Bass lake/ San francisco trip

Well, summer's coming to an end. What's a better way to spend it then going on a 5 day road trip with your closest friends?

It's pretty funny... usually when we try planning a trip or something we always fall flat on our faces and end up getting stuck in Torrance.

Not this time though.

It started out the same as all of our other trips. No one really wanting to plan or do much to help.

It took us 4 days just to figure out where exactly we wanted to go. We had originally planned to go to Yosemite for 3 days and San Francisco for 4 days. What we ended up doing was going to Bass Lake for 2 days and Sf for 4.

Totally awesome though.

It turned out that Tyler just happened to be up at his cabin on the days we had planned and since it was close to Yosemite we decided to just go there instead.

All we needed now was a place to stay in Sf.

After looking around for a place we eventually found a hotel Marriott near the airport, just out of town. My dad helped us get a room there and all we had to do was show up and everything would be fine.

So, we got supplies for the trip, told everyone what they needed to bring, packed our bags and left at 5 in the morning on August 19th. 2009.

What a trip this would be.

Day 1: Bass Lake

Yushi and i drove the whole trip. Driving for 4 hours isn't really all that bad. We just listened to music and talked for the whole way basically. Took two cars since we had 7 people so there was enough room for everyone.

Met like halfway in Bakersfield to get some food. Somehow we ended up driving a mile around there to a Carl's Jr. that was about 200m away from where we first stopped. Man as we walked into that place though it was so different from here. The cashier was so funny and nice. Then as we were eating we had a conversation with a nice lady. I guess we all had sweatshirts on, since it was cold in Torrance, and she went on to guess that we weren't from around there. What a smart person. We got back into our cars and drive the rest of the way to Bass Lake and eventually find Tyler's cabin.

Some of us moved our stuff inside and change into board shorts so we could go to the lake. We drove for about 5 minutes, park and pay for a cheap parking pass, and head to the water with a bunch of floating chairs. Now, this lake isn't the best or anything, but it was sure calm and relaxing. We headed out into the water and just floated around for a few hours. It was pretty funny because the people who didn't have a floating chair could still go out pretty far since there was a huge sand bank under the water. The lake floated us over to a couple of huge rocks with water that ran down it. That made it super slippery. A couple of people went down it until we eventually decided to follow where the water was coming from.

Holy shit. The rocks were so slippery and the water was freezing cold the whole way.

It was maybe like a quarter of a mile but it took us an hour or so to go pretty far since everyone kept falling. By the time we came back out everyone was probably bleeding in some way or hurt themselves somehow.

We decided to be done with the lake after that and headed back to the cabin, but not without a picture :D

First picture of the trip

The Lake

Group Shot

Basically as soon as we got back and people had the chance to lay down we all started to knock out. Haha even i was sleeping so i didn't even take these. I think Tyler did.

Chilling in the cabin

Tyler's parents ended up making us some bomb hamburgers that were cooked perfectly.

Add some baked beans on the side and you have a delicious dinner! Ended up staying up for a while and just talked. There were only four beds and two couches so two of us had to sleep on the floor.

Day Two: Bass Lake/ San Francisco

We awoke the next day to the smell of bacon and eggs being cooked by Tyler's parents. Man, i have never smelled something that good before. We ate up, hung around for a bit, and eventually decided we should head on our way to SF. Said goodbye to Tyler and his family, took some pictures of the cabin, got into our cars, and went on our way.

The cabin

Living Room

The bed room

Another 4 hour drive, not that bad.

We went through Merced and almost went to UCM, but decided since there wasn't anything around the city there probably wasn't much to see in it. But man, when i mean there wasn't anything around it i mean like NOTHING. Just hills and dead grass for as far as you could see.

We averaged about 80mph until we get into some cities. Then it got sooooo slow. Eventually we got through it and found our hotel in a pretty peaceful area. We checked in, looked at the rooms, and went right back out to go find something to eat.

Now, i don't know if you've driven in SF before but holy shit is it confusing. Within the first 15 minutes we broke maybe 15 laws. We were so confused. We eventually just parked on this one street that we ended up going back to about three times during our trip to park on. It was like free, unlimited parking! and it wasn't even crowded at all. 4th and Harrison if you ever go to SF. I would recommend parking there.

