RAGBRAI

If anyone is unfamiliar, RAGBRAI stands for Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It's basically exactly what it says... a week long bike ride across the state of Iowa! Click on the link to read more about it.

Some people ride the entire week and some just join in for a day or two. I have never participated in RAGBRAI, but my parents have. My dad is actually riding as I type and he's doing the entire week! Keep up the hard work, you're almost done!

Joe and I have some exciting plans for the weekend. It just might include the new Harry Potter movie. It might also include some celebrating over some seafood.

Happy Weekend!

Salmon and Sweet Potato Cakes

Since lately I’ve been at our apartment a lot during the day I’ve been watching some daytime TV. I must say it’s not the best. On the bright side I’ve enjoyed watching the Food Network and have been getting some great ideas for dinner. I watched 30 Minute Meals last week and loved this recipe from Rachael Ray. Usually her recipes include wayyy too many ingredients for me, but I like to improvise a little. The recipe I include below is my version. The link to Rachael's recipe is at the bottom.

Joe and I both like sweet potatoes and we both like salmon. It's an interesting combination to put them together, but it really worked. This recipe makes 4 huge patties or 6 regular sized ones. We cooked 2 huge ones and froze the rest of the mixture. Since the patty is pretty much your entree plus your side dish we didn't need much on the side.

Salmon and Sweet Potato Cakes
altered from Rachael Ray

Ingredients:

• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into small chunks
• 3 (6-ounce) pieces salmon fillet (skin off)
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 tablespoon seafood seasoning
• 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 3 green onions, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons dill
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

Put the potatoes in a small pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain, return the potatoes to the pot and mash.

Meanwhile, put the salmon fillets in a skillet with the wine and enough water to come up to the top of the fillets, but do not cover. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat to a simmer and poach until opaque about 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the salmon to a bowl. Flake the fish with a fork and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add the mashed sweet potatoes to the bowl along with the seafood seasoning, half of the bread crumbs, the egg, green onions, and dill. Mix to combine. The fish cake mixture needs to be just firm enough to mold into cakes. If it’s too wet, add a few more crumbs.

Heat a skillet with 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (2 turns of the pan) over medium heat. Form the salmon mixture into 4 (4-inch) patties, coat in the remaining crumbs, and then add them to the pan. Cook the fish cakes until light golden, about 2 to 3 minutes on each side.

Serve with a side or on a toasted bun.

University of California, Berkeley

Since Joe didn't have any work to do this weekend we ventured out Sunday too. This time we took a trip outside the city. This is our first time to leave San Francisco since moving here. We took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to Berkeley and back.

We walked north of the campus up a hill to where we heard we could get a great view of the bay and of the Golden Gate Bridge. At the top of the hill was a really neat area. There were multiple tennis courts, a baseball field, a good sized park and a rose garden.

We had lunch in the rose garden and enjoyed the view and the opportunity to rest our legs.

We joined a student led tour of the campus at 1:00. The tour was informational with little tidbits of the campus or school in general. The girl that led the tour talked about Cal's rivalry with Stanford and the different quirks the school had during homecoming week or rivalry week.

The campanile was under construction so unfortunately we couldn't go to the top. Joe's next to "Pappy" who was the football coach from 1947-1957. I guess that was the decade they had a great team. According to our tour guide... they're not so great now.

The football stadium is also under construction so we did not get close at all. The Cal football games will be played at AT&T Park this year which is actually good for us because it's only about 5 blocks away from our apartment as opposed to a 30 minute BART ride. The stadium is being renovated because it's directly on a fault line and the work they're doing on it now will help prevent a collapse if an earthquake were to hit during a game.

The tour didn't include the sports arena or fields so after checking out the football field we walked by the baseball field, the tennis courts and the track. The tennis courts were open so we got to walked in and check it out. I guess Cal was pretty good at tennis back in the 80's.

That was the end of our adventure to Berkeley. We rode the BART back to the city where it seemed much cooler between the buildings where there was no sun. Joe and I both got a little burnt from the weekend. How do we live in California and not own any sunscreen?

