San Francisco day 1

I set my alarm for 4:00 a.m. and closed my eyes for a mere 20 seconds before sitting up in bed realizing how early my day would begin the next morning. After a three-hour "nap" and a bit of a drive to the airport, though, I didn't mind the early wake-up call and was excited to be able to be going on this trip.

Being so tired, talking and doing normal things people do when they are awake seemed out of the question during the flight to Phoenix and the connecting flight to San Francisco. I stayed awake just long enough to get my free in-flight beverage and peanuts and not a second longer. In fact, I almost choked on a peanut as I drifted in and out of sleep mid-chew. I did, however, manage to grab a few shots out the plane window before I lost consciousness, including this one as we rose above the clouds in Salt Lake to find the sun shining beautifully at 38,000 feet.

Despite our plane arriving early, a line out the door and a bunch of very confused and clearly unorganized rental car employees managed to stall us an hour and a half, putting us behind schedule. Luckily, we were able to make it to our first appointment which was with Ali Towle, the Director of Marketing for the San Francisco 49ers. This was definitely my favorite visit of the day. She did an excellent job of explaining in detail the path it takes to get to where she is now.

After that, we visited with two more companies, Portola Pharmaceuticals and SteelRiver Infrastructure. To spice things up, we even crammed all 12 of us into an elevator and got stuck between the 4th and 5th floors for 20 minutes. The experience proved to be the best bonding experience we had all day. At the end of the day we got to tour a little of downtown and eat some pizza with the locals. If Utah had a pizza place as good as the one we went to I would go there everyday, even if it was in Salt Lake and I had to commute. The pizza was that good!

If I was to rate this day I would give it four stars and two enthusiastic thumbs up. Here is a short video recapping everything that happened.

Braden Thompson