San Francisco or Bust
May 29th.
Man, it’s been a long strange trip. Not strange, just long. 🙂
Day 1: Drove from Albuquerque, New Mexico after Arielle’s 5th grade graduation, to Las Vegas, Nevada. Was sad and immensely missed the drive over Hoover Dam. They built a giant super highway bridge. We took the old highway down, and stopped for a few milliseconds.
Made it to my sisters. Both days woke up with the birds. On Friday we went to Red Rocks did a nice hike into the Canyon, drove the loop. That night we went down to Paris had dinner out on the patio, and went to Casear’s Palace. It was fun!
I knew that my throat closing up during dinner was a problem, Gluten
And waking up with my entire mouth covered with sores, sulfur in onions and garlic, and perhaps sulfites, was going to be even more of a problem.
That’s the thing with eating out I wish more people would understand:
When you eat out, you have no idea what you are eating and what kinds of things are in your food.
Scary, isn’t it?
We left Saturday morning and headed to Sacramento. I had a great time enjoying the beauty of the Mojave Desert. It was beautiful. I realized, I must get a picture of the girls by a Joshua Tree.
I have nominated the drivers in California as the worst drivers in the country. There are so many drivers that drive in the fast lane. Really, it’s supposed to be: drive right/pass left. Seriously.
I have never driven through California, it was cool.
There was the ghost town on 58, where near everyone abandoned their home, their were 1 or 2 people who stayed, the town was marked with contaminated water, uranium above levels of 38,000 ppb.
Lots of different agriculture. Being from the midwest, I am used to: corn and soy fields.
Fascinating, pipelines of chemicals to the fields. Weird, that people laden their food with chemicals. Strangest thing I have ever seen, honestly.
Back in the midwest, they use gigantic John Deere’s with a plastic tank on the back.
I just don’t think it makes sense anymore: industrial farming and food laced with chemicals that cause cancer.
Once in Sacramento we got to the Nance’s. It was great seeing everyone, it had been 7 years since we had been there, since Alcatraz triathlon, and I had not met my 3 year old nephew yet. It was great! So great Saturday night, I didn’t want to leave to go to San Fran to do the swim.
I just wanted to stay, relax, hang out, and most importantly:
Be With Family
So Sunday we went down to “Old Sac” there was a jazz festival, rode the train from 1928, and simply enjoyed family.
Oh sure they tried to plea with me,
“you’ve done the training”
“you’ve paid the entry”
“you’ll probably feel better tomorrow”
“you don’t want to have any regrets”
Seriously, I didn’t feel the love.
It wasn’t a big race. If it was a big race I wouldn’t have eaten out, PERIOD.
I was sick as hell between the sulfur and the gluten.
I wanted to relax, and have fun. Which I did and I have no regrets!
I drove to San Fran Monday, checked into the hotel.
Ran for an hour today along the bay. Went the wrong way, I wanted to run to the Golden Gate and the Presidio, as well as Baker’s Beach.
I didn’t run far enough to see the sea lions.
It was so foggy this morning, the Alcatraz swim would have been cancelled.
I did check the times, wow, they were slow this year. When I drove, in there was a lot of chop, nothing I was in the mood for.
There will be lots of chances for Alcatraz Swims: experiencing family, and meeting your 3 old nephew, well he’s only 3, once.
No regrets.