Wonderful day.

Today was, in a word, glorious.

Becs, Mike and I started our day with some leisurely coffee at home and then made our way up to the big city. 
Mr. Mike and I like to run along the embarcadero in San Francisco for our long distance days since it's a super entertaining and different scenery that goes on for quite a while {and it's a change of pace from at home}. The "embarcadero" in the city means the stretch along the bay which runs from Giants Stadium to the Golden Gate Bridge. 
We usually park under the Bay Bridge, stop at the Ferry Building for a bathroom break and continue on our way. What's great about this route is the different little environments that we run through. The beginning part is definitely city dwellers but as we get closer to the Fisherman's Wharf area, there are more and more tourists. After the wharf, we hit Aquatic Park which is where we start to see more San Franciscans and that demographic continues through a tiny branch of the Presidio, the Marina district and on through Crissy Field and the beach there all the way to the base of the Golden Gate and Fort Point {though there are a few tourists at this end}. I just read over that last bit and thought "that's a lot!"! San Francisco is an amazing place chock full of different neighborhoods, experiences and history...go check it out!
We thoroughly enjoyed our run and stopped in the Ferry Building {which I mentioned last year HERE} the get a cool drink at the end {we looked for you, EV!} Along the way we chatted and enjoyed the sites to see, wove through tourists checking out the area and we even got GOT by the scary bush man! The miles went by so quickly being with a good friend; we realized that we hadn't run together in over five years...which is ironic since we met through Cross Country in college. Hopefully it's not another five years.
Afterward we met up with friend Eddie. After a short drive, the aforementioned beach at Crissy Field met us with blue skies, sunshine and the promise of a good time. A charming but sand infused little picnic ensued. There was lox and bagels - blueberries also paired nicely with our mimosas!

Secret in-the-cooler-bag-mimosa-making-operation...I was afraid to flash an open bottle in broad daylight. I'm 101% sure it's not allowed, but we still did it, just in our own secret way...

Please don't mind that pull over drug-rug thing Mike's wearing in the background, he certainly doesn't.

Yum!

The highlight of the beach visit, apart from good company {obviously!} was the abundance of canine creatures romping around. There were so many! I'll spare you, dear and patient reader, the dog pictures, especially in light of how many Costa Rican hounds recently graced these pages and how much our own little pooch makes the cut too {far too much I sometimes think, but, then, not enough at other times...}. These dogs were running through the sand and chasing each other and things {balls and sticks, mainly} which added to the beauty and fun of the day.

Cute!

Eddie brought olives for himself.

I tried to blur out that guy behind Becs...I failed...sorry Rebecca, you still look cute!

The lowlight of our time on the beach was the sunburn we all suffered. Some of us {Becs- good girl!} had on SPF, some of us {me, Mike, and Eddie- for shame!} did not. None of us realized the burn until later, after we had dropped off Edward, actually, and I don't want to think of what his situation was like considering that we three are downright swarthy when compared to his Nordic looks. Mike and I got it in the face and Becs' back and shoulders are toasty, meaning she actually got hers during the run...after a summer out and about no one was concerned; mother nature {and Ra, the sun god} duly put us in our place- lesson learned.
We drove home south on Highway 1 so that Becs could check out some coast line, which was heavenly. I also managed not to get carsick; yea, me!  
After quickly showering at home and not sitting around {for fear of falling asleep after running many miles this morning and then getting sunburnt on the beach} we headed over to Aqui's for dinner and margaritas...yum! I wanted to get frozen custard at the place across the street where I coincidentally worked in college. I like this frozen yogurt place because the fro-yo is legitimately delicious and of high quality. Michael prefers the really popular self-serve places where one can pile in as much as one would like of both yogurt and {or} toppings and then pay by the ounce. I don't like these places, though, because I think that the yogurt is low quality and tastes icy and, for lack of better description, not good. Plus, I get overwhelmed by delicious toppings and end up piling in things that are great on their own but not a success when mixed {oreo crumbles, chocolate chip cookie crumbles [the cookie crumbles always taste stale at these places anyway], wafer cookies, some mochi, chocolate syrup, fresh kiwi fruit, blackberries...}. 
When we got to my choice of yogurt establishment, the line was out the door and so was my patience; I was ready to go home. Mike decided, though, that he still wanted yogurt and was very pleased to go to the self serve place by our parked car. I grumped about it the whole way there, really selling it down to Rebecca. When we got in, both she and Mike went about their business having a great time getting yogurt and adding in toppings. I sat and stared. Then I heard someone mention birthday cake. There was a birthday cake flavor, kind of like a sugar cookie-vanilla-ey-sweetness. I sampled it, furtively, went to get an empty container and prepared to eat crow along with my fro-yo. It was delicious.

I still was able to resist the lure of the toppings , though, a feat that Becs gladly succumbed to.

This was an amazing day, so full of fun and different things. I'm super happy that Rebecca is here for obvious reasons, but having a guest is also great because it gets us out and enjoying something that we wouldn't normally do. We'll occasionally go to the city for our long runs but it had been a while and we had certainly never brought a cute little brunch to the SF beach so "thanks" Becs for helping us to mix it up {yes, we are officially the dullest 27-year-olds in the Bay Area} and enjoying the amazing place we live in {and for the GREAT day together, it was so.much.fun!}.
xoxo, natty ♥