The Road Home -- BC to NH via TX in 30 days give or take
We left Vancouver on September 20th, 2007 on a "
crooked smile" route that brings us out to the California coast, into Arizona, Texas, back to Michigan (which we visited on the way out), Toronto, and back to New Hampshire -- where we'll be for around for about a month before desperately seeking somewhere warmer. As of this writing (Sep 30) we're in the California desert, east of Los Angeles in Twenty-Nine Palms, CA. The red part of the route is what we've covered already -- as of October 8, 2007.
The regular web pages for this trip aren't quite cooked, but here are some of the highlights of the trip so far (we'll update this page once those page(s) are done):
- The Herb Farm a fantastic restaurant in Washington State, where we celebrated our 50th birthdays -- albeit 6 and 14 months late for him, and her respectively
- Redwood National Park -- big, beautiful, sometimes-spooky trees
- The Microsoft Store -- thousands of dollars of software stuff for pennies on the dollar
- The Computer Museum History Center, previously of Boston, now in Menlo Park, CA
- Pacific Coast highway -- Twist and Shout highways with 15 mph limits -- but stunning views
- Elephant Seal Central (a bunch of fat lazy guys hanging out on the beach with their girls -- so what's new?)
- Kelp Tripping (where you walk down the beach and try not to trip over mutant seaweeds)
- Visiting my long-time friend David, in Scott's Valley, CA
- Point Lobos State Park
- Visiting an old boss (actually pretty young) out in Santa Barbara
- Brush with Death! We drive across a mountain road. Think rocks. Ravines.
- Visits to Tucson AZ and Austin, TX as potential new home locations
- Get together with TX friends and family
Individual links for sections of our trip:
Labels: travel driving
San Francisco -- can you go back?
We're in San Francisco, on our way back to New England. The visit is bittersweet: San Francisco has been my favorite city for many years; been here dozens of times, know the streets, the buses, good neighborhoods and bad. But after 5+ years "away", and four years in our new home in Vancouver, BC, I see the place differently. The streets are comparatively dirty, homeless and beggars about. Vancouver has its deadbeats too, but they're almost never aggressive and offer a smile even if there is nothing in return. San Francisco seems more distant, more dangerous than 5 years ago. Is it it? Is it me? Both?
I wandered around this morning (we've been here two nights, we head south later today) revisiting old haunts, looking for familiarity or change. Found both.
The area we're staying (Union Square) is the city's center. Macy's. Bloomingdale's. Whereas Vancouver's "downtown" is fairly well distributed (by plan), this is "city dense" at its best -- or perhaps worst.
We are creatures of habit: we want things that we enjoy[ed] to always be the same. It doesn't work like that. "Time passes on, and the leaves that are green turn to brown".
I'm getting more involved in photography, and as a delightful result I am seeing things I never noticed before. While San Francisco's street scene I find deplorable, this morning, our walking, I noticed the city's amazing architecture. Something to really enjoy, while attempting to zone out the Levi's store and all the "modern" trappings of this city.
Labels: San Francisco, travel
Two x $250 for Two @ Fifty; Dinner at The Herbfarm
OK it may be the best meal I have
ever had; nine courses over about four hours. This was sort of a mutual 50th birthday present for Kathy & I (about a year late for her, 6 months or so for me) at a northern Washington state restaurant called The Herb Farm.
The food is just amazing. They have a single seating per night, they only serve three nights/week. Our menu was the "Indian Summer", for that transitional time when Summer's bounty is waining and Fall's beauty emerges.
More on this a bit later -- photos, the menu. It's a fabulous experience, and if you have $500 to spare for dinner for two, we recommend it. Maybe we'll go back in another 50 years.
9 Years on 40 feet? Oy! Ahoy!
We had the great pleasure of meeting and dining with friends-of-friends-now-friends Anne and Martin. Out in the hinterlands of Port Moody, BC (about 30 miles from Vancouver), these two spent nine YEARS of their lives on a
smallish sailing craft, circumnavigating the earth. Oh, and five more on the boat in a Vancouver marina in preparation.
Their
website tells the tale better than we could; what we can say is they are gracious hosts, interesting folks, and good cooks too.
Photo from
http://www.norsiglar.com. Check out story -- and their interesting book.
This is one of those "six degrees of separation" things. I don't usually put a lot of stock in to this
notion but in this case it's worked for us: We met new friends Chris & Ann on a segment of the lengthy
cruise we'd made the previous year. THEY'd made friends with Anne & Martin on another cruise. We've got a home in British Columbia, Anne & Martin have a home in British Columbia. "Oh! You must meet them!". The rest is history.
-scott
Labels: friends, travel, Vancouver Summer 2007
Green Be Gone
Punctuating our exciting lives with the absolutely mundane, we're pleased to report that our new condo (1101) in Vancouver BC, is now uniformly-colored with our existing unit, 1102. Kathy put in countless hours at this, saving a fortune, but at a personal cost of some 5 days. Scott helped, but Kathy was definitely the "lead" on this chore.
More-or-less Annual SCUBA diving trip
We're back from the Cayman Islands (my 15 seconds of internet fame,
here, the little photo with the big fish). The travel, while convoluted (Vancouver, Dallas [overnight], Miami, Cayman and the reverse back to Vancouver) went without a hitch.
The
diving was great, the crew was helpful beyond belief, and the food was unfortunately-excellent (i.e. we all ate too much). We wish that more of our regular dive buddies could have made it this time, but we're already scheming a 2008 outing, so with hope, more of us will be able to make the trip.
Labels: diving, scuba
