Month: August 2008

Previously … 

Hmmmm … well that’s what happens when I stop recording these things — I fall drastically behind. Let’s do something more summarizing, and see if I can wrap up the trip.

Monday:

1. Caravaned up from Monterey to the Palo Alto / Mountain View area. Visited one of Margie’s old houses, then used Sheila to find Benjamin Bubb Elementary (where I did K-1), thence to the fourplex, the duplex, and the house on Montalto Drive where I lived until we moved to SoCal just ahead of the last Ice Age. Took pictures, of course.
2. Drove en masse over to Stanford, then in the van toured the campus, listening to various tales of what’s still there since Jim & Ginger’s days, what’s been torn down or added since then, what’s been added then torn down and replaced, etc. Resolved to do the same to Katherine at Pomona College over the holidays.
3. Hung out at the Stanford Book Store for a while until Mario got off duty and joined us. We went over and saw his office in the (current) music buildings.
4. The Coppola restaurant we were going to go to in Palo Alto had already shuttered, so instead we settled on a very nice Mediterranean/Italian place, Lavanda. Good dinner (Kitten downed a nice grilled octopus starter).
5. Dropped off Mario in San Francisco, then took the Bay Bridge over to the Oakland Hills, where we were staying with Al and Anette (or, rather Anette, as Al was away on business). Lovely, lovely house off Skyline Dr, which filled me with much House Envy.

Tuesday:

1. Since it was a travel day later in the afternoon, we visited the Oakland Zoo, a rather pleasant place somewhere in size between Santa Ana and Denver. They don’t have an extensive collection, but what they have has large enclosures, and the Children’s Zoo is very nice.
2. On the trip down from the Al & Anette’s, Sheila demonstrated some limitations viz lots of narrow twisty interlocking roads on a steep and valleyed slope. I fear this blew some of her cred with the ‘rents.
3. We left Jim and Ginger there and headed off for Sacramento to visit with some of my family.
4. The trip from Oakland to Sacto is pretty uninteresting, except for the stop we made at the Jelly Belly factory, which Kitten was very enthused about. We went on the factory tour, which was fun (how long does it take to make a jelly bean? 7-21 days). Aside from the incessant graphic references to Ronald Reagan (who put Jelly Belly on the map), it was an entertaining stop. We loaded up with candy on the way out (mmmmm … Dutch Mints …) and headed on, battling I-80 resurfacing projects, on the way to Sacramento.
5. Had a very pleasant dinner with Dave and Elda (and Mike and Lynn and respective families). There were kids for Katherine to play with, and plenty of adults for us to chit-chat with.
6. Spent the evening at the thriving Holiday Inn Express West Sacramento. Hey, nothing fancy, but a clean bed and a free breakfast the next day.

Wednesday:

1. Free breakfast! Actually, quite decent (very business traveller-oriented), though watching Hollywood Tonight over breakfast almost spoiled my appetite.
2. Drove back to Oakland — uneventfully — and met the ‘rents at Oakland Airport where we dropped off our, um, beloved Dodge Caliber (cough).
3. Vanned into the City. Finally found a place to park the (7’1″ tall) van. At lunch at a faboo Dim Sum place, the City View . Highly recommended.
4. Walked through Chinatown (shopped for tchochkes). 
5. Got back in the van, drove around, went down Lombard Street.
6. Went down to the Exploratorium, which was high on the list of places to visit (for Katherine’s sake, of course). Alas, the place was packed — 160 yards (paced off) of line to the entrance, and the museum was full and they were only letting people in as people left. Alas. We took some quick photos of the Palace of Fine Arts and jumped into the van.
7. Drove across the Golden Gate Bridge — bright and sunny — and stopped at the vista point at the north side, taking many pictures. 
8. We drove down to Fort Baker, which was a lot of fun, very photogenic, had a fun time at the Discovery Museum there, eyed new resort there.
9. Back over the bridge, drive through the Presidio, and off to dinner at Joel & Dorothy’s (who have a lovely place right in that neck of the woods). Then back to Al & Anette’s.

