Day 62 - Sally-Heath's Birthday!

Foster City - 0 miles total and n/a mpg. Totals for the trip, 9289 miles, 26.9* mpg. Those are the stats. The first day our car hasn’t moved – we traveled in Doug’s Tahoe!


Today is Sally-Heaths’ birthday! We are actually celebrating over time this year – the birthday celebration will last at least until she returns from Sydney. Oh, yes, we made the reservations today – she leaves for Sydney 9/9, and returns 10/2. It will be her first hint of spring in Oz.


Once again, thanks to me, we get started a little late this morning. We’re headed into the city (San Fran) to do an errand and be tourists for a while. All five of us pile into Doug’s Tahoe and head into town. Although it is around 10am when we get close to town the traffic is [still] backed up – but I guess it is the minimum backup for the morning. The traffic is amazing. The density of people is amazing.


We park in the Marina District, at Rich’s – Doug’s other home here. This is one of the pictures I took from the roof of the building Rich lives in. What a great view of the city, and Alcatraz and the bay. From there we walk along the beach (actually along Marina Blvd) and around to the Palace of Fine Arts. There is a story here – the history of the Palace of Fine Arts – but I’ll leave that for your research. It’s an interesting building, you have probably seen in inside and out in films, and, of course, it is being renovated – note the scaffolding – you can’t really see the building right now.




We continue from there to the Presidio, intending to have lunch somewhere in the Presidio. I’ve never been to the Presidio, and I can almost still say that! We spent probably an hour walking and looking at things, and still had not touched on the total grounds, and had not found anything in the way of tourist information to help us understand what we were seeing. I think we missed something, came in the back door, or whatever, because as we left I glanced at a map of the grounds, and we had only touched on a tiny corner of the grounds. It is a very lovely place, and I’m sure has many interesting things to offer. This time the most memorable thing we saw was the George Lucas building, complete with life-size Yoda and Darth Vader.

By now we are hungry, and Doug knows a place just outside the Presidio – Liverpool Lilli’s – which looks like a pub, but seems to be more of a restaurant. The food was great – we sat outside. Which reminds me – we left the boys in the Tahoe, not knowing if we would be able to take them everywhere with us. Turns out we could have – even to lunch. Sorry boys.

We finish our walking tour, make a brief stop at Rich’s, and head back home. Traffic is still traffic. But the trip home was quick for me – I napped! There was some shopping and miscellaneous stuff for the next couple of hours – then it was time to head to Los Altos.

Chuck and Ilona have been friends forever, or since the late ‘60’s when we met at Virginia Tech. They moved to Los Altos about the same time we moved to Scottsdale, and we have visited each other occasionally over the years.

I digress. It is interesting how, even with relatively long periods of almost no contact, it seems so comfortable and continuous to be with each of the friends we have seen on this trip. It is wonderful. End of digression.

The freeway traffic was heavy, but moved well, and we got to Chuck and Ilona’s about 8 minutes early – but Chuck was ready for us. We started catching up, Ilona got home and we just caught up and talked and had a good time. The boys got a good run in their back yard – they were unusually excited about something, possibly squirrels, although I never saw one this evening. They had a great run, then back into the Tahoe while we went to dinner. I must give the boys credit – they are handling this mobile dog house thing very well.


Chuck drove us to Le Petite Bistro, a nice, small, quiet, French restaurant not far from the house. It is one of his favorites, and it’s not hard to see why. After eating there, I’d give it a lot of stars – the food was excellent! We had a fantastic meal – I enjoyed every minute of it, and I think the birthday girl and Doug did too.


After supper we took a small driving tour into Los Altos, past Ilona’s office (IKB) and made a brief stop at Safeway. All of us piled into Safeway – reminding me a little bit of other party trips to the grocery store – but that was another life. Back to the house, another glass of wine, more good talk, and it’s time to head home.

Can you believe Sally-Heath, the birthday girl herself, is the designated driver [again]? Yep, it’s true, and she comes through with flying colors. We’re home safe and sound. Sally-Heath hit the sack, while Doug and I stuck out a Sci-Fi movie to the bitter end. Goodnight.