Lately I’ve been struggling with some bigger questions in life. One friend suggested that I keep my mind open to “signs.” In my walking through San Francisco I found two bits of street art that might be signs. I almost missed both of them. These seem to be positive messages but possibly having various interpretations…
Of course I also found a few other bits of street art from which I derived no meaning but still liked.
My feet are tired and parts of them are swollen. I must have walked at least six miles on Friday. The 2011 WTS International Conference in San Francisco was wrapping up and I had several hours before my flight back to Denver. From the Embarcadero, I walked to Union Square then up to Nob Hill then through Chinatown to Coit Tower then back through Chinatown to the Hayes Valley district then up Market Street back to the hotel and my luggage.
It was a solo travel day for me. I’m still getting used to going to some famous sight or another and just enjoying it with myself. As a person just out of a looooong-term relationship (that I was in from quite a young age), I’ve always had someone to turn to and say, “wow, isn’t this amazing?” (or whatever the case may be). Now I just look and take in and move on. I’m doing ok with this solitary enjoyment of things. It’s peaceful.
One thing that you may notice, this singlehood travel deal means there are almost no pictures of me – just pictures of what I see. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of asking random people to photograph me…
Ok, a tiny bit of nerdy transit stuff - streetcars!
While at the WTS Conference, I took the F-line streetcar mobile tour. As you may or may not know, San Francisco purchased vintage streetcars from around the world, restored them, and have them in service on their streets. They are beautiful and are an excellent complement to historic San Francisco. The is the streetcar vehicle in which we toured:
The interiors are even restored:
The rest of the WTS Conference was filled with technical and professional development sessions, an awards banquet, an opening reception, and so on. All of these events were made especially fun by the company of my fellow WTS Colorado ladies.
I did have one non-WTS night out! My friend and co-worker, Pat, put me in touch with two of his friends – Evan and Hassan. They did an excellent job of entertaining me and took me out in the Mission to do something we all enjoy – beer drinking (and good beer too!). We went to the Monk’s Kettle and Zeitgeist (self-proclaimed as San Francisco’s #1 beer garden), both cool places. A sample of the fantastic beer menu at the Monk’s Kettle is below.
We also went to an historic building/bar at the end of the evening but that place is a bit fuzzy in my memory. We did, however, get a group photo taken there:
Here are a few of my views from my solo city touring day:
As you can tell from these photos, I was lucky to have nearly perfect weather in San Francisco.
My legs are resting on the edge of the pool, I’ve got two pool noodles supporting my back and arms, the sunlight is getting stronger as it comes over the San Juans, all I can hear are birds making their morning calls, and I’m just floating. This was me at Joyful Journey hot springs for two and a half days.
Sometimes that serene moment was punctuated by the conversation of couples. Being alone on vacation you get to overhear lots of (mostly boring) conversation between couples. At night, however, the couples conversations can be silly and giggly. Given that I’m steeped in thoughts about human relationships, these conversations were fascinating – even the boring ones.
I mean, what did/do I talk about as a couple? Outside of the occasional discussion about current political activity or random zombie conversations, couple conversations can be pretty mundane – what we are doing later, when should we take the cat to the vet or take the car in to have the oil changed, we should try this or that restaurant, and on and on.
Anyway, other than eavesdropping while soaking in the hot springs, I mostly read and slept, which was heavenly. Here’s a typical shot of those days:
After emerging from the hot springs experience, I met Trisha in Buena Vista. She ran a 25-mile trail run! I know there are lots of people who do this, but I’m still in awe.
In the afternoon after the run, we made it a goal to visit as many patios in Buena Vista as possible. The first of these was Mother’s Bistro. This is Trisha on the patio:
The patio was complete with a cat named Simba that circled my chair and let me pet it:
We both had glasses of white wine and shared a piece of caramel apple pie. It was soooo nice.
When the sun started to set we made our way back to the Topaz Lodge and got to watch the sunset as we walked.
It was a lovely weekend and a good first solo trip for me. I’ll definitely do it again.
As is fairly well known at this point, I am doing the online dating thing. One of the sites I’m on sent me an email a few weeks ago that I found hilarious. It was from the site’s “interns.” I’ve copied out most of the email and pasted it below:
“
We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of [the site’s] most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.
How can we say this with confidence? We've tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people's reactions to you in [the site’s matching service].
Your new elite status comes with one important privilege: You will now see more attractive people in your match results. The people we recommend will be more attractive. Also! You'll be shown to more attractive people in their match results.”
What great news…I haven’t noticed a sincere uptick in “attractive” people coming my way via email from the dating site, but then, they don’t really define “attractive.” I’m also wondering how “the scales recently tipped in [my] favor.”
What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on all the data to which these dating sites have access. It’s all self-reported though, which pretty well skews any statistical validity but it sure would be fun to look at!
Not sure how much if anything I’ll actually share about dating here but stay tuned.
Ok, as some of you may know, I don’t always get excited about babies but I’m excited about this one. My friends Emily and Josh, who are amazing people, joined forces to bring another amazing person to this world. Archer Gray Silverman was born on April 23, 2011 at 11:20 AM and weighed 5 pounds 7 ounces!
He is tiny and fantastically cute. Here, see for yourself!
I think this one is the best of the series – Archer says hello to his fans.