Thursday:

1. Today was serious City Day.
2. Drove down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Faboo parking, relatively early in the morning. (Leaving early in the morning was touch difficult given the faboo breakfasts that Anette kept cooking for us.)
3. Walked over to the end of the cable car line / turn-around over on the wharf on the Powell-Hyde line. Short wait, then rode the cable car, woo-hoo! Katherine and I were riding on the step/rail/hanging out over the street. Much fun.
4. We hopped off and spent some time at the Cable Car Museum, then headed back down the hill.
5. Went over to Ghirardelli Square. Had lunch ( = ice cream and chocolate).
6. Wandered back along the Wharf. Looked at some cool ships. Had some drinks at Scoma’s. Bought some nummy bread at Boudin. 
7. Headed off to Pleasant Valley across the bay to have dinner at Barb & Don’s. Drinks down at the kids’ fort. Dinner up at the tennis court. Dessert back in the house. Lovely time.
8. Staggered back down the highway to Al & Anette’s, both looking forward (and not) to the next day’s travel toward home.

Friday:

1. Not much to day for the day. Got up, yummy breakfast, packed up (remembering the wine!), and drove south. And south. And south. 
2. Several hours later, arrived in Villa Park, huzzah!
3. Unpacked. 
4. My folks came over for dinner, whilst I wrestled with some work that had cropped up at the last minute and which needed my immediate attention (that my boss was working at the same time and depending on my input made it a bit easier to swallow).
5. Ate pizza. Drank wine. Went to bed.

Saturday:

1. Hot house (and not being as clever as Margie, who took a quick shower before hitting the sack), so I tossed and turned a fair amount. But I had a very positive, encouraging dream in the wee hours which made the whole day quite worthwhile. 🙂
2. Got Adobe Photoshop Express reinstalled on Jim & Ginger’s computer (after much digging about the documentation, Adobe’s site, the hard drive image, etc.) and reloaded their old photo library, which is the last of the Major New Computer Move.
3. Swimming went on in the meantime.
4. We got everything packed up, combining Margie’s luggage (from SoCal, Frisco, and NoCal), my luggage (from Portland, SoCal, NoCal), and a duffel for Katherine. Heavy-laden, we headed to the airport.
5. Plane was an hour late (sigh).
6. Got to Denver. At dinner at Sonic’s on the way home.
7. And … home.

Great trip. Let’s not do another until next year. 🙂

Previously … 

We had the car mostly packed so it was a relatively leisurely morning at the B&B before breakfast, followed by a last flurry of activity and hitting the road.

We were to meet Jim & Ginger and Katherine in Monterey. I had online ordered admission tix to the Monterey Bay Aquarium … and had, to boot, ordered tix for the Behind-the-Scenes Tour. The latter required a time, so I’d said 2 p.m.

Hmmmm. That may have been a mistake. Based on Sheila’s estimate, it would take us until about 1:15p to get from the B&B to the Aquarium, so leaving by 10 would be just fine. And, in fact, we left at 9:50a, so it should be just fine …

Of course, Sheila doesn’t know about traffic.

Margie drove the course, while I read a Sayers Wimsey novel to her, which was quite nice. But between traffic going over the hill to Santa Cruz, plus some whacky lunch misdirection in Watsonville, plus stop-and-go from the time we left CA 1 to get into Monterey, plus hellacious parking circumstances around the Aquarium … well, we literally dashed into the door and ran to the tour desk and joined things in the very nick of time.

Not pleasant.

But the B-t-S Tour was fun, with both history of the aquarium and discussion of their animal rescue efforts (and a view of the Fin-a-bego), learnig why Astroturf is used with octopus tanks, and getting a chance to feed the big aquarium tank with handsful of krill. Good times.

We spent another couple of hours at the Aquarium (I got to run up to the car and move it from its really-shouldn’t-park-there spot to some place that wouldn’t get us towed, which cut into my enjoyment of the place, but it is really Very Highly Recommended to anyone.), then headed to the fabulous Monterey Bay Lodge. Cocktails and snacks followed, segueing into a long walk to Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner at Domenico’s. 

While most wharf restaurants tend to be gimmicky and touristy, Domenico’s actually manages to serve a decent (if not wildly sophisticated) seafood menu (with slabs of beef for those who evolved out of the ocean to avoid seafood). The food and wine list were decent, and the help was helpful. Best of all, though, we had a ringside seat for an array of albatrosses and a few dozen sea lions. The latter were split between ones trying to bogart a raft to sleep on, ones snoozing in the water, ones cavorting with amorous intent, and ones trying to horn in on one or another of the above groups. It was the next best thing to a live stage show. Recommended.

After that, a walk back to the hotel, and a bit of reading (and blogging) and bed time.

Tomorrow: Old Homesteads and Old Campuses.