The Presidio

Our plan for Saturday was to explore the Presidio. The Presidio is an area of land just around where the Golden Gate Bridge meets San Francisco that used to serve as an army post. There's a lot to do and see around the area and we barely scratched the surface in one whole day.

We started off by walking around the Palace of Fine Arts. It was built by the Panama-Pacific International Exposition for the 1915 world's fair. The golden dome (which unfortunately you can't see very well in these pictures) was huge. And for those who like to talk like Donald Trump, make sure to pronounce it with the "h" please.

You can tell how big it was... Joe looks so small!

There was a manmade lake around the buildings that were home to lots of swans, ducks and turtles.

Next on our list was the Exploratorium which was right next to the Palace of Fine Arts. There are something like 650 exhibits that you can play with and interact with. I enjoyed taking goofy pictures with Joe as we might have been the only people our age there without kids.

Next we wanted to check out the Wave Organ that was located on a jetty past the Golden Gate Yacht Club. It's a really neat wave activated acoustic sculpture. You can hear the waves when you put your ear up to these tubes.

We sat along the trail next to the beach. There was some sort of sailing/kite boarding/something we've never seen before competition going on. There were a ton of people there and it was pretty neat to watch even though we really had no idea who was winning.

We walked down the trail in Crissy Field and there were lots of people walking, running, biking, etc. We went all the way to the warming hut. I read about this in one of our books and wanted to check it out. It was pretty close to the Golden Gate Bridge and you could buy coffee or souvenirs. The name is perfect beacuse the wind around the bay made it pretty cold outside.

Of course we had a great view of the bridge from here.

Getting to the Presidio turned out to be pretty easy with the bus system. I'd like to think we're figuring it out pretty well. The ride back was full because there was a Giant's game that night and we live pretty close to the ball park. At least we got a seat before lots of people got on.

Accounting No More

We had another busy and fun weekend. Between Friday, Saturday and Sunday we took 166 pictures. It's taken me a while to get through some of the pictures and edit them. I'll start with Friday night.

You might remember how I mentioned that Joe had a big accounting test on Friday. It was an all day, 8 hour event. Needless to say the entire class was so glad once it was over. Most everyone met up afterwards for some drinks. That turned into dinner and then more drinks. It was nice because I got to meet a lot of people Joe is in class with every day and put a face to the names he keeps talking about. Plus there were spouses and girlfriends I got to meet. It was also great because we got to experience the night life in San Francisco a little bit.

The group split off a little when we went to get dinner. Here is a portion of the group starting out at Vertigo after we ate.

Then we met up with majority of the group at McTeague's. Here is pretty much the whole group.

I think everyone was glad to be done with the hardest part of the training program.

I know he won't be reading the blog this week, but I'm thinking of my dad who is on RAGBRAI!!

Chinatown

I wandered out on my own the other day while Joe was in class. I took a stroll through Chinatown with the idea of just browsing and taking some pictures. The nice thing about going to touristy areas during the week is the lack of people. Don't get me wrong, there are still lots of people around, just not quite as many. It was a relatively quick trip, but here are some pictures I took.

One thing I was looking for was a nice Chinese restaurant to eat at with Joe. I didn't pick just one out, there are so many we could go to. I know we'll be back to Chinatown again so I'll probably have more pictures at that point. I also want to see the Fortune Cookie Factory and watch the workers make the cookies. I read in a book that if you want to take pictures of this process, it costs you 50 cents!

Joe has his big accounting test today. I gave him a pep talk before he left this morning, I know he'll do great. We plan on meeting up with his classmates this weekend for some fun activities. I have the feeling most of the people in Joe's class will need a beer, or two tonight.

Happy Weekend!

Alamo Square

I know, I know, I said I'd post these pictures yesterday. So I lied.

