Ryan and I had the chance to take a long weekend, and so we pretended to be tourists. We went to Alcatraz, the aquarium, and Musee Mechanique, and then topped off the day by eating seafood (I had my first oyster on the half shell, and I was not impressed). The only thing bad about acting like a tourist is that you have to be around many, many tourists.

On Sunday, we watched the entire DVD collection of Firefly. It was pretty awesome, but I can’t believe they were cancelled before we learned ANYTHING about ANYONE!! Haven’t watched the movie yet, we’re waiting for the HD version to get here in the mail. Up next? Battlestar Galactica!

I know you’re probably sick to death of hearing about my vacation, but Allie just put up some new pics on her Flickr page that I thought were hysterical.

Here, we’re singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” at some random bar in Avalon. We sang it “Old School” style and all… got a few cheers for that one.

Next up, mini golf. I don’t think we ever figured out who won, but we did learn a valuable lesson: small children named “Mark” that follow you around and loudly complain that your group is taking too long are basically asking for a death sentence.

OK, I’m done now, I promise!

OK, so camping wasn’t exactly “roughing it.” We did sleep in a tent, but that was only when we weren’t sitting by the crystal clear ocean, drinking coladas and relaxing. Other activities included shopping, eating ice cream, snorkeling, kayaking, getting brunch on the pier, and eating bananas grilled with marshmallows and chocolate. Overall, it was an awesome time. But I am glad to be home!

I was out having drinks with some people in Lower Haight last weekend, and I was asking my friend Megan what she was up to this Labor Day weekend (hopefully getting her to agree to go shopping with me, because she knows all the good spots). She looked at me, obviously confused:

“Wait, aren’t you going on vacation that weekend?”

What the… holy crap! Astonished, I looked over to Naomi, and in that instant realized that we had made plans months ago to fly to Southern California for a weekend of… are you ready for this?

Camping. Yes, camping. Out in the wild. With bugs and wildlife and plants. Now, I was a Girl Scout back in the day, and I’ll still go on hikes or walk around quite a bit (although, despite living in San Francisco I have a strong aversion to hills). But it has been a long time since I’ve lived without the comforts of technology that I’ve become so accustomed to. When I told my friend Jared that I was going camping with Naomi, Mona and Allie for an entire long weekend, he burst out laughing (I assume he was laughing, he did say “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA” over IM). Then he asked, obviously concerned, “What, you have a smartphone, you’ll be able to get your feeds there, right?” If I even get cell phone reception!!

This will be good for me, I think. I need to unplug a bit, let my brain relax. Maybe swim with some dolphins (no, seriously, I think we’re swimming with dolphins). If I don’t post pictures by Tuesday night, it means I’ve been eaten by a bear. Or a dolphin. Whatever.