So we headed up the street to the whole shopping district and ended up going inside a mall around there. This mall was 8 stories high and had curved escalators. I thought that was so amazing. I didn't have my camera so i had to use my phone for this.

We went down to the food court and got some food. 3 of us, including me got korean bbq, one got mexican, two got fish and chips, and one got a steak burger.

We tried going around the mall, but everything was closed so we just went outside to the streets. Oh my god. In the first 10 minutes i had fallen in love with SF. The night life there is so great! All the street performers and everything. We heard some music coming from a forever 21 and followed it inside to find a band playing in there. So we got a free show :D.

They weren't that great, but whatever.

We continued walking up the street and saw a huge group across a street and so we crossed and found this amazing band playing on the street. They were so awesome. We even bought a cd from them. ( When we got back to the room though we found out the cd was blank D: ). Inglorious Bastards came out at midnight that night so we thought we could go see it. Got our tickets, waited around for a bit and then went in to watch it. Dude, that movie was awesome. I loved the very first scene. The music was great too. Got out about 3 something am and decided our day was long enough and we went back to our hotel.

Day 3: SF

So we ended up waking up pretty late and got out of the rooms about 1 pm.

Still a full day though. Everyone woke up hungry so we went to this taco place that Jon said was good. He definitely was not lying. This place was so fucking good. It's probably the best taco i've had in my life, no lie. This time i had my camera with me.

At the taco place

Look at that. It was basically a fried fish taco with a bunch of guacamole on it, but man was it good. Two was the perfect amount. After that we decided to go over to Fisherman's Wharf to check it out. It was such a nice day there too.

So we walked by this hobo while going to pier 39 and Moto was flipping a coin and he accidently dropped it right when we walked by him. I don't know why, but i felt pretty scared.

Saw this group of Japanese tourists who happened to be all old people.

I thought it was funny since i was a head taller then all of them, so we followed them around a bit.

Just started going into shops and checking things out then.

Cool looking crystal bird. $950 bucks.

Free mini magic show.

Knife store.

Lefty Store. Jon's left handed if you didn't know.

Then this random store where they had a bunch of Star Wars backpacks. Of course we had to try them on.

Shitload of bobble heads.

Then we just rested for a bit and watched the ocean and a bunch of sea lions.

We continued walking and saw a huge group gathered around a bunch of break dancers. They started off good and all, but eventually started making fun of this one guy by calling him racist for not wanting to help with their show. It went way out of hand and wasn't even funny. No one was laughing at all. Then they asked for 5 people to donate 20 bucks each so they could do their final trick.

This was their final trick.

I really don't think it was all that great, considering how i've seen people do stuff like that all the time.

I remembered seeing this arcade on the way to the pier so we walked back and went inside of it. As soon as we walked inside we realized it wasn't the kind of arcade we were used to. It basically had old school coin operated machines from way back when.

An old baseball game. It was really hard.

An old massage chair.

By far the worst thing there. you pay a quarter to watch this thing blow wind through it.

We had to look at this one.

It was so much fun though. We stayed there for so long.

Then over to the Golden Gate Bridge to take some pictures.

We had trouble meeting up to take a group picture so by the time we all got together it was so late at night.

We were all hungry so we decided to go to this hamburger place called Jucy's? i think. I just got a chocolate shake that was way too rich. Then we just walked around for a while and found this giant structure that you could climb on so we did just that.

There were a lot of hobos sleeping around in though :(

Then we went back to our hotel room, but ended up staying up till 3 or 4 in the morning.

Day 4: SF

Woke up earlier this day. I noticed that Jon, Yushi, and Matt were all matching (on accident) so i had to take a picture of them.

Went back to the Golden Gate Bridge to try and get another group picture. Really foggy though :(.

We headed over to Black Sand beach after that. Had to pass through this one lane tunnel that went both ways. There was a 5 minute light to wait to clear the tunnel.

