nawl

In which I discover the joys of frivolous flying, a lovely morning, and parties both real and nonexistent.

First, the flight. Douglas offered to pick me up from the Oakland airport on Friday evening. In his airplane. So began my adventure in the world of private aviation. The airfield where he landed (outside of OAK proper) actually sent a shuttle to pick me up from the airport. The lobby was tastefully appointed, full of attractive receptionists and guys in suits, and looked out on a fleet of identical private jets. Wow. Douglas's airplane was not one of these jets, of course. It was a cute little four-seater one-engine job that I could probably describe better if I knew anything about airplanes. It was the smallest plane I've ever been in.

The airport control tower was incredibly busy, so much so that it took several minutes of trying just to get a word in edgewise on the radio to ask for permission to take off. The plane felt practically weightless once it left the ground. We took off just as the sun was setting.

Most of my pictures didn't come out, since my camera doesn't like low light and the plane moved a lot. But the views were predictably spectacular. It was a beautiful day.

First, we flew over downtown Oakland and Berkeley. The best part of this view of the bay bridge from above is the solid line of red taillights from the horrid traffic jam that we weren't in:

I think this is Richmond:

Then we turned and flew across the bay to San Francisco, offering me a spectacular view of the golden gate bridge as the sun set. I love how the bay seems to glow once the sun goes down.

And we saw the last of the sunset over the other side of San Francisco:

The whole way, we were being handed off to different control towers on different radio frequencies, and had to navigate a maze of regulations involving "bravo airspace", all the altitude restrictions around SFO.

It was dark when we landed in Watsonville. Someone in the flying club had a sheet of free tickets to Great America, valid only for the next day, that she was trying to get rid of. We had dinner at a popular sushi place in Santa Cruz. Lots of the rolls had different kinds of nuts in them. Odd. Later we showed up at what turned out to be a failed party.

I spent the night at the Wood Duck, and when I woke up it was a fabulous morning. The Wood Duck used to be a bed and breakfast, but apparently closed after it found itself mired in a self-referential loop of county regulations. Too bad, because the place is absolutely gorgeous, one of the most magical places I've been.

Among other things, there is a treehouse.

The hot tub is in a fairy circle of redwoods. Before taking this picture, I'd only ever seen it at night, and even then only when I was about to get in. It's best imagined full of happy people, moon and stars visible through the tree branches, clouds of water vapor rising through the trees.

There's even a door in a hedge:

And, of course, everything else was lovely:

We went to Great America. It felt very silly. I hadn't been there since high school. In two hours, we managed to get in two rides. At least it was free. The whole place was filled with teenagers and families, and a lot of very alarmingly precocious-looking twelve-year-olds, fully made-up, dressed in provocative clothing, dyed hair, cell phones in hand. I screamed so hard on the second ride that my voice was hoarse for several hours after. Ow.

I managed a late appearance at Gaskell's. Predictably, the costumes were amazing. Afterwards, we went to not one, but two more parties, the first a calm after-party affair in a penthouse apartment overlooking the lake on the most European street I've ever seen in this country, and the second a wild dark Halloween party at a geek house in San Francisco. I slept through the entirety of the second party, except when someone sat on my head.