I’ve been back home for just over 24 hours, and figured I’d post a follow-up: the trip was great! The weather was a little chilly the whole time, and it rained off and on Friday and Saturday, but it always cleared up right when we got to a destination. It really worked out quite well.[ul][li]Wednesday night my father and I landed in Oakland and stayed at an airport hotel.[/li][li]Thursday morning we drove to San Juan Bautista and saw the mission there (the fault line itself is no longer viewable, but we could see a noticeable drop in the field behind the mission). Then we went to Pacific Grove and checked into our motel, followed by some light PG and Monterey sight-seeing. We used to live in PG, and I was born in Monterey, so there were some trips down memory lane for my dad. Watching the sun set on the beach at PG was pretty cool, though also pretty cold. <grin>[/li][li]Friday was more Monterey, including their Fisherman’s Wharf (both parts). We also drove to Big Sur, and got some nice photos. I expected there to be a small town, or at least someplace to get some lunch, but there’s really nothing but the ocean! We turned around on Rt 1 after taking pictures and drove back into Monterey. We went to the hospital where I was born, and in the gift shop my father bought me a small stuffed elephant wearing a sweater that says “I was born at Community Hospital of Monterey.” The place where we stayed in PG was very nice: I heartily recommend the Butterfly Grove Inn to anyone who needs a place to stay in that area. If I ever make it to the Monterey Jazz Festival I’ll happily stay there again.[/li][li]Saturday morning we drove to San Francisco. We went directly to the Castro (Zhai’helleva ashke, I thought of you!), where we managed to park for a while so we could get out and walk up and down the street. We stopped into the A Different Light bookstore and browsed some, and I bought a couple of books. We had lunch at a Slider’s there, then drove out to the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Cool museum! Cool views of SF! By the time we were done at Legion of Honor it was late enough for us to check into our motel, so that’s what we did. Talk about a lesson in booking a place you’re not familiar with! As much as I recommend the Butterfly Grove, I warn people away from the Pacific Motor Inn on Lombard (at Broderick). It was relatively clean, but really just one step up from a flea-bag motel … and though my room was marked as non-smoking, the bedsheets reeked of cigarette smoke. I’m not a complainer, but that’s the closest I’ve come to ever asking for a new room (by the time I got into bed and noticed the smell it was late and I was too tired to change rooms). Luckily, we only had one night there. Anyway, after we checked in we drove downtown and parked at Ghiradelli Square, then took the Powell-Hyde cable car all the way up. That was pretty cool.[/li][li]Sunday morning we were picked up by a tour bus at the motel, and went on a 3-hour tour of San Francisco. Bus tours can be iffy, but this one was very good and our tour guide had a good sense of humour. We saw everything, including stops at Twin Peaks and the base of the Golden Gate bridge (which we then drove over). After the tour they took us to Pier 41, where we got the ferry to Alcatraz. That was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. It’s the only place where I bought a t-shirt, but then I left it on the shuttle bus that brought us back to our car (which we’d left at the motel). :smack: We walked around Fisherman’s Wharf until it was time to catch the shuttle. Sunday night we drove back to Oakland, to the same airport hotel we’d stayed at on arrival.[/li][li]Monday morning we went to the airport and caught our flight home.[/ul][/li]My other big “:smack:” thing is that I left my digital camera at home! I had to buy disposable cameras on the trip, and will have to wait for the film to be developed before I can post any photos. But I will post photos.
I was a little concerned about how my relationship with my father would survive the trip: we hadn’t traveled together in over 20 years, and he can really be a great big jerk sometimes. He’s one of those people who goes through life with only the slightest idea that there are other people around him – he says and does what he wants when he wants, no matter if it inconveniences anyone. Yet, if the slightest thing bothers him he’ll be very passive-aggressive about it and will be put out for the rest of the day. Knowing this about him I wondered how it would be to travel together, but it turns out that we got along pretty well: he did have his jerk moments, but I can deal with them. One of the nice things about growing up is that you stop being embarrassed by the bad behaviour of those around you. 
What didn’t go so well, though, was the driving. My father is a horrible driver. I mean, horrible. Bad enough that his insurance company dropped him last year. I’m truly amazed that he hasn’t ever been seriously hurt in an accident of his causing, and/or that he hasn’t seriously hurt someone else. He drives the way he does everything else: with no regard for anyone around him. He goes whatever speed he wants, paying no attention to speed limits (either high or low), and he tends to ignore stop signs. He tends to ignore most highway signs, actually (like “yield,” “lane ends,” etc.). We came within centimeters of hitting other cars 3 times – I’m talking slamming on the brakes at the very last minute because he wasn’t paying attention – and got beeped by other cars several times. (I drove to Big Sur and into San Francisco, but I knew it would seriously piss him off if I insisted on doing all of the driving … it seems like a bad trade-off, but in a way an accident would have been better than my making a thing about the driving.) I only lost my temper with him once, after the umpteenth time that he didn’t notice a stop sign and he almost almost hit a truck that had the right of way. He also tended to sight-see while driving, which resulted in the car drifting into the next lane, slowing down on the highway for no apparent reason, etc. I’ve ridden with him before, but never for a long time and never in a place he’s not familiar with … I will not be getting into a car with him again any time soon.
BUT, aside from the driving (which was a pretty significant stressor), everything was good. We got along fine, agreed on what to see and when to go where, where to eat was never an issue, etc. In that regard, I’m kind of happy to know that we can actually get along for 6 days of nearly 24/7 togetherness.
In conclusion (finally ;)), San Francisco and Monterey are definitely both cities that I’d be happy to go back to someday. But maybe in summer next time. <grin>
