Breakfast with Dagii, Greg, and Sarnai.
The muffins I want are all in the back.
That's a lot of bugs.
Red sunrise.
Neat idea, poor execution: the sun in the back through the mirror with the moon out front. I just don't have the dynamic range with my camera to get them both.
I stayed at Tachi Palace, a casino, after working at the far facility on Monday.
Lots of slots.
It's an Indian casino.
I've never heard of the reservation, though.
Looks like the reservation only covers a few blocks.
Always love casino buffets.
Many types of food.
Desserts.
One guy completely filled his plate with shrimp.
The poker room.
Hoping for some luck on my birthday.
It wasn't too busy, just a few tables. I got pretty unlucky in the tournament when I had JQ on a JJx board when another guy had AJ and I got knocked out.
Bingo?
Bingo. Apparently very popular.
The boards to play with.
Neat stairs.
The outside.
The pool from my room.
It was pretty confusing trying to find the motel; it's tucked in the edge and doesn't have any signs. This woman got lost and had to ask security how to get to check-in.
I can't believe the hot dog stand is called RezDogs.
I grabbed some snacks, thought I was feeling awfully hungry, and then realized I hadn't eaten dinner. So I guess this is my birthday dinner.
Cleaning the slot machines.
The gift shop has a lot of Native American items.
A neat shallow pool with a bar.
The main pool.
There are cabanas, but the pool was completely empty. I wonder when the busy season is.
A wolves statue out front.
A plaque explaining it.
If there's a sign on the fountain saying the coins in it are donated to charity, that must mean someone had tried to take the coins out of the fountain. Although it is a casino, so perhaps that's more expected behavior.
The wolves statue at sunset.
Vertically.
Time for another poker tournament.
Doing fairly well this time.
There was a group of employees from a nearby Dave and Busters having their own poker tournament, and they were having a ton of fun.
Two of us left now. I felt kind of bad for knocking out the 91-year-old war veteran on his birthday, but he shoved with AQ and I had AA, so I had to call. At least he made it in the money and got fourth place.
We decided to just split the first and second place money rather than keep playing.
Uh oh, I missed my contact lens case last night and my contact dried out. Thankfully I keep a backup pair in my travel bag.
Nice clouds at sunrise.
The sun peeking through.
Lots of yellow wildflowers.
Laundry time, AKA Ogii hides under all of my warm clothing fresh out of the dryer and throws them to me to put away time.
Why is the side of the house all pink?
Ah, it's the light from a gorgeous sunset.
The car wash dryer blew my windshield wiper up.
On our way to San Francisco and Ogii is eating potato salad. Honey, I know you really like it, but it's not exactly road trip food.
Lots of traffic in the other direction and not much in ours.
Too many lanes to keep track of. Turn, straight, bike, SF, SJ.
San Francisco city hall all green for St Patrick's Day.
We stayed at the Nob Hill Hotel because it was really close to the pub crawl we were doing tonight and also the chocolate show we were going to tomorrow; they were all within a few blocks of each other.
Valet parking is so expensive.
Then again, all parking is expensive in San Francisco.
Nice foyer.
With cool chairs.
And a very old elevator.
Two rooms.
A living room.
With a sink, microwave, and fridge.
And the bedroom with a whirlpool.
I wonder how hotels get away with making up these crazy rates they claim on the doors.
Our club crawl map. We started down south by #1.
A lot of people in green.
A magician on the street doing tricks for people, including this car stuck in traffic.
Doing a trick for a group on the sidewalk.
This line is huge. I think we'll pass.
Same here.
Not too big of a line here.
Although it was super packed inside.
We didn't have to wait too long to get our drinks.
Our next stop.
And the one after that. This one we ended up waiting at the bar too long and left. It's annoying when the bartenders are serving all these other people who came after you instead of you.
Neat lights.
Another smaller, very-crowded bar.
They just put food coloring in beer to get it green.
Ogii needs to catch up.
One we got far enough north there wasn't any line at all for some of the bars.
Time for some shots instead of beer.
Funky leprechaun.
Shots of grasshoppers, minty.
Some women having fun.
As was this guy.
We tried some Jameson whiskey shots since it's Irish; we obviously don't like whiskey.
Some other people with fun hats.
A neat logo.
Some giant slices of New York pizza would be perfect right now.
Except I burned my finger on the pizza.
There was a restaurant attached to the hotel that we could have breakfast in.
Nice design on the door.
There were some visitors from Japan and Germany having breakfast there as well.
In the evening it's open to everyone, but for breakfast it's only hotel guests.
Lots of plants out on this roof.
Oh, you can open the window.
Ogii could go out there if she wanted.
This guy on the right is in the taxi and bus only lane.
The next stop was the Hotel Kabuki. It had this pretty Japanese garden.
They were having a chocolate salon there.
Giant cocoa beans.
Some upscale chocolates.
These had won many awards.
Samples? Yes, please.
They were all selling larger pieces, too.
That's interesting.
Lots of kinds here.
97% dark chocolate; that's strong.
Upscale with gloves.
Very pretty.
Amazing.
These were actually shiny.
The owner talking to people.
Very shiny, too.
With lots of nuts inside.
Gotta try one of each.
That's huge.
Dressed up as cowboys.
Asian chocolates.
Big carmels.
Toffee.
Lots of different things.
This was our favorite of the show.
Ogii trying one last piece of chocolate.
Good thing we got there early; it was getting really packed now.
Some wines next door.
Various info sessions.
The Salesforce tower getting close to done.
Neat old house.
It's confusing driving in San Francisco; one lane is only for buses, the next is for the trolley, and then the cars drive in another lane with a trolley. It's kind of scary driving on the tracks.
This guy had a lot of different pieces of clothing.
My favorite, well, only pair of jeans is getting pretty worn out; you can see right through them.
And the pockets have some pretty big holes. We'll have to go shopping.
Expensive, but boring.
A Marshalls next to all of the upscale shops.
What's this?
Many different types of lenses.
Ogii looking fat.
Pixelated.
And like a weasel, haha.
What Ogii would look like with a very expensive bag.
Half off genuine fox fur is still really expensive.
A futuristic look.
More boring jeans, especially for the price.
Uh oh, we better get Ogii away from the shoes.
Nordstrom has curved escalators.
You could smell the cookies as you came down the escalator.
A gaming lounge.
The Macy's has seven floors.
Interesting dresses.
Union Square.
Cute hanging animal things.
There's a Boudin bakery in the basement.
Ogii in front of a street car.
A big fire in Salinas on the way back.