It's an Exciting World

My brother’s bachelor party was a pretty low key affair, being that it was mostly a LAN party.  I enjoyed it a whole lot more than had it been a traditional bachelor party.

The flight there was uneventful, albeit a little late.  The MARTA ride north had great sunset views.

I accidentally missed the station because I was writing an email, but Jeff was nice enough to wait and pick me up when I got back.   I hit the trains just wrong as the one I needed back pulled away as the train I was on pulled up.  It ended up being about a 30 minute delay.  We got to Jeff’s and had dinner with my Mom and Dad.  They brought over some tasty Thai food.

The next morning Jeff’s friends started showing up, and we eventually got to the gun range.  Jeff brought a small arsenal, as did his friends.

I shot a little, but not very much.  I was most impressed by the difference the suppressors made.  The guns with suppressors made a click sound, and the ones without were deafening.

We then headed back for a round of games before heading to Taco Mac.  It was a nice dinner and we met up with the rest of the party there.  We came back to play games, and had a good time of it.  I played a bit of everything, but the FPS’s weren’t my thing.  I did really well in Mario Kart and Rocket League; only losing those to people who play them regularly.

The next day We went to my parents place and hung out.  I played cards with my dad, and Kim came over with my niece Grace.  This was my first meeting with Grace, and she was cute.

We had dinner and watched Game of Thrones, then I grabbed a Lyft for the airport.

Steph and I decided we’d go to the Grant Tetons National Park for the Aug 21 Solar Eclipse.  I hadn’t experienced a full solar eclipse before and heard it would be nice, but I hadn’t expected it to be as amazing.  I also realized the difference between totality and 1% is huge.

We started off by flying into Salt Lake City, getting a rental car, and grabbing some dinner.  After dinner we drove up to Idaho Falls where I had found one of the only hotels that didn’t change their prices for the eclipse.

We stayed there one night, then went into the Grand Tetons National Park the next day for some hiking around the lakes there.

We stayed in a fantastic Aribnb that night, and went for the big hike the next day.

The total hike was 13 miles, with 4600 ft vertical.  The first part through the granite canyon, and absolutely gorgeous.

The stream running through the canyon was flowing pretty nicely, and we had to cross over lots of side streams.  We then came into several miles of wildflower fields.

Eventually we made it to the summit, just in time to take one of the last trams down the mountain.

We finished up the hike and met up with Adam at the tiny house cabin.  The cabin was adorable, and the size of a trailer.  I was so tempted to get one.  We went into town for a nice dinner, did some grocery shopping and hung out in the cabin for a bit.

The next morning we went to view the eclipse at the visitor center, and managed to get the final parking spot.  We walked around for the few hours before the eclipse started, then got in line for the big scope just as the eclipse started.  We got to see the small sun spots.  We got out the nice eclipse wine our Airbnb host had given us, and had it with some nice cheese and crackers.  We watched the eclipse progress and it started getting colder.  At totality I was amazed.  The entire area was dark, with the sky being in an odd state of not light and not dark.  We could see the planets, including Mercury and Mars.  We saw some stars as well.  The horizon looked like a soft sunset for the full 360˚.  The most amazing part, however was the sun.  It was possible to see the solar flares and corona, with the size being much larger than I had expected.

After the eclipse we went back to the cabin for a nap.  We hung out there until it was time to go to town, where we did two escape rooms.  We did well in both, and almost had the best time for the second room, despite taking no clues.  The rooms were very well done.  http://www.exitusjh.com/

We cooked some pasta for dinner and had an early morning to get back to the bay area.  Adam stayed a few more days to enjoy the park without us.  I had a great time and would love to do something similar in the future.

Stephanie and I went back to the north bay this weekend.  This time we went to Point Reyes and Calistoga.  We had a pretty good time with both.

The drive to Point Reyes wasn’t that bad.  We got there at about 11am, and started the backpacking in at 11:30 abouts.  We were there with Caryn, Nima, Liana, Ryan, and some other of Liana’s friends and family.  They were all a lot of fun.  It was for Liana’s birthday celebration.  We backpacked about 5 miles into the Glen Camp, which was nestled in a quiet valley.  The day we hiked in we decided to head down to the beach.

Only Wilson and Jess got in the water all the way.  A few others of us got our feet wet, but 50 degree water isn’t at all comfortable.  The wind was pretty strong, so even out of the water most people were getting pretty cold.  We didn’t want to stay too late as we had a 2-3 mile hike back to Glen Camp.

We got back and played some Bang! that Nima had brought.  It was a good time, but I did really badly.  Either way it was a good time.

The next morning 8 of us packed out, leaving Nima, Caryn, Liana, and Ryan.  I really enjoyed everyone that went, and I’d certainly do it again.

From there Stephanie and I went to Calistoga, with a stop by Heydrun Meadery on the way.  We had a nice dinner in a spot that Stephanie picked out, then stopped by a local brewpub on the way back to the hotel.  The hotel was adorable, with an outdoor fireplace.

We roasted smores over the fire and cuddled for a bit.  I went inside to listen to my book while Steph stayed out by the fire and read.

We stopped by a Spa the next day for some hot spring waters and a massage, which was nice.

I came to Vegas to meet up with two groups of people.  Former coworkers, and our games group.

I got in Thursday night a little after midnight, and just grabbed a hotel near the airport.  The next morning I spent working out of a Starbucks, and then went to meet up with Brian, his wife Albe, Darren, and his wife Grace.  We went to an escape room, and crushed it!  Albe and Brian are escape room designers, so they meta gamed it a lot.  I was helpful with the pattern recognition as I usually am, but didn’t do much past that.  I did cheat on the final puzzle, but we fixed that really quickly.

We then went to meet up with the rest of the Rocket crew at a sports bar so they could watch the last of the basketball game.  I met the new Rocket folks, but the new artist left pretty quickly.  I had a great time talking to Kate the new engineer.

We went to the Hofbrauhaus, and got drinks and food.  It was a good time, but I had a little too much.  They do the liters of beer there, and I had two, plus a shot and a spanking.

Many of the Rocket people went out to gamble and party afterwards, but Myk and I went back to the house and went to sleep.

The next morning I showed them what I had been working on, and they thought it was going in a good direction.

I went to hang out with the other friend group, but they were playing poker.  I ended up reading a good bit of Stephan’s book while waiting for them to finish, so the time was decently well spent.

Adam, Debby, and I grabbed a drink.  I got a call from Steph, so I went to meet her at the MGM, so we could check in and drop our bags off.  We joined back up with Adam and Chebby.  The others came down, and Andrew finished poker, so we got dinner at Five 50 pizza.  It was pretty tasty.  Andrew and Chebby called it a night, but the rest of us went to the Cosmopolitan to see about a speak easy.  They turned Kevin away for flip flops, but he didn’t miss out on much.  That had to be the loudest speak easy, and not from music.  The acoustics of the place were horrific, and the chatter noise made it hard to hear the person next to you.  After that we went back for the evening.

The next day we met up with Adam, Andrew, and Debby at the Wicked Spoon for brunch.  Most of the dishes were good, but some were lackluster.  I really enjoyed the crab and avocado, and the beat and arugula.  Unfortunately those were the last dishes I found, so I only had one of each.  We then went to the Venetian for a spa day.  The spa was impossible to find, but with some help from a nice security guy we found it.  Steph and I got a couples massage, and decided to hang out in the spa until we needed to leave for the airport.

We randomly ran into Lindsay and Kevin, and had a chat with them before their flight took off.  All in all it was a pretty great trip.