Everywhere you look

Tuesday morning in Oakland, CA I did a wonderful 7 mile run (8:48 pace). My friend Rachel, the beautiful bride that we were visiting, lives across the street from a 3 mile loop around the gorgeous Lake Merritt. The route is pretty flat and gives you fantastic city views while you run. I even ran into fellow blogger and (not fellow) superfast runner Roserunner. I knew from her blog she ran there, so I kept an eye out for her the whole time. She was pretty shocked to see me, you know, randomly running on her neighborhood route on the other side of the country, and I was all stalkerish like "Hey, I've been looking for you this whole time!". It was still pretty cool though. 

After that, we had a whirlwind day of sightseeing. We walked at least 6 miles, and in my book, that's a lot of walking.

First stop - the Full House house!

I insisted on touching the steps that Uncle Jesse had touched, even though Eric tried to tell me they probably just filmed the outside and the set was somewhere else and he was never actually there.

Second stop: Golden Gate Bridge. Sort of. We randomly got off the bus not really knowing where we were and started walking, which worked out great because we got to see this really pretty former military base/current park called the Presidio. 

Random cool stuff

National Cemetery

We even got a day with hardly any fog!

We walked all the way across and back #proof

We saw a seal catching fish!

 After we learned all about the Golden Gate and how it was built from the plaques below, we took a cruise around the bay and went under the Golden Gate. It was another audio tour so now we are truly experts on the city.

After our cruise, we walked around Fisherman's Wharf some more, had dinner, and then headed back to Rachel and Travers for our last night on the West Coast. 

Wednesday morning, we went on a walking tour of Oakland. It was pretty detailed into architecture, which isn't really our thing, but we saw some cool stuff.

Before we left, I went on my last California run, around Lake Merritt again, 10 miles at an 8:43 pace. Then we packed up our stuff and headed to the airport. We took a red eye flight, which theoretically is smart because by sleeping on the plane you don't waste a day flying. Except you can't actually sleep on the plane, so you end up wasting a day acting like a zombie. I'm not complaining though, I'll take one sleepless night for such a fantastic vacation. 

We got back to our apartment around noon on Thursday, and pretty much alternated sitting on the couch and passing out on the couch. I wanted to go to bed early, but the time difference was sort of still messing with me. I managed to wake up and do 7 miles this morning, which was a minor miracle. No watch, because I was too sad about leaving California to face how slow I was. 

And now it's back to real life.