The Joe came to town this past weekend for his fall break, and I was sure to give him the California treatment. This time, we went to see the Golden Gate and it was NOT ridiculously covered in fog. I took him to a few fancy restaurants, we visited Great America with my buddy Andrew, and we went up to Berkeley to visit with the members and pledges of one of our fraternity's newest colonies. Here's my review of some of the weekend's highlights.
The Golden Gate Bridge
The best spot to get an awesome view of the bridge and the San Francisco skyline is from the Battery Spencer at Fort Baker on the northwest point of the bridge. To get to it, you have to go Northbound on the bridge, then go to the next exit, take a U-turn and go toward the bridge, and you'll have to pay a $6 toll to get back to San Francisco, but it's worth it, and much better than parking on the south side of the bridge at that little park where you have to pay $5 to park unless you get one of the 10 or so spots right at the park.. but I digress. Battery Spencer was abandoned in 1943 and not much else has been done to it since then, except for some graffiti covered up by paint covered up by more graffiti, and the parks system put in some "latrines". The nice part about the fact that it's been ignored is that you are free to walk all around and inside the old ammunition storage rooms and barracks. Plus, as I mentioned, you get an awesome view from the top of the hill.Great America's "Halloween Haunt"
At $39.99 for standard admission and $29.99 for students, that's a pretty good deal for a haunted house. Cedar Point back home in Ohio is owned by the same company, and this was Great America's first year trying the haunted weekend (except, it's called "Halloweekends" at Cedar Point). The decorations were great, and the character costumes were fantastic. The actors used loud noises to effectively startle people - no chainsaws in this park! There were 5 "mazes" (they weren't really mazes.. there was only one path to go through). The most creative was "Club Blood," which was meant to be a vampire club, complete with sexy vampire "go-go" dancers (read: strippers, but they don't actually take off any clothes... they're just wearing corsets and such). I just know that this was somebody's fantasy, and that's why this was here. "CarnEvil" was awesome because we paid $1 for the paper 3D glasses and it was TRIPPY. We went through it twice because it was so good.
One of the water rides, Logger's Run, which is probably pretty boring otherwise, was turned into a haunted ride called "Camp Gonnagetcha". It was a lot of fun, but poor Andrew took the front of our log and got drenched. Not the best idea for a ride on an October night, even in Cali! Not everybody who got off the ride was as unlucky, however. This isn't a ride that's meant to get you soaking wet... sometimes, it just happens.
There were also 4 "fright zones" but these were basically just walkways that they had actors stand around and jump out at you from the fog.
The lines were ridiculously short on a lot of the rides, and we even caught one several times in a row. We were able to do everything in 4 hours, and it was a great time!
The Pyramid Brewery
This is where we met the Berkeley folks, who were all very cool, by the way. Try the Apricot Weizen!!! The Oregon Honey Beer is a close second.
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