San Francisco Recap #3:  Before the Wind

After the conference ended on Thursday (May 24), my friend Erin picked me up at my hotel so we could spend the evening hanging out. We met at geology field camp back in the summer of 2003, and have managed to stay in touch since then. Erin is working on her master's in Santa Cruz and sailing on tall ships and just generally being completely bad-ass. Need proof?

Here's a photo Erin posted on her blog recently of herself "gaff walking" on a ship:




Interesting trivia item:  during the summer that MB and I got married, Erin was off sailing on the Lady Washington, the ship that played the part of the HMS Interceptor in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. How flipping cool is that?




Anyhow, we went down to Fisherman's Wharf, where I ate fish and chips and successfully dodged both two-foot-tall seagulls (O.M.G. Scary.) (Okay, maybe they were 18-inch-tall seagulls. BUT STILL.) and the Bushman.

We walked down to Pier 39 to see the sea lions. They were very loud and somewhat smelly, but also very cute.








After visiting the sea lions, we hoofed it to Ghirardelli Square for hot fudge sundaes, then drove across the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito to visit Erin's fiance Bhodi aboard the tall shipLynx. It was already dark by then, so the pictures didn't turn out great:






All in all, it was a fantastic evening. I had a great time hanging out and catching up with Erin, and seeing so many quintessential San Francisco sights made it that much sweeter. Sail on, my friend...sail on.