PDX - prequel - Hayward

Here's another PDX prequel...

About a month and a half after the Martinez jaunt,

I had passed another testing sequence,

this one in Hayward.

Time for a Perich Brothers road trip.

Jake and I rallied up from SD,

picking up Jaxon 

who was visiting his grandparents in Ventura.

I felt exactly like the kids did here.

The timing was way too tight,

and by the time we got there,

I was all spun out.

The testing was surreal.

I did good but definitely not good enough.

In reality I would not have been a fit,

kinda a churn and burn type shop.

And Hayward was like the meh of NorCal.

While we were there,

we would BART in to "the city".

Rolling through Oakland,

the kids hadn't seen the extent of a harder hit area before.

We made it to the Chinatown stop,

and decided to check it out.

For a weekday it was packed,

people everywhere.

We were all a bit overwhelmed,

still running on a few hours sleep.

Leave it to good ole dad for mission impossible.

Looking on the map,

it looked like the haight-ashbury area

was right over the hill.

Let's walk!

Well walk we did!

I didn't realize it's over 4 miles away!

We went through the tenderloin district,

walking passed people that didn't make it out of the grateful dead lot.

Great vacation pops!

Funny thing is we passed all these subway stops,

but the little map wasn't to scale.

Just a few more blocks kids!

The hike up the hill got us out of the dregs,

some cool SF architecture,

and adjoining parks.

Finally made it to hippy central.

Wow had it changed since I'd been there last.

Seemed a bit more commercialized.

Still cool to check it out.

The standard H-A street sign shot...

Our girls traded back,

they were kickin it at home.

We went through the panhandle park on the way back,

which led us to monster up and down blocks,

zigzagging the streets of San Francisco.

I was the old fart digging the buildings.

That means soon I'll be visiting museums.

My goal was to show the kids 

how nice it is to live with space.

These city folk must not like hoarding junk!

We passed by so many trolleys,

they may have made our trek easier.

The kids never complained once.

We did raid the bathroom of a coffee shop,

I'd call it a splash and dash.

We finally mosied our way back,

passing some serious looking government buildings.

I bet we clocked about 9 miles easy,

and saw such a high and low of society.

A bit more lows than I expected...

I hoped the kids would come back with some good memories.

It made me realize how few vacations we had taken,

even if just for one day.

We made it back to Luke and Megan's place 

in Castro Valley,

and Jaxon chose to sleep in the little RV.

This made him believe 

he could live in a trailer in the backyard.

Holey Chit!

We didn't get to hang out with the Brown's much,

but Jake caught up with the dog Cole.

Their place was so awesome.

Huge yard,

chickens and space.

Exact opposite of 20 miles west.

We explored for a bit before heading home.

Go check out the sewer Jake!

Watch out for taggers.

Isn't that crazy how the yard is over the tunnel?

We got back to one of the best surprises ever,

the meathead neighbors had listed their house!

After that I didn't focus on escaping as much...

TP