San Francisco Bay Area & Napa

Thursday, January 7, 2010

We got up at 2:45 AM to start on our way to San Francisco. We arrived close to noon and headed toward Aaron and Gina's new house in Oakland. Bart goes from the airport to within a couple blocks of our destination. We were greeted by Gina and after a little while, headed towards the city to see Aaron's workplace. Quite an impressive set of offices on Pier 28 along the Embarcadero. We went out to eat at a wonderful Balineese Restaurant and crashed early.

Friday, Aaron headed off to work and we went to SF to explore the Golden Gate Park and Haight Street. We walked the perimeter of Buena Vista Park and almost made it to Coit Tower before my feet started complaining. So we headed back to Oakland. That night we went out to a trendy place called Cesar's for drinks and some light food.

Saturday we went to a dog park with Aaron, Gina and Grendel and had a nice walk. Later we went home and Gina and Aaron cooked a really nice dinner for us. We watched the
original Ghost Busters with Gina and Aaron on their big plasma screen.

Sunday, we went to breakfast and then off to visit Ben and tour his new property in Napa, California. We drove via the Golden Gate Bridge because Patty had never seen it. Aarons sporty Volkswagen GTI was a fun ride on the curvy roads North and his iPhone GPS was invaluable in getting there and back. Ben's house was pretty much as I had imagined, full of color and art. We went in his pickup truck to the new property and walked around talking about all the potential of this piece of land. It overlooks a lake and is just beautiful. Ben has very ambitious plans for a house and many improvements. From there we returned to Oakland, grabbed our luggage and headed off for Mexico on a midnight flight.

Monday, the flight was arduous. Especially for Patty, who seemed not to be able to relax. I on the other hand slept as much as possible. We had a six hour layover in Houston as the sun came up. Then we hopped on a commuter jet for the two and three quarter hour flight to Manzanillo, Mexico.

Steve met us at the airport and we got to see his house and meet his girlfriend, Christina. We were quite exhausted by the time we ate a late meal at a little restaurant. We headed back to Steve's to crash early.

Eric