Here is the new mom out for the maiden voyage of the stroller.
And the new dad!
I can’t wait to see how this little guy grows! Stay tuned.
I didn’t know there was such a thing as the “Easter Jeep Safari” in Moab. Well, turns out there is and it kicked off last weekend, which coincided with a trip to Moab to celebrate Hillary’s birthday.
Friday: Driving and Drinking (not together)
Hillary’s sister, Shaina, and I traveled about six hours from Denver and Hillary drove down with her dog, Driggs, from Salt Lake City. We converged in Moab on Friday . The intent was to camp, but all camp sites within about 45 min of Moab (even disbursed camping) were taken. There were, however, a few hotel rooms left. So Friday night we stayed at the Apache Inn and managed to snag the “John Wayne Suite.” It turns out that Mr. Wayne actually stayed in this hotel and frequented this particular room.
Staying in a hotel in town offered the possibility of nightlife! We started with margaritas and dinner at Juan’s. There was a wait for a table and because it’s Utah and ridiculously strict when it comes to alcohol, it is not permitted to have drinks while waiting. Whatever. We were seated pretty quickly.
After dinner we ended up at Woody’s (a bar). Inside we found a good amount of people our age as well as a pretty good live band and a solitary Jagermeister girl. She was dressed like a stripper and sprinkling Jagermeister lanyards, hats, blinky lights, and so on. We had way too good of a time…there was dancing, chatting with local river guides, and receipt of Jagermeister schwag. All three of us received Jagermeister hats:
The night ended about an hour after the bar closed with the three of us walking around the hotel trying to get Driggs to pee. That dog never pees, but when he does (especially at two in the morning) Hillary get’s pretty excited:
Saturday: Canoeing and not canoeing
We were supposed to be at the canoeing place (we rented canoes) at 9:30. At 8:30 I woke up in a state of confusion since I was in a king-sized bed with Shaina and Hillary was on the floor with Driggs. We scrambled to get ourselves and our stuff together in time to get caffeine before canoeing.
Canoeing was an adventure. With Shaina and I in a tandem canoe and Hillary with Driggs in a single canoe, we launched the first time around 10:45 am. We had 11 miles to cover and were being picked up at 3:00 pm. Below is Hillary (top) and Shaina (bottom) pre-first launch.
Driggs immediately jumped out of the canoe and took off in a sprint towards the road. Not a good sign. This was the first time Driggs was in a canoe…Hillary did get him back in the canoe and we set off again around 11:00 am.
Driggs looks ok in the photo above but he was extremely difficult to control and we made the executive decision to bail on the trip. We pulled off on a small strip of eroding shore closed in by thickets of tamarisk. We called the canoe rental place to come and get us and they were out to lunch! We hemmed and hawed for about an hour then we decided that Hillary would pull her canoe up to the road and Shaina and I would continue with the trip to the pick up site.
Here is Hillary making her way through the tamarisk thicket:
Shaina and Hillary pulling the canoe from the water:
We got going at around 1:30 pm and had about 90 min to make it 10 miles. The canoe trip was hurried a bit but really quite lovely. Here are some views from the canoe:
We lounged around our hotel room at the Sleep Inn after all of this. We were a bit pooped and even Driggs was relaxed:
I’m a hotel artwork aficionado and here is what I saw at the Sleep Inn:
Saturday night was a full moon. Here is a shot of that and some additional evidence that I was there:
Sunday: Snake hike and the journey home
Sunday was pretty mellow. We did a short hike on the way out of town and saw a snake! Exciting. Below is the snake and a picture two awesome sisters.
That was Moab last weekend. It turns out there was another “redneck convention” (I’m quoting a Moab local) going on that weekend which kept the number of “jeepers” to a tolerable amount. So, the Easter Jeep Safari didn’t really negatively impact the trip.
For me the trip was therapeutic. Not only did I get out of town and spend time with fun women, but I was reminded by Hillary that life isn’t about the destination but rather the journey. I know this, but like anything else useful to remember, my impatient nature tends to take over and I get focused on the end game, whatever that is at the moment. But Hillary is so right, I need to enjoy where I am more often.
Yesterday in Denver it hit 84 degrees! I took full advantage. I put on a sun dress, met a friend, and walked to lunch at a super cute and tasty sandwich shop in the Golden Triangle – Parsley. This place should really be in Boulder – organic everything, vegetable juice, etc. – but I’m glad it’s here.
On the way I got a shot of some street art around 1st Ave and Lincoln:
After lunch it was time for going to the Botanic Gardens with another friend. It is still early for the gardens but things are starting to bloom. Here are some springtime shots for your viewing pleasure:
At first I thought this was a snail on the plant below but on further inspection I decided it was not. Not sure what it is though…
This was one of those days where it’s just nice to sit on a bench and watch the budding trees sway in the wind.
It was also the perfect night for a rooftop happy hour at Vita. There was a slight breeze, we were in the shade, sitting at the bar, sipping on bubbly, and watching the light of the setting sun on the buildings of downtown Denver. I tried to get a photo of me and the skyline in the background but my aim was a little off:
All of these venues were reached via bike. I had forgotten how incredibly fun it is to ride from one side of downtown Denver to another on a bike in sandals. Can’t wait for summer after this teaser of a day.
