Counting today, there are 9 work days and 11 actual days before Brian and I leave for what was to be our honeymoon in San Francisco. We talk throughout the day on iChat, and just now he asked, "Is it just me, or does this trip seem to get better and better the closer it gets?"

I said, "JES!"

I planned this trip for us as part of Brian’s Christmas present, then let it sit on the back burner while I went through the most hellacious semester of my graduate school life. Once the thesis was out of the way and the diploma just a matter of paying off my bursar bill, I was able to sit back and think about these 7 days and 6 nights we’re spending in the Bay Area, and I started getting really, really excited.

The plan is to leave on Friday night and drive to Dallas, where we will spend the weekend in my favorite hotel in the entire United States, The Belmont Hotel, a fantastic little road motel that has been modernized and wonderfully decorated, and which features an amazing bar and stunning views of downtown Dallas. Brian booked us this room:

We plan on spending our Dallas weekend just luxuriating in our hotel room, emerging occasionally to see a show in Deep Ellum, eat at Monica’s and Cafe Brazil, do some dancing at S4 and some shopping at, among other places, IKEA. So if any of you Texas dwellers want to kick it while we’re there, let me know as soon as possible. 

Our flight for San Francisco leaves on Monday morning. I remember that when I was a kid, my dad’s brother Bill lived in California, managing campgrounds in the mountains near Mono Lake. We used to drive – yeah. Drive. – from Oklahoma to California to visit him, and once Dad skirted the edges of San Fran just so we could see it. I just barely remember that.

I am hella-stoked about the trip, and every day that passes I get more excited. I just booked us tickets to go see the Indigo Girls at the Fillmore on the night we arrive. The freaking Fillmore! Could I be more stoked about this show? I’ve been dying to see the Girls in concert for probably seven or eight years, and I’ve wanted to see a show in the Fillmore since I was fourteen. I mean – wow. Our attendance at the concert is predicated upon there not being any major delays with our flights, which would honestly be a small miracle, but I totally believe in miracles these days, and now I’m just worrying about what I’m going to wear and practicing what I’m going to say when I inevitably get mistaken for a lesbian.

The next day Brian and I are going to Napa to check out some wineries. I asked him to rent us a car for that day, as I do not like organized tours and I get sick on buses, and for the longest time he wouldn’t tell me what he got. Finally, he fessed up that he got a one of these:

Normally I’m not a huge fan of the Stang, but hell! It’s a convertible! In California! In Napa! As we tour wineries! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? Am I the luckiest boy on the entire planet? Yes, why yes, I think so. We still need to sit down and figure out which wineries we want to see, but I’m thinking a stop at Odisea is a must, as we were lucky enough to sample their wine at a tasting dinner at Deep Fork Grill recently and really enjoyed it. That day we will wind up in Petaluma, where we have tickets for Glen Phillips featuring the Watkins Family and Grant-Lee Phillips at the Mystic Theater. So, it turns out that yes, I could be more stoked, because I’m peeing my pants as I write those words.

While in San Fran we’re staying at the Parker Guest House, a wonderful little gay bed and breakfast in the Castro District:

I don’t usually go in for "gay" places, because my experience with them pretty much consists of the Habana Inn, but this looks really nice, even if it’s just so quaint you could die. We haven’t made any plans past our travel-through-Napa-then-see-Glen-Phillips day, and I like it that way. The most miserable trips of my life were ones where everyone was running around trying to see as many things as possible. Brian and I have both said that we wouldn’t care if we ended up spending one entire day just in the room, luxuriating in bed with a bottle of champagne and room-service dessert. But that’s just how we roll. We each have a couple friends in the Bay area we’d like to see, and of course we want to spend some time wandering around the Castro and Haight-Ashbury. I’ve heard Marin County is cool, and when we have the car I’d like to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge just to say we did it, but other than that I plan on remaining fully relaxed, seeing what we see, and doing what we do. The Flynns hit San Fran back in March, and our friend Todd has a whole binder full of Bay Area travel info he collected on his trips there, so we’re pretty well stocked up with "must-do" things, though I’m open for suggestions.

In the end I plan on having 11 days to relax with my man in Dallas, one of my favorite cities, and San Francisco, which I’m sure will become one of my favorite cities. These next two work weeks absolutely can.not come and go quickly enough, I tell you.