While we were at the beach we had to wait for the other car so we got some of our snack food and made some sandwiches at the beach.

My nice looking PB and J.

My thick as fuck PB and J.

They eventually got there so we walked down to the sand.

I guess this beach was supposed to be a nude beach too, but i couldn't tell at all.

The water came up pretty high and at one point we got slightly separated from each other.

At the five minute light.

Back in the cars after that and we went over to Twin Peaks which was supposed to be really Windy.

Man not only was it windy, but it was cold as fuck.

Couldn't even see that much :(

Then we used Jon and Matt's yelp app on their new iphones to help us find a place to eat. Found out about this sandwich place called Ike's Place. They had over 100 sandwiches to choose from. The names for the sandwiches were funny too. I got the "Not Tonight, I Have A Headache". Wow. Everyone agreed on why this was top of the list. All of the sandwiches were so good.

Look at that. That's amazing.

Off to Lombard street then!

There was a huge ass line to drive down it, but we didn't care about that so we just parked nearby and walked up to it.

Back over to the shopping district then to find Nike Town. I was so pumped to go here.

What a let down though. :(

There were hardly any shoes and they weren't even that great.

But i did find these!

Over to the Ferrari store then. Everything there was so expensive. These glasses were like 400 bucks. They were tight though.

Then back to the mall from before to check out the shops before they closed.

There really wasn't much there though.

Went down a few blocks to this giant arcade that we saw the first night.

They had this drum game there that i wanted to try but Yushi said it didn't work for him :(.

The gun games there worked PERFECTLY. I was so happy. They had Time Crisis 2 too :D

Matt wanted one of the balls so badly. He spent 9 dollars trying to get it. 3 other people in our group got it with less than a dollar each.

Back out to the streets to watch this movie that was being shown in a plaza on a giant projector.

We were playing keep away with the balls.

The movie was whatever so we just messed around and played keep away from Ryan with the balls that we won.

We then found out about this diner place called Mel's drive in about 2 miles away so we walked back to our cars to go there. On the way back to the cars though we found a closer one that we must have missed when we were looking it up. Got a steak and eggs combo thing.

Notice the poster behind us

George Lucas

Then back up to Twin Peaks to try and take a picture of SF at night. It kind of cleared up but it wasn't that great of a view.

Back to the hotel for some sleep then.

Kind of. haha.

Day 5: SF, Berkeley, and home.

We woke up and got all of our stuff together, checked out, and headed back to SF for some final destination spots. Parked on the same street we parked on before. That was seriously such a great street. It had a two hour parking thing, but we were there for maybe like 5 and nothing happened. Then we walked up the street to SF Museum of Modern Art. Man. Art is confusing.

We then wanted to visit the arcade again so after we grabbed some food from this Italian deli we walked over to it. There ended up being a nice little park behind it that we must have missed the first two times.

After we all got our arcade game fixes we decided it was time to say goodbye to SF and head home.

But not without a stop by Berkeley though!

We met up with Audrey and Emily and they showed us their room which was surprisingly big.

Ended up seeing Frank Ma and Jenn Devries too. After hanging out there for a bit and then saying bye we visited Anna after a confusing walk to her Unit. Didn't stay for that long and said goodbye so we could start our 7 hour trip back home.

Walking away from the former South people :(

The gps said we would get home at 1:04 am. I got it down to 12:46 predicted time, but then we stopped to get some food and gas. The McDonalds we stopped at fucking sucked though. Everything was overpriced and they only had like 4 dollar menu items. Whatever though. Considering how i was starving and closing my eyes for 5 seconds at a time to get a bit of sleep i figured i needed a break. Then we started again. This time the gps said 1:14, but the final time i got home at was 12:35. Hellyeahmotherfucker. I averaged about 100 mph the whole time. What a boring drive though. The other people in the car fell asleep so i just put on some Owl City and listened to that for most of the drive. Got home, unpacked a bit, got into bed, and knocked out.

Day 6: After thought

This was seriously one of the best trips i've ever been on. It sucks that not everyone's going to be around anymore so we can't really do this again. It sure was fucking fun though.

GJ if you read all that too.