Why we went to SF

I know what you're thinking - "FINALLY! Get to it already."

We went to SF to rent an apartment for G. He has a new job, starting right after the New Year, with a cool nerdy startup. This blog isn't tiny enough or anonymous enough for me to talk about it before he gave notice at the old job, but he's finally giving notice today.

Right now the plan is that he'll be in SF for about 18 months, then he will come back to Reno and work from home. I'll stay here and finish making the house look snazzy. There's a lot that could change, but that's hopefully what'll happen. It's also possible that this will really suck and I'll sell the livestock and move to SF, or he'll get an amazing career going and we'll buy a house in the Bay Area and I'll move all the livestock, but the Plan is to stay in Reno. I'm going to go up once a month or so and spend a long weekend with him (with the lolhuge truck! In SF! ugh ugh ugh, but it's better than paying $300 for the privilege of getting gateraped by the TSA).

So. Whew. Normal posting can resume now. Not talking about this was so hard it was easier to not talk at all. I can't believe no one asked why we took the huge F-150 to SF instead of the tiny already beat up Sport Trac - it's cause I sold my truck two weeks ago. I officially get the F-150, and he gets nothing. Driving a car in the city is way more trouble than it's worth, and it's much cheaper to take public transportation to work and rent a Zipcar when necessary. There's some parking at his new apt (valet, even!) so I can park there when I come visit, and if he needs to he can buy a little car.

Anyway, Saturday morning we went apartment hunting. He'd lined up a day and a half of appointments with leasing people, and we ended up leasing the first place we looked at. It's tiny and posh and right in the right price range. After that we walked a bit, found Needlepoint Inc, people watched at Union Square, and realized we were bored. If we were touristing, we'd have rented bikes and headed out to See Stuff, but it was hard to get excited about touristing when he's going to live there. We have a year to explore the city.

We realized that if we hustled, we could make checkout for the hotel and go Do Something Else, so we did. We packed all our crap (and I mean all, we didn't forget anything!) in like 10 minutes and barely made checkout, then headed up to Point Reyes. Google maps assured us it was only an hour and a half drive. It's not.

Well, it might actually be an hour and a half drive if you don't take a 45 minute detour through the wrong city looking for a Chipotle for lunch, then a 15 minute trip to the right city, then take a 30 minute lunch break, then have to get back to the highway. Don't use the map feature on Yelp on the iPhone. It lies.

Driving the damn Pacific Coast Highway is like playing Pole Position. Driving it in a truck is even worse. For some reason that seemed like a good idea at the time, we ended up going about 15 miles further away to Stinson Beach, instead of up to Pt Reyes NP. The road was ok for a while, then it went super twisty cliff death road as the fog got thicker. It's twistier and worse than Mt. Rose Death Highway, but at least the traffic is more laid back.

The actual ocean was definitely worth it. It was so foggy you could stare right at the sun. 63 degrees, lots of surfers in wetsuits out. I did a little victory dance on the sand - I've made it coast to coast! Not bad for a poor kid from Mississippi.

Once we got our ocean fix, we decided we might as well go home. It was only 3 pm! The drive home was pretty uneventful, and we got home at 7:30. Then all I needed to do was drag this story out for three days. ;)