I’ve been really awful at actually writing about the fun things I’ve done this year, several of which had me crossing off items on my Life List. What good is a Life List if you don’t blogbrag about crossing things off??? Maybe I need to add ‘keep up with blogging about Life List accomplishments’ to the list.

The Modern Love Machine and I indulged in a 10-day West Coast trip in June that included a few quick days in San Francisco at the tail end of a teaching conference he was attending, the first trip for both of us to Portland, our first Amtrak trip and some time spent in Seattle visiting the MLM’s family.

I’d had the good fortune to visit San Francisco several times previously, but it was the MLM’s first trip, so I did my best to pack as much into our day and a half there together as I possibly could to show him the sights.

We ate a ridiculously fancy meal for our anniversary and had tiki drinks at the Tonga Room …

tiki at the Tonga Room

… we rode the Powell-Hyde cable car and drank coffee in Little Italy …

hanging off the edge of the cable car

… we climbed Lombard Street and saw Fisherman’s Wharf …

curviest road in the world, allegedly

… we shopped and drank in the Haight, walked through the Mission and drank some more in SoMa …

dog at Toronado pub

… we saw the views from Coit Tower — in the sunshine, no less — and ate Dim Sum.

the views from Coit Tower

San Francisco is on my list of top five cities, and I think by the end of that day and a half the MLM was equally a fan. For good measure, the Universe decided to send me back to SF for a leisurely work trip in October, so San Francisco made a pretty good mark on my 2012. Technically it wasn’t on my Life List because I had already been there done that. But the more time I spend there, the more time I want to spend there, so it’s getting a retroactive spot on the list.