We hit the gift shop and I got these super cool, red, triangle earrings. The lady was very sweet.
When we were finished with the woods, we began the long walk back to the car. Mom and I had to walk on the side of the road and people were zipping by headed down this mountain trail. Woah. Then we started heading down the mountains ourselves. A friend suggested we check out Sausalito. We attempted to find the library but instead headed to the antique shop. They had a couple of amazing typewriters that I definitely wanted to take home. The art gallery chick next door was really cool, but I felt pretty sick from the winding road down the mountain. After picking up some ginger ale at a cute little market, we started the trip back home.
This is the part of the horror movie where the music gets really scary and the people in the scene have no idea what's going to happen but you the viewer know exactly what's going to happen so you cover your face with your hair. Let's proceed.
We wound around even more corners in some neighborhood and I liked getting to see the houses but I was sort of done. We were following the GPS the best we could, but it kept confusing me. Getting out of the neighborhood was just fine, but then at some fated stop light, we took a left instead of a right. That was it. That was the moment it all was flushed down the toilet.
Okay, it didn't start out so bad. We went over the Golden Gate bridge. That was cool! Also, I sang the Full House theme song. No regrets.
The traffic started getting rough. Sooner than we knew, we were in the heart of San Francisco. That was cool for a while, we could see the sailboats which was neat. There's some kind of regatta gala going on this weekend. Then we were in Little Italy. Then we were in a very sketchy neighborhood. We passed people in masks protesting the church of scientology. Then, we were stuck. That's right. Stuck. Absolutely no one was getting through lights. Maybe half a car. We were moving a little and then we stopped moving for sure. And we both had to pee. At one point we parked on the side of the road and I jumped out to go into a business to pee. Guess what, they were all closed. All of them, including Walgreens. It was like 6:30pm on a Saturday! What. The. Hootie. And no one would let us into lanes so we could get to our place to turn. It. Was. Awful. It's different being in traffic in a strange city, with a car you're unfamiliar with, trying to find your way around when your GPS is on the fritz. It was out of control.
After doing lots of illegal things to get ourselves right with the lanes of traffic, we knew we were headed the right direction for the highway. But we still needed a bathroom! There it was: a gas station on the right side of the street. Yes, we were in the leftist lane. Yes, we did stop traffic a little to get over. Oh well. We pulled up next to the pump and I saw a sign that said "pay attendant at window". was this one of those spots with no inside place to be? What then? We pulled on the door anyway and in a very small hallway that connected to an auto repair shop, there was a bathroom. YES! I opened the door and there it was: the bathroom from Hell. There were words scratched into the seat of the toilet and ridiculous markings and stains on the back of the door. It was the least I have ever cared about a dirty place to pee. As soon as I was finished, I switched spots with my mom and we were good to go. We got back in the car and made a U-turn instead of taking yet another detour.
When we were finally home, I was so stressed out it took forever to decompress. Here are some lessons I learned from this day of insanity: when you see a bathroom that looks like it may have the potential to be clean, use it, especially if you're somewhere you are unfamiliar with. Having a good, old fashioned map in your car isn't a bad idea. Don't let your GPS "recalculate" a route for you if you are capable of getting back to where you made your mistake and fixing it because you never know where it might take you. Finally, not all things are open on a Saturday night in San Francisco. Seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment