Oakland - Submarines & Sea Lions

Submarines

Here are a few pics I took while at Pier 39 and the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The first one is of me and my friend Erick with the USS Jeremiah O'Brien in the back ground. The second pic is of Alcatraz from the pier. When we got to San Fran it was really foggy but as the day got hotter the fog burned off. The fog rolling over Alcatraz Island was really cool looking. The third pic is Erick standing in the crew quarters on board the USS Pampanito. While at Pier 39 we took of tour of the Pampanito which is a WWII submarine. I had never been on a sub before so it was really cool to go inside. The sub had 36 bunks and around 75 enlisted crewmen. The officers had a little better living conditions. The crew only needed 36 bunks because one shift was always on duty. They would be at sea for months at a time. I know one thing, I could never be a submariner. The fourth pic is the outside of the Pampanito.

Sea Lions

We hadn't been at the pier for very long and we started to hear this terrible racket. We soon found out that it was a group of the world's dumbest animal, sea lions. They have some docks floating in the bay for the sea lions. There were quite a few of them on the docks making that stupid sea lion sound. I was so unimpressed by them I didn't even bother to take a picture. If you are some granola loving hippy and you think that we should do all we can to save our friends of the sea I want you to stop reading my blog. I don't want you here. I mean it get lost. OK now if you are still reading then take your right hand off the mouse, make as tight a fist as you can, and now punch yourself as hard as you can right in the eye and pretend it was from me. Back to sea lions. What are they good for? I've seen a lot of dumb animals but they all have some useful purpose except for sea lions. Cows are pretty dumb but they give us milk and hamburger and leather. Some dogs are pretty dumb but they bark at intruders and give us companionship. Again I ask what are sea lions good for? Making obnoxious noises.

410 & Oakland - Nevada

OK so if you have never been to Nevada and wonder what it is like see the above picture and then picture that for 410 miles. Nevada is full of absolutely nothing. As we were driving through on the way to Oakland I was surprised at how desolate and barren Nevada is but it didn't really bother me to bad because I was excited to get down to Cali and see the game. On the way back the vastness of Nevada's nothingness couldn't be ignored. Ever little podunk town we came to made us wonder what in the world was wrong with those people to make them want to live in hell. To be fair to any of you Nevadans that might be reading this your state probably has something cool to see besides casinos but it sure as heck isn't close to I-80. The only reason we even stopped in Nevada was to get fuel. On the way to Oakland we stopped in a place called Puckerbrush.

Ah Puckerbursh, for those of you who have made the trip across Nevada via I-80 and you don't recall Puckerbrush don't be alarmed. If you happened to blink or were doing more then 80 mph when you went through chances are you totally missed Puckerbrush. The tow supposedly has a population of 28 but I don't see how that is possible as the only thing in Puckerbrush is a truck stop. There isn't even a westbound on ramp in Puckerbrush you have to drive down a frontage road for a few miles to get back onto the interstate. As I was writing this blog I decided to Google Puckerbrush and see what comes up. I couldn't find it on a map or find a zip code for it but there were a couple mentions of the town on a few websites. This is from rockymountainroads.com

"Exits 149-151 (Mill City/Dun Glen/Unionville) provide access to the pseudo-town of Puckerbrush. Cruising by at 70+ mph, all you'd see is a large Burns Brothers truck stop. The frontage road (old U.S. 40) between Exits 149 and 151 has a sign indicating that this is a real town with 28 people. However, the State of Nevada does not recognize this "town" at all … it is just a ploy by Burns Brothers. But it is a nice place to stop and gamble! And with that, we are in Winnemucca."

For more Puckerbrush fun check out this link.

http://janestrip.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-i-got-lost-in-puckerbrush-nevada.html

Moving past Puckerbrush. I can see why people want to dump nuclear waste in Nevada. There is nothing there that would be harmed by tons and tons of nuclear waste. The drive across Nevada was so boring that my friends and I started to come up with new state motto's for Nevada. Here are a few of the better ones.
Nevada - we suck and we know it
Nevada - America's landfill
Nevada - Three feet from hell

410 & Oakland

Oakland

Ok so for those of you who don't know some friends and I recently made a road trip to the Bay Area. The purpose of the trip was to go to the Monday Night Football opener between the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers. We are cheap and decided that driving would save us a lot of money. So Sunday morning we left SLC headed for Pleasonton. It was a pretty long drive but it really didn't seem that bad. We kicked it in Pleasonton Sunday night. Monday we drove to San Fran and went to Pier 39 and the Fisherman's Warf. It was really pretty cool. We took a tour on a submarine, went on a few ships and stuff like that. Then Monday afternoon we headed back to the hotel so we could ride the BART to the stadium. It was really cool to see all the people wearing their Raider gear. Our seats were awesome. We were on the third row behind the A's dugout. To bad the game totally sucked. Oakland got worked 27 - 0. It was the Raiders first home shutout since 1981 overall though it was well worth it and now I can say I've been there. Tuesday morning we cut out pretty early because I had already skipped class on Monday and Tuesday and had to be back in Rexburg by Wednesday. We finally rolled back into SLC at 8 Tuesday night and then after a very brief pitstop I got back in the car and drove back to Blackfoot. I finally got to my parents place at around midnight and stayed the night there then drove back to Rexburg the next morning. The drive down there wasn't to bad but the drive back seemed really really long. For more details on the road trip see my Nevada post (unless you are from Nevada or you like Nevada)

Oakland - Raider Nation & Pirates

Here are some pics from my recent trip to Oakland/San Francisco to watch the Raiders play the Chargers on the Monday Night Football opener. The first pic is of my friends JDee, Erick and me in our hotel room all decked out in Raider gear getting ready to leave for the big game. The second pic of JDee and me at the stadium before the game. The third pic is of me and my new friend Smithy. He doesn't say much. That is one thing I really liked about San Fran, there was pirate stuff every where. I should have gotten a few pirate shirts while I was there. The fourth pic is of me standing on the bridge of an old ship. I can't remember the name of it but is was really cool to walk around on the deck and in the holds and stuff.