frisco and some beaches. I walked up and down the streets of Chinatown, spent a few hours in Union Square (had a fabulous burger at the Burger Bar in Macy's), drove out to Pacifica and walked barefoot along the beach for an hour or so, drove along the Great Highway past Cliff House (would've stopped, but it was my last night and I really cut things close) then into the Presidio and over to Golden Gate Bridge.
Based on the time left on the last day, I didn't want to risk taking time to go to Fisherman's Wharf. (next time) So I headed towards the airport down Van Ness, stopping once I got to the city center (walked past the opera & symphony houses), had dinner at Max's and then got to the airport 45 minutes before my plane left (there was a warning as I was checking in saying that check-in deadline was 45 minutes...I finalized check-in with ~1 minute to spare).
All in all, it was a good trip. I took a bundle of pictures and may eventually post them up. I would have much preferred to have my family (at least Lynette) there with me...but it was a matter of either "what do we do with the kids if we leave them home" or "what would she do to keep the kids occupied during the day while in Frisco"? We'll have to figure it out next time so they can come.
2 comments:
The evenings sound fun at least. When my hubby traveled on business I would drag the kids along and visit educational/historical sites during the day. They were not happy campers.
Yeah, I can imagine my kids being bummed (especially when halfway through the week, their out-of-state cousins showed up for a very unexpected visit).
Still, I think 'next time', I'll try to swing some way to bring the fam along.
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