Luckily, I booked a trip to see Stephen right after he was here for the weekend. I left Wednesday right after work I jumped on the 7:30 flight and arrived in San Fran at midnight. I was planning to ride the Bart to Stephen's apartment but he met me at the gate!! It was so sweet. His truck was having some parts trouble so we drove it to the mechanic that night and left the keys in the key drop. We hailed a Waymo to take us to his apartment. I was only apart from him for a day but that was long enough. HA! I was actually super sick so I didn't end of going anywhere or doing anything on Thursday. I have been sick for over two months now. I had a brief moment where I wasn't sick and I should have appreciated that more than I did. Little did I know I would spend the next three weeks coughing and blowing my nose! So I rested on Thursday while Stephen was at work.
Friday, I woke up and felt good enough to run, so I went about 6 miles on my favorite trail, Sawyer Camp Trail. It is a delight to run on that trail. It is 1.5 miles UPHILL from Stephen's house to the trail but totally worth the effort. A few months ago, I had seen that Sarah Barielles was coming to San Francisco and I really wanted to go. However, tickets to see her show were $250 dollars for the cheap seats! It was insane. Well I had watched a frugal instagramer post about how he waited a few hours before the concert and bought his tickets for super cheap on Stubhub. So, I thought, might as well give that a try!! It WORKED! I got tickets for $50 bucks a piece about 2 hours before the concert. Stephen and I dressed up and jumped on the Bart and headed to downtown San Francisco for the night. We grabbed dinner at a ramen place for $100 bucks and walked into the concert at about 8:15 just as the show opener was finishing. The concert was the best I have heard all year. Sarah sounded incredible. She really hit every single note without any trouble. She was a great performer but more than that, she could really sing. We didn't stay for the last two songs because we wanted to catch the Bart early and head back to Stephen's apartment. It was a memorable night.
Saturday I wanted to finally make my way to Pinnacles National Park. I looked up a hike that most people do in the park and we headed that way around 10 AM. Stephen is not much of a morning person and it takes him a while to get ready to go. I would love to be up and out the door by 7 AM for this hike, but I also don't mind taking it slow sometimes. It WAS REALLY hot that day. 95 degrees in San Francisco and hotter in the park. The park is about two and a half hours south east of San Fran. By the time we found a parking spot and started the hike it was about 1:30. There was a parking attendant but he was doing a really bad job of helping people find parking. Either way, we were starting this hike late in the afternoon and it was hot. The attendant yelled, "TAKE WATER!" I was still feeling pretty sick so we walked slowly. We actually went the backward way on the hike because I had read it was more forgiving to walk that way. The first mile was actually really hot! We stopped in the shade about 2 miles in and ate our lunch. We relaxed for about 30 minutes before we got up and continued the hike. It was beautiful in a dessert beauty kind of way. AND I can appreciate that. We finally arrived to the top of the hike where most of the hikers were located. It was packed with hikers so we kept going and headed down the other side of the mountain. As we neared the end of the hike, we had about a mile to go, we heard a man SCREAMING! He was literally screaming at the top of his lungs. So we picked up our pace to find out if we could help. We caught up to a man surrounded by hikers and we didn't stop and gawk but I did ask some hikers just passed the man, "what happened? is he OK? and can we help?' The two ladies, possibly from Germany as their accent led me to believe that, said that they found him sitting in the sun saying he was cold!!! That means he had intense heat exhaustion. They said a helicopter was on its way to rescue him. We were only about a mile from the parking lot and I figured that was maybe the easier way to get the man down but I am not search and rescue so what do I know. We finished our hike, made it to our truck, and drove to the national park store, and shopped before we even saw a fire truck headed up his way. It had been at least 45 minutes since we had seen the man screaming. I never saw or heard a helicopter. I suppose he didn't die because I looked it up in the news the next morning but that was pretty intense.
Sunday we relaxed. I wanted to do a mountain bike ride but the day just seemed to slip away. Monday I went for another run, lifted some weights, and cleaned Stephen's apartment. He came home early from work so we got to hang out a bit, and then I flew home really early Tuesday morning. AH! I love visiting Stephen but I also love being in Albuquerque.
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