Day 7: Redding to San Francisco,  CA

I have never been good with change. When I was a child, I used to cry, bawl in fact, two weeks before school started, like clockwork. I’d cry because I loved my old teacher; cry because I knew what last year was like and this one was unknown; cry because I regretted not making the most of my time in the previous stage.

Then, I would cry two weeks into anything new, for about the same reasons. And then I’d love where I was and have a great time until two weeks before the next major change.

And this continued throughout high school…and University, oh dear. My mom used to call me 2 weeks before anything started, saying “Sooo, had a meltdown yet?” And I’d feel morose and depressed and melancholy for a day before chilling out. 

So, I wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been, surprised when it took me a few days to adjust when we went to New Zealand on a roadtrip earlier this year. And, in fact, same deal for this one. I think I’m getting better at change; it’s not really a meltdown anymore. Instead it’s more of a underlying heightened stress level making me a bit more irritable and on edge. Poor Bryan.

Anyways, today I felt that underlying stress current. We slept in in our cheap motel after being woken frequently by the obnoxiously squeaky door of our neighbor (not sure why he/she had to go in and out a bajillion times in the night).  It was still a decent sleep.

The drive to San Fran was mostly in a skyscape of dramatic clouds, which soon turned into torrential rain, but lightened up near SF. We drove over the Golden Gate (ooooh!) and had lunch at a nearby beach, then watched some sailboat racing and walked to Fisherman’s Wharf. Talk about a zoo! I have never been somewhere as crowded except downtown Vancouver during the Olympics. Tourist central, people central! But quite a cool waterfront. Bryan loved the barking sea lions at Pier 39. It was hilarious how they would flop their bodies on top of a raft of sleeping others and awaken a chorus of annoyed barks from the sleepers. Their expression was so easy to personify. Noisy and smelly, but neat.

Supper at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., mmmm. We need to watch that movie again. 

Thanks to Kaitlyn (spelling?) Torgerson, Bryan's childhood neighbor for putting us up in her awesome San Fran apartment for the night and leading us around the town.