The Most Ambitious Vacation. Ever.

This is the story of two friends for whom anything is possible. Here lies the tale of two seemingly ordinary women who don't think it's impossible to work, run, tour San Francisco and hit other Bay Area points of interest in five days. When given a 6th day, these damsels become an unstoppable force of tourism, putting flip flops to the test.

The Visit:
26 August 2009

If Angie had a blog or twitter account, she'd be the envy of thousands, instead of just hundreds. Angie works. Angie saves. Angie travels. It's worked out really well for her and has become an addiction. In her case, I can be labeled "enabler," with my outstanding request for postcards. Before she left for the Europe in the summer, we talked about a trip here at the end of August. We never finalized. She went abroad. Jesse got a job. Life kept happening. Summer wrapped and Angie was back in the states. But - while visiting someone else in Chicago - realized it would be relatively painless to take a trip to San Francisco. We made a list of all the places she wanted to see and I set out to fit it all into five days. The trip was destined to be great. Everything fell into place. Angie had been scheduled to arrive at midnight Thursday morning. Instead she was able to move her flight to Wednesday morning. I was supposed to be off Friday and was given Monday off at the last minute. We had few limits in the first place and by the time Angie arrived Wednesday we had gained two extra days.

First Order of Business
Angie doesn't like sweets. The most notable (and maybe only) exception is coffee ice cream. It's even more notable when you consider she doesn't even like coffee. So it may surprise you even further to know our first order of business was to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. There are two things Angie gets there and as she described one of them to me, I knew it was the Crispy Chicken Romano. I had it the last time I was there for the Ladies Luncheon. It totally figures Angie & I would like the same food. I mean it appears we like do like the same drink. I mentioned the JW Marriot lemonade being delicious just as Angie said she could go for a lemonade. It's awesome to have someone who fits like that.

Enjoying our lemonades, awaiting our table.

The new thing at the Cheesecake Factory is calorie counting. The state has a law requiring chains to provide nutritional information for everything on the menu. I never thought anything at the CF was healthy, but I was not prepared for how unhealthy most of it is. I'm talking two days' worth of calories and three days' worth of sodium per plate. It's all presented in a pretty way, but the reality is that I should just go to the CF for the cheesecake. That had fewer calories than I expected. Too bad I was too full from the appetizer to eat my actual meal. You could barely tell I touched it. We both had leftovers, and (maybe as a testament to its contents) they were heavy enough to break the handle on of of the bags. We were fueled. It was time to hit the streets.