Giants and Niners, Oh My

Melch's co-workers had the idea to head up to San Francisco to catch a 49ers pre-season game.  Not only had I never been to Candlestick - I'd never been to an NFL game ever.  I watched a lot of live games in college at UVA and on the road.  I'd also been to several NFL stadiums for bowl games or marching band stuff or whatever, but never when an actual game was going on.

In the process of planning out the trip, a Giants baseball game was added as a side-quest.  I HAD seen some MLB games live and had even seen the Giants, but never at AT&T park.  Melch and I were both excited for both sporting opportunities.

So on Saturday morning we hopped in the car with Melch's co-worker Shelby.  Shelby is a recent transplant from Colorado Springs by way of Riverside, so she had never experienced the PCH through Big Sur.  I recommended the detour against the advice of the other cars who thought we wouldn't make it to Oakland in time to take the train to AT&T.

Big Sur and back in time for baseball?  We GOT this.

We did it anyway, stopping off at the famous Nepenthe restaurant to get some lunch and scope out the view.  Even with the detour, we made it up north in time to rejoin the group at the motel, get our mini-solo cup shot glass drink on and head for SF.

I didn't know this was a thing, but it is.  A good thing.

The sunset game against the Pirates was perfect.  Perfect weather, perfect view, perfect Giants win, perfect Giants dog, perfect mini solo cup shot glass buzz.  Great time.

AT&T Park and the (in)famous McCovey Cove

A few restaurants and bars and train rides later we were back at our Motel 6, but even the Motel 6 was noteworthy.  First marina-side Motel 6 that I've visited before.

I've stayed at a lot of Motel 6's.  The backyard isn't usually like this...

As fun as the motel was though, our main mission was to watch the Niners do their thing.  After some morning tourism fun at the Fisherman's Wharf in downtown SF, we hopped in the cars for some Candlestick tailgating.

This is the NFL.  The tailgating is at least as important as the actual game

All good things must come to an end, and we eventually had to stop eating, drinking and carrying on in the parking lot and actually attend the game.

Someone's excited

The Candlestick experience was pretty cool too.  I'll take AT&T for the view and for the food, but football is really more my sport than baseball these days and it was cool to see Kaepernick do his thing even for only a few series.

Another sunset game?  Count me in.

The private pilot in me also enjoyed watching some guy orbit the stadium for like 3 hours.  I was actually surprised by that - I've never looked into it in extreme detail, but I thought that NFL games usually had TFRs restricting flight over the arenas.  Beyond that, SFO is nearby so the guy must have been in contact with the tower there too.  I don't know if he was there on official business or just got some special permission or whatever, but it looked like fun.

Flying isn't cheap though - I think the guy could have gotten a better view for less if he would have bought tickets. =)

After the game it was a long dark drive home followed by not-that-much sleep before the work week.  A successful adventure to be sure.

More photos can be seen in the Flickr album.