Well that was fun...

I'm back, I'm tired, I'm sunburned, I'm malnourished, and I've had such an eventful week and a half, there's only one way to tell the tale...from the begining of course...

Wednesday, April 26
Death Cab For Cutie & Franz Ferdinand with guests The Cribs.
Great show!!! There's a lot to cover, but I will definitely be coming back to this to share my thoughts on the evening...stay tuned!

Saturday, April 29 (California - Day 1)

• 3:45 am wake up
• 6:29 am flight departs for San Francisco (on time!!!)
• 8:15 am (9:15 am MST) arrive San Francisco
• Rent car and drive 2 hours south on route 101 to Salinas, find hotel.
• Get in contact with Miss E. (Mr. J's sis) and "Handsome Joe" and arrange meeting at Monterey conference centre to pick up race packages etc. Wander around Monterey.
• Drive to Carmel to find where Mr. J needs to be to catch the bus to the start of the race. Get totally side tracked by the beach for about an hour...
• Find bus pick up point, and head back to Salinas to check into hotel, find dinner and head to bed early for the insane wake up time for Mr. J.

First impressions of the trip are not great at this point. The marathon seemed extremely unorganized. The organizers suggested Salinas as a viable option for accomodations when the bus pick up is 23 miles away at the Carmel middle school. There was no indication on any of the race package information as to where the race finish line was, and no transportation information for spectators...

Sunday, April 30 (California - Day 2) Race Day!!!

Poor Mr. J had to be up at 2:45 am in order to be at the pick up point to catch the bus. The race started at 6:45 and all runners had to catch a bus to the start in Big Sur, which dropped them off a minimum of an hour before the atrat of the race... at least he went to sleep nice and early...his spirits were high!

The race brochure said to add an additional 20 minutes to each runners expected finish time due to the difficult terrain of the course. Mr J had figured his finish time to be around the 4 hour mark, so he came in pretty much exactly on time at 4:17:56.

This was Miss E's first marathon and she was hoping to come in under five hours. She only just missed this at 5:00:27, and considering the difficulty of the run she really came in under her goal.

With the race starting so early, we had the whole afternoon ahead of us. We waited for "Handsome Joe" to make his way to the finish line (he and Miss E were camping out at Big Sur so he had to wait for the highway to re-open to make it to the finish line with the truck), and from there we headed back to the beach!

Check out the t-shirt burn! Pretty sexy huh? This pale girl has no business playing in the warm California Sun!!!

After the beach we split ways again...Mr. J and I were off in search of greasy fish and chips for his reward, and Miss E and "Handsome Joe" were going back to their campsite for dinner. We were supposed to drive out there to have a celebratory drink with them after dinner, but we didn't quite make it. About 5 miles from Big Sur, Mr. J was getting very tired (I don't drive), it was getting dark and we were running low on gas, so we turned around and headed back to our hotel. Our turn around point is officialy the furthest south I have ever been - the sign at the turn off for Andrew Molera State Park About 5 miles north of Big Sur.

Monday, May 1 (California - Day 3)

Woke up moderatly early and prepared for the drive back to San Francisco. Mr. J was sore and tired (rightfully so after running 26.2 miles) so the pace of the day was set rather slow. We arrived in San Francisco, droped off the car, and made our way down town by about 12:00. After walking 10 blocks, mostly up hill, through a rather dodgy neighborhood with suitecases in tow, we found our hotel and checked in.

The Harcourt Hotal, right in the middle of San Francisco's infamous Tenderloin district. It was not glamorous, but like I mentioned before, saving money on accomodation allows for more to spend on entertainment...I may have been a little optomistic though. The Tenderloin is NOT a turist spot, or a spot that's really very hospitable. It's noisy, it's filthy, and seems to be a gathering spot for drug addicts, drunks and people just generally down on their luck, but hey! The room was only $60 (Canadian) a night!!! I found this article that pretty much sums up the district...

Repeatedly described in most tourist guides as "the worst
neighborhood in San Francisco," the Tenderloin thrives despite its bad rap.
Sure, there are loads of drug dealers, addicts, prostitutes and mentally
unstable street people, but if you can get past that, you'll find it is also one
of the city's most exciting and diverse locales.

Given Mr. J's slow pace, we decided to spend the afternoon exploring the city via Cable Car - I mean these contraptions are one of the items unique to SF. And I think contraption is a great descriptor for this old but not quite forgotten mode of transportation. Noisy, bumpy and a tad on the expensive side ($5 one direction or $11 all day), the cable car turned out to be a great way to see the sites ond relax after a whirlwind couple of days. We wandered around the Union square area for a bit and then took the cable car back to the tenderloin and found a nice pub to relax in. The Front Room - $5 pitcher of beer and a $11 pizza! $20 including tax and tip!!!

To be continued...