Alamo Square was just a few blocks from Haight & Ashbury. You might recognize this picture from Full House. If you don't, then you should watch the show:) These houses are known as Painted Ladies. They are Victorian houses painted in 3 or more colors. Unfortunately there were lots of people around so getting a great shot was hard.

You can see downtown San Francisco in the background. The Transamerica Pyramid on the left and on the very right in the background is the San Francisco Marriott Marquis. The hotel is just a couple blocks from our apartment.

Here's a shot from the other side of Alamo Square. You can see the hills of houses and the fog. There's always fog.

This was the end of our busy Saturday. We hopped a bus back to SOMA and went home. It was a great day and we got lots of items checked off our list. Check out of San Francisco list to see everything that we've done so far..

Credit Management Training Program

Most of you know the whole reason why we moved to San Francisco is because Joe is in the Wells Fargo Credit Management Training Program (or CMTP for short). He's a couple weeks into the program and so far so good. His classes are only about 2 blocks away from our apartment which is so convenient for him. I went to this building and classroom this past Sunday and made him pose for these pictures.

Keep working hard Joe!

Haight & Ashbury

While we were in the neighborhood (the Golden Gate Park is pretty close) we decided to drop by the Haight & Ashbury intersection. This is the location of the 1967 hippie revolution. Click on the link if you want to read more about it.

It was a pretty neat area and neighborhood. Of course we had to get some Ben & Jerry's ice cream while we were there.. Seriously though, after walking from the park we needed a pick-me-up. Half Baked and Coffee, Coffee, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz was what we snacked on. Joe wanted to get Half Baked and keep with the theme of the neighborhood.

There were lots of souvenir shops and some cool vintage stores and even a Cannabis Company store. No, they did not sell anything illegal, or at least that's what the sign said just inside the door. When we left the store clerk said something like "peace out, thanks for hanging man." No joke. Only at Haight & Ashbury!

Just up the street was the Grateful Dead house at 710 Ashbury. This was the house where the Grateful Dead lived from 1966 - 1968. Those two years included the drug bust of 1967 and the Summer of Love. No, I didn't know all this, I had to Google it.

Our Saturday adventure is not done yet. We also dropped by Alamo Square to see the painted ladies. Once again, we were in the neighborhood. I'll post those pictures tomorrow.

Golden Gate Park

Well we had another super busy Saturday. We left our apartment around 9:00 in the morning and got back just before 5:00. Once we got home we pretty much sat on the couch the rest of the night. Don't judge, we had to rest our legs! We did actually take the bus this trip which was a huge help, but of course we walked a long ways. Luckily the weather here is really nice. I keep hearing people talk about how incredibly hot it's been back home. I'm so glad it's not humid here!

Our whole plan for the day was to check out the Golden Gate Park. We ended up doing so much more. I didn't know much about the park so I read a little bit in one of our tour books. Despite the name, the park is not near the Golden Gate Bridge. It's larger than Central Park in New York City at 1,000 acres and stretches from the Haight District to the Pacific Ocean. We entered the park walking through some awesome groves on the eastern side.

Then we came across the California Academy of Sciences building. It had some great exhibits, a planetarium where we explored the universe, a rainforest with birds and butterflies flying around, an energy efficient living roof, an aquarium with an albino alligator and more. We spent a good 3 hours here and enjoyed as much as we could.

We packed a lunch thinking we'd eat it in the park. Good thing we did, the cafe was packed plus it let us escape from all of the people... namely children.

Across the street was the de Young Museum.

We went up in the tower you can see on the right and got a great view of the city. Unfortunately it was foggy so we couldn't see very far, but what's new? Here is the California Academy of Sciences just across the street. Can you see the living roof?

Next we walked further into the park and stopped at Stow Lake. It is a manmade lake you can hike around on the trails (or on the island in the middle of the lake where the waterfall is), sit and feed the ducks on a bench or ride paddle boats.

This has turned into a really long post and as you can see, there's lots to do at the Golden Gate Park After we left the park we found out we had only covered about 1/3 of the whole thing. I guess we just need to return some other weekend.