Escapade

And now for something rather different...

Today I drove up to the East Bay to meet Monique. Well, okay, I'd met her twice before at parties. But we've been corresponding for a few weeks now, and I'd offered to help her meet a goal of her escapades list to walk across the Golden gate Bridge, which was our plan today.

And, to tell the truth, we've really been exchanging quite a bit of e-mail, and although we didn't say so (in fact, we've been sort of deliberately dancing around the issue because it was fun to do so), this was actually something of a date.

(If you don't read Monique's journal, you could start with her July 2000 entries - which are kind of a downer, but perhaps useful background - or you can start with when she moved to the Bay Area in early September 2000.)

So I've been looking forward to today for several days now. And I wasn't even all that nervous!

Well, I was maybe a little nervous that the weather would thwart our plans. As I've said, it's been raining for the last several days, and the forecast today was for scattered showers. The drive up involved passing through alternating sun and rain - typical Bay Area weather. But it wasn't that bad.

I arrived at her place about mid-morning, and got to meet her parakeets, and one of her roommates with her roommate's son. She's renting a pretty nice room in what seems like a good location given her grad student's budget. I was actually reminded slightly that having one's computer in one's bedroom is rather convenient. (I find having my computer in a separate room actually makes each room feel slightly less hospitable for lounging around in.)

It took us a little while to find somewhere to have lunch, since it seemed like most restaurants were closed on Sunday! But we finally ended up at a Thai restaurant that coincidentally I'd gone to with Rob last year. After that, it was off to San Francisco!

We took a circuitous route, mainly because I'd never been over the San Rafael Bridge (I-580) and figured that a drive through Marin County couldn't be a bad thing (Marin is one of the most beautiful parts of the Bay Area). Here's a map to give you an idea:

We drove north along I-580, then south along 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge. In the late afternoon we took I-80 over the Bay Bridge to return to the East Bay.

After noodling around and nearly getting lost in the Presidio, we managed to find my accustomed parking lot near the Golden Gate, which allowed us to walk along Battery East, a set of brick and earth emplacements intended after the Civil War for cannon defense. It also provides a terrific view of the Bridge on the approach.

I brought my new camera along, and took many photos (of the Bridge, of the city, of Monique, of me), and when I finish the roll and get them developed, I'll likely put them up here (and note it in my entry at the time).

As it turned out, we completely lucked out on the weather. It was mostly sunny, with only a little rain along the way. We walked all the way across the Bridge to the observation area on the north side, and got many great views of the city along the way. At the north end, we noticed that the East Bay was damp enough that the sun shining from the ocean was creating a beautiful rainbow! The first bow we saw was a full, 180-degree arc, with brilliant colors at the northern end. Wonderful! And as we walked back across the Bridge we saw several other rainbows (or maybe the same one coming and going from different angles). At one point we even saw pieces of two rainbows simultaneously!

It sure is beautiful out here.

The total hike was probably about 4 miles (the Bridge itself is about 1.8 miles long, plus we had the walk along the Battery). We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. And on the way back I drove us by another parking area at the entrance to the Bay (which has a memorial made of part of the bridge of the USS San Francisco from World War II), and along the Great Highway and the beaches along the Pacific, and finally past Lake Merced and the Zoo. And on the way back we drove past Monique's college and she pointed out to me a couple of landmarks of her life.

Monique seemed completely taken with the beauty of the city, much of which she had never seen before and didn't know existed. It made me realize that I've been out here long enough that - despite my lazy ways - I actually know about a lot of cool stuff to see in the area. Nearly a native!

Or not!

(Here's a picture of the underside of the Bridge, which Monique really wanted me to take.)

Back in the East Bay we decided on complete junk food for dinner (mmmm, french fries!) and headed back to her place for dinner and further chatting.

And, well, it was a date, and I'm not going to give you all the details!

(And it was only a first date, so stop thinking that right now!)

Well, okay, I did get my head whapped with a pillow several times, but mainly because of my penchant for telling really bad puns...

But I had fun. She had fun. And hopefully we can have fun again sometime soon, y'know? I think that's the right attitude to have after a good first date.

You can also read Monique's take on the day.