2016-10-07

Surviving San Francisco - Day One

     Hello! Matthew here. I would like to welcome you to another adventure with the Pearons!

     If you've joined us before, you know the drill - but if not, just try to keep up. Generally, we try to alternate blog entries, so you hear a bit from both of us, but there are exceptions made to this rule (ie: one of us wimps out and goes to bed early).

A little background:
     This year, we decided to stay stateside and venture west to San Francisco, California. We're lucky enough to be accompanied by two very dear friends (we'll leave them nameless for now, as to not make them accomplices to whatever we end up doing here).

Now that you know where we are, I'll tell you how we got there.



Don't mind the blur ... we were too excited.

The Flight:
     The day involved quite a bit of travel. Note that when I use the phrase "quite a bit," I really mean "99.998%". There were multiple busses, planes and cars involved, and everyone came out unscathed.
The day came with an early start - 03:00 to be exact. There was a bit of preparation to be done the night before, so not much sleep was had.
     We made our way to the valet service, who then shuttled us and a few other tired travelers to our port of departure, Kansas City International Airport (MCI). This was simple enough, as we are pretty familiar with the facilities and have become accustomed to the ritualistic torture that is TSA's Security Checkpoint.
     Whipping our way through security and into the concourse, we each split off to acquire the one thing absolutely necessary to make the first leg of our journey a success: Food. After that, it was all pretty run-of-the-mill. We boarded, we slept, we ate cookies, we slept more, some time passed and we landed. Pretty simple, eh?




While the rest of us slept, Val did some reading while watching the sunrise.

The Drive:
     After landing at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), we made our way to the Rental Car Depot. For LAX's purposes, these are all off-site, so we were shuttled there by an employee of the rental agency. Again, this was very simple - but there was a nice surprise. Our rental agency offers an exotic lineup and I found this beauty:



Explains itself

     Stunning, isn't it?

     I will say at this point, (under much protest by yours truly) I did not rent the Aston, but instead opted for an economical Toyota Camry. Bummer.
     We made our way out of Los Angeles via the scenic U.S. 101, stopping for breakfast in lovely Malibu. We decided to eat at Ollo - which was definitely a good choice. I had their Eggs Benedict with potatoes and Valeri had Buttermilk Pancakes with strawberry butter.



My Eggs Benedict. Val's was just pancakes ... no photo needed.


     After breakfast, we hit the road toward Cupertino and Mountain View. Can you guess what our plans were there? If you guessed that we were there to see Apple and Google, you will have guessed correctly! It was neat to see the campuses that birth such amazing technologies and innovations! We were not able to do tours in either location, as they are closed-campuses, but we did catch a couple of photos at each:



At Apple, 1 Infinite Loop

At Google ... there are palm trees that you can't see behind out head.

     After another 90 minutes, we were in the middle of San Francisco traffic and crossing the Bay Bridge. It was a bit unnerving, but we all survived. I can't say I wasn't slightly frazzled by the end of it, but I think I performed admirably. (If any of my passengers argue that point, they are not to be trusted.)



A little bit of the view we had while driving through Malibu.

This was just south of San Francisco.


     By the end of the day, we had flown from Kansas City, Missouri, to Los Angeles, California, then had driven from Los Angeles to San Francisco. We had also tired ourselves out by doing this - which is why I'm bringing this blog entry to an end.

Thank you for sticking with us through this first day and thank you in advance for joining us tomorrow! This is Matthew, signing off.

"San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth."
- William Saroyan


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