Saturday in the City

My Saturday was the most perfect Saturday. Even if things didn't go to plan, everything that happened was wonderful. To have every day like today would be a dream.

On the ride up to Oakland, traffic stopped momentarily on 17. I was wondering if there was a wreck, but then a deer bounded by my car and it was obvious people had stopped to let it pass. Things picked up and off I went. I used my GPS to navigate to Robin's, and I bought a car charger for my phone (only $15!) so now I don't have to worry about my phone dying on the road.

I parked at Robin's and we got through the catching up and what's been going on and all that happenings. Her apartment has really been furbished out since last I visited. It looks great! I drove down to the Bart station and parked on a side street, and we rode over to the Ferries Landing or whatever it is called. Turns out the stop was further from the museum than we originally thought. Like a whole bus ride further. Oops! Robin showed me how to use my GPS (well Google Maps) to figure out the bus route to take, and there was a free shuttle to the Presidio! Booyah! But I'm getting ahead of ourselves. I held a spot in line at Blue Bottle Coffee and Robin fetched us sandwiches from Cowgirl Place Sandwiche Something (not the real title). We each ate half with plans to eat the other half later, but switch sandwiches. Mine was mozzarella and proscuitto, hers was turkey and some other cheese. She treated me to New Orleans style iced coffee (which has chicory in it) and got herself a coffee. Oh that was good iced coffee! Good enough for me to drink, and I'm not a coffee drinker.

We walked down to where my phone said the shuttle would pick us up, and we sat on the grass and talked and drank our coffee. It was a nice jaunt up through the Presidio, and the last stop was only a few blocks from the museum! Hurray! All this time I was texting Josh & Carmen who were going to join us at the museum.

The museum in question is the Walt Disney Family Museum. There is a special Mary Blair exhibit happening right now, with her original art works, and I had to see it! Mary Blair did visual development and illustration for Disney in the 30's and 40's. Peter Pan, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, The Three Caballeros. The exhibit was really nice. You could get up close to the originals. Some didn't look so well preserved as the paper had yellowed and we theorized that the color had faded on the paints. Still, her work was wonderful! And everyone dug it (Carmen and Josh showed up about 20 minutes after we did). There were many really nice quotes put up about her, and it really made it seem like she was appreciated. Of course it's easy to make it seem that way long after the fact, but hey! Her art lives on!

I picked up a few postcards and then we went out to get juice! Carmen drove us. I had fancy immune booster carrot juice and a wheatgrass shot. Went healthy! I drew in my sketchbook. We conversed. It was a windy, bright day. Afterwards, we got a life to the station. I hugged C & J goodbye, grabbed my Odd Owl poster, and off Robin & I went to hop on the train and go back to Oakland! It was an easy crossing, though I felt a total tourist for always putting away my card and having to take it back out. Robin had me drive over to this alley of artsy shops in Oakland, and we wandered around that area for a bit. I put on some foo foo that smelled like trees. I really liked it. I'm not much of a foo foo person, but I'll have that foo foo! I didn't get it though. Expensive! My car got a bit misplaced, but we found it! We didn't take note of which streets it was on when I parked, but backtracking returned us. I hung out at her lovely apartment and had some tea.

Before it got too late, we hugged out goodbyes for the time being, and I set out for 45 minutes south of Oakland: Mountain View. Garth was working late, so I hung out in In-N-Out with a burger, fries, and shake and my Kindle and read and had a little peaceful me time. Nice to just sit and read. Okay eating a burger undoes all the healthy eating I did earlier today, but whatever. Garth and I shared a pitcher at this little dive bar near his place. There was a darts tourney happening, and damn if they all didn't consistently hit the dart board!

All around, through and through a great day.