We continued south to meet Dawn at Collins Lake on Thursday, July 14. We passed a fire on the way.
Ed didn't go that week, so Dawn had been there solo, running, kayaking, blackberry picking, and painting rocks. She had a nice routine going and enjoyed the solitude. After we arrived, we got giant ice creams at the lake store and went blackberry picking. Dawn had a good stash in the mini fridge already, but you can't have too many blackberries.
Dawn was so nice - she gave us the lovely, air-conditioned trailer and moved into a tent. Ever and Wren enjoyed hand games together on Jim and my bed. (There was another bed, not pictured, for the girls.)
Friday morning, Tiny showed Auntie Dawn the lark she had bought at a gift shop in Washington. It makes a beautiful lark song and is, of course, named after Tiny Tot (Arden Lark).
Dawn fed us an amazing pancake breakfast with whipped cream and Nutella (because she remembered how much the girls love that stuff) and, of course, fresh blackberries. And we played some cornhole.
Then we headed to Bridgeport (which is not actually called Bridgeport, but that's what Dawn and Ed call it) for a swim up that amazing river.
Then it was on to San Francisco. I figured out a place to park on the way, and we had to walk a bit to our hotel. The girls (particularly Wrenzy) were embarrassed to walk through the city in swimsuits.
Jim sprang for a really nice hotel this time (a Hyatt, maybe?), so it was much fancier than our usual road-trip accommodations.
We hadn't planned ahead, and figuring out what to do and how to get around turned out to be difficult. We spent a while walking and then gave up and headed back.
I really wanted to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. There was a debate about whether we had time, as Jim had planned to go to a Giants game and wanted to get there early to watch the players warm up. I believe, based on the below pictures, that we drove across the bridge and then went back, parked by the Presidio, and walked a ways to get down to the bridge. Then I was forced to give up my dream of walking across it, and we just walked back to the car and headed to the Giants game.
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| The bridge. |
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| Walking to the car at the Presidio. |
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| Walking to the stadium. |
It was an uncomfortably hot day. People were hot and bored and ready to go home before the game even started. Despite having pretty great seats, interest was low.
There was a most obnoxious guy sitting near us who kept screaming, "DODGERS SUCK!" even though the Dodgers weren't even playing. I hated it so much. It was constant and loud and offensive and the absolute lamest.
Wrenzy and Tiny started doing some crawl-under-our-legs thing to entertain themselves.
As we were walking after the game, the girls used some bike racks for stretching.
Sleeping pic of the tired ladies.
Sunday, July 17, we found a really interesting ward and then walked around the Palace of Fine Arts.
Then we drove down to Valencia (L.A. County).
