Boudi and Mouse in San Francisco, Part 1

The little skate icons are so we know what we're going to do,
in case we forget.

Yay my derby wife and I are reunited! Boudi was on the other side of the country doing research and stuff and then she came and visited me! We've only got a few days together before she heads to Tucson so we've been doing some serious catchup and skatey things. Yay. Because I am a little bit overexcited and/or OCD, I made her a list of awesome things to do, which was going to optimally cover skating things and also eating lots of awesome food.

Anyway, we started with Mexican food in the Mission before hitting up Cruz Skate Shop. Motley remembered who I was, and asked how the Antiks were going. I showed her the scar on my foot from the super gross blister I got earlier this year. And I needed new wrist guards, so she recommended some things. I now have the new Triple Eight RD Wrist Guards, which I'll do a product review for later after I've had a bit of a go on them. But yeah, Boudi got new wrist guards too, so now we are matchies. And then we went and did some touristy stuff like go to Muir Woods and stuff, and then it was time for a skate!!

Neither of us had skated for a while so we wanted to hit up somewhere flat and away from cars and pedestrians for a bit of a skate first, so we went to the skate area at Golden Gate Park. Happily, Old-guy-with-the-boombox was there, doing spins on his front wheels and toe stops (seriously, wtf, I want to learn how to do that even if it has absolutely NO use in derby). We skated a bunch there and caught up on little tips and skills we had learned from our time away with other leagues. Between us, we've skated with like eight leagues or something. Boudi had this really cool tip about hopping onto your toe stops when you're pushed out of bounds, instead of falling/stopping and then coming back into play. It saves a bunch of time in a jam, but I think I need more practice skating fast and then popping onto my toe stops and turning around. I also got to scuff/break in my new kneepads (which also are due for a product review), which was nice.

We then decided to be more adventurous and skate in the park. We were on the sidewalks and didn't have much of a problem with outdoor skating (except for a part which was slightly hilly but had also been watered lately so it was slick), and we went to the California Academy of Sciences and skated around the Music Concourse out the front of it. It's pretty and flat, and apart from some old men and a little girl on roller skates with her family, it was empty. Yay, more skate!

Me, Boudi and Francis' Butt.

There was a fountain and some circular paths, and we did some continual crossing for a bit around a statue of Francis Scott Key, who was the guy who wrote the Star Spangled Banner. He has his own statue with all the verses around it, haha. It was pretty fun, and it's on a hill looking down over the rest of the concourse and it's all pretty and whatnot. Then we headed to the end of the concourse, where the bowl was, and it actually said NO SKATING on the ground. Lol indeed. We didn't even know that the area was a No Skating one until we got to the end, since it was all one continual concourse.

But then, of course, instead of just being like "oh we should leave because it says NO SKATING" we took photos of ourselves with the signs on the ground. But anyway, that bit wasn't too fun to skate--it was bumpy and kind of full of chairs on gravel--so we headed back around the concourse and up to the path towards the skate area and the car. The sun was setting when we were done. We actually skated for about two hours all up, but it didn't seem like much of a hard skate, although we were really hungry and then went home where Ze Boyfriend ordered pizza for dinner for us. We also went down to the local dessert cafe and got craploads of pie (and some very specific reheating instructions for optimal deliciousness on chocolate lava cake). Nom.

Incriminating evidence.

Also, at the Concourse, we stealth skated up to a squirrel, which seemed to look straight at us but not realise what we were doing when we were rolling towards it.

Anyway, more skating tomorrow! Yay!!