because sometimes you just have to take yourself on an adventure. //

There was one conversation I knew was bound to happen while I was traveling solo in San Francisco.

(I TOTALLY DID IT AND IT WAS AMAZING.)

"Oh, you would have so much more fun if you came with your boyfriend!"

It wasn't from the airport shuttle driver, or the person working at the front desk of the hotel, like I would have expected.

I was walking around the wharf on Thursday morning, in search of those sunbathing sea lions on Pier 39, killing time before I went to rent a bike and ride eight miles over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. Just me. Boyfriendless (and still somehow having a great time) me.

I stopped to take a picture of the rows of anchored sail boats, when an older man tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I would like for him to take a picture of me. I smiled and politely said no. I didn't need a picture of myself with a sailboat backdrop, and the thought of explaining to a 70 year old how to use my complicated camera wasn't that appealing.

Instead of continuing on his walk, he asked my name, where I was from, told me about his kids (I would be perfect for his 35 year old son! uh, no.), and was shocked to find out that I was 28. And then, there it was. "Are you here ALONE!?"

Yes. Yes I am.

"Oh, you would have so much more fun if you came with your boyfriend!"

Now, I guess the thing that got me was, I guarantee he would never walk up to some 28 year old dude and ask him if he were traveling alone. So why was it so shocking that I was? Or that anyone is? And the matter-of-fact statement that I would have a better time if I were with somebody else.

Actually. I walked away from that man, I rented my bike, I rode all the way across that beautiful bridge with music in my ears and wind in my hair, stopped to take pictures at least thirty times, crossed off something on my bucket list, and had one of the very best days of my life BECAUSE I did it alone. So there.