Jeff's Guide to Unemployment #1: Parks are FREE!!!

Hey Everyone. Thought I'd get back to blogging after a long (and probably un-needed) break. I'm going to use this time to re-cap everyone with what I've been doing for the past 4 months or so. Given that during most of that time I've been successfully unemployed, I thought I'd frame this little recap in the form of "How to enjoy your time of unemployment!"

Lesson #1: Parks are FREEEEEE!

It helps living in a geographical area that has beautiful parks (sorry Texans), but I'm pretty sure you can park it up most anywhere. Here's some pictures of the various parks that I've been to over the past 4 months:

First off is Land's End Park in San Francisco:

This was one of the most beautiful parks I think I've been to. Not only do you get amazing views of the ocean and cliffs, but also manage to get a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Second is Big Basin Redwoods State Park in between Saratoga and Santa Cruz. While not containing some of the giant Sequoias of Sequoia National Park, it still had some pretty sizable flora. This provided a nice hike one afternoon:


I've been hiking a ton in LA, but I haven't taken many pictures. I'll try to get some more. The best hike I've done is a 10 mile hike through the Hollywood Hills. Here's a picture of Downtown LA from the peak of the Runyon Canyon hike, which I can walk to from my apartment:


And lastly, Here's Angie and I at Golden Gate Park, in the middle of San Francisco:
From there we had a great view of San Francisco's annual free bluegrass festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. I think this might be Steve Martin playing the banjo, but it's hard to tell from our view from the hill:
I went back to the festival the next day to get a bit more close and personal with bands like Dr Dog and Billy Bragg.

Hope you enjoyed my first look at how to enjoy the good life while unemployed! So far my only regret is that I turned down a free meal from a nice lady from a church that stopped by while I was playing my guitar in my car. I only turned her down once it was completely obvious that the reason she stopped to offer me food was because my unkempt, bearded and (probably) unwashed self led her to the assumption that I was homeless. I probably should have taken her up on it though...Nothing wrong with free food and meeting some new, nice people.