It all started with an email to her at work one day in early September. I had found that Jean-Luc Ponty, a violinist I have wanted to see in concert for about 25 years now, was playing in San Francisco, my favorite city in the USA, at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. What a combination I thought, so I emailed Delana, asked her if she would like to make a dream come true for me, and she said yes, of course. As a bonus, two of my other favorites were performing with Jean-Luc, Stanley Clarke and Al DiMeola. They are, "The Rite of Strings".
So I booked the trip, hotel, and rental car through Expedia, emailed her back that it was confirmed, and our countdown began. This would be our first plane-trip anywhere together, and would serve as the honeymoon we never got to take. Over the next few weeks, I would make additional plans for our adventure to the west coast. Some would change, some would develop, some would just not work, and some would be surprises.
Thursday, 21 Oct 04, Day 1 -
Waking up at 4:00 in the morning is no easy task for a person my age, but Delana and I both managed too roll our bodies out of bed with great anticipation. We had been counting down the weeks, then days, and finally hours, until our trip to San Francisco would take place. Our plane left Columbus at 6 AM for a transfer in Chicago and arrival in San Francisco at 9:30 AM. This would give us all of Thursday pretty much to start our vacation.
After we finally got our luggage (it missed the connector in Chicago, but arrived an hour later), we headed for the car rental pickup. I had reserved a midsize. After standing in a long line to get the paperwork done, we were directed out to the garage to a "greeter" who would show us to our car. No greeter, but several other renters waiting. Soon, a couple guys came running from around the corner, asked what we had reserved, then told us they were out of midsize. He walked us around a corner, pointed at a few cars, said "take any on the left side" and left. There were 3 or 4 there, then down a ways by itself, a nice loaded and leather Bonneville. I said to Delana, "C'mon honey, let's take THAT one." Off we went.
I had printed out mapquest directions from the airport to the hotel, so I quickly assigned Delana navigator status. Woohoo she thought! We got off at Mission as the directions said, and were to take a left on Bush. Unfortunately, that was a physical impossibility we were not aware of. I don't know how we did it, but we finally found the hotel. We were already cracking up, as I kept dodging one way streets. We decided on valet parking for the trip, because there was only an 8 dollar a day difference in that and parking in a garage somewhere and walking back. Believe me, it was worth it.
Our hotel, The Executive Vintage Court Hotel, located in Nob Hill, was great on all fronts. We highly recommend it to anyone. After we freshened up and unpacked, we decided to take a stroll through Chinatown, which was in walking distance for us. We spent the next couple of hours going in and out of the shops in Chinatown. There was a lot of junk, but a lot of nice things as well. I don't think we bought anything there, except for my trolley car fridge magnet.
After we returned from Chinatown, we got the car, and headed down to the Embarcadero, or the Wharf areas. We first went by Lombard Street; I had to show her the most crooked street in the world. She was amazed! The Pier area was where our evening would be spent anyway. We strolled through the Piers, boardwalks and Fisherman's Wharf. We listened to the sea lion's barking, watched the boats in the bay, and just had a real nice afternoon. I had a surprise in store for Delana on our first night. I booked us a 3-hour dinner dance cruise in the San Francisco Bay. I even splurged and got us a celebration package, which allowed us a table of our own, by a window, Champagne, memorable Champagne flutes, and Truffles. The band was pretty good, as was the food. The magnificent views of the city were exactly what I wanted for our first night there. I must also say, going under the Golden Gate Bridge with my beautiful wife, was awesome, and unforgettable! Can you believe that some lady strolled out onto the deck, and said, "Get a room." Delana replied, "we've got one", and told me she was just jealous.
After we returned to our hotel, we were thirsty. Since there were no vending machines, we decided to stroll up the street to Uncle Vito's Pizza Parlor, on the corner of Bush and Taylor. We entered, and were quickly told they were closed. "Can you just sell us a couple of Cokes please?", we asked. "Sure, come on in". We had Pizza from there another night, and it was good. On the way back to the hotel, we were a little tipsy from the earlier alcohol, and as I was walking across the street, I began to lean over. Delana thought I was falling or dropping the Cokes, when I said, "Well, I'll be damned, I'll take that!", as I reached down to pick up the twenty and one dollar bills laying on the trolley tracks."Well, how about that? I go out to buy a couple cokes from Uncle Vitos, and end up making 18 dollars." We laughed, arm in arm, all the way to our room.
Lights out...end of day 1, for you at least ;-)
By the time we had gotten to bed on day 1, we had been up for almost 24 hours. We had a wake up call for 7 AM, continental breakfast and coffee, then we would hit the road. Today we were heading south, towards Monterey, for a nice ride down the Pacific Coast Highway. Tonight was also the night for the big Rite of Strings concert, so again we would be very busy. We took the 101, which led us to the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, then went south from there until met met US 1. We were in dire need of coffee, a mocha was more of what we had in mind. So, after we cleared the city limits, and were on the coast highway, I began to keep my eyes peeled for a place for some Java juice. We found a nice little coffee shop at a roadway inn near the shores of the Pacific. We parked in the rear, and saw we were in a beautiful location for some pictures and stretching with the morning ocean breeze greeting us. The lady in the coffee shop was nice, and we opted for some homemade blueberry muffins with our mochas. Oh, the mocha was delish!
The ride down the coast was beautiful, but I told Delana it was even more beautiful north of the city, and we would also be taking that trip. Once we hit Monterey, we found parking, and took a stroll through the wharf area where we found shops, more mocha, and playful barking sea lions. They were so fun to watch. As we were about two hours south of San Francisco, we had a bit of a tighter schedule to watch, as tonight we had the concert to attend. We found some really nice jackets at a shop there at $19.99 each, that we could not pass up. They were fleece lined, hooded, waterproof, and had a Monterey Emblem on the front. We were going to need waterproof jackets for the whale seeking excursion tomorrow, so we jumped on them.
We left Monterey and headed south again towards the scenic 17-mile toll drive through Pebble Beach. This was a beautiful ride. We were given a guide brochure as we entered the area, which described the 20 or so scenic stops along the route. We made our way slowly through the drive, stopping at most of the scenic pullouts. The Pebble Beach golf course is situated within this area. I must admit, if I were a golfer, I would love to have played there. We exited the 17-mile drive into Carmel. Unfortunately, we had to just drive through, as we needed to get headed back towards the bay area. We decided that on our next trip, we would spend a day in Carmel for sure.
By the time we got back to San Francisco, we had just enough time to shower, get ready for the Rite of Strings concert at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, and go find a quick bite to eat beforehand. Finding the bite was easy, finding the place to park to get the bite was not so easy. We drove around long enough to not have enough time, and decided on parking the car for the concert and finding anything nearby to eat. It was a bustling early evening on the streets of San Francisco. Everyone seemed to have an agenda, and it had to do with the arts. There were many concerts in the area this night, as well as opera we were soon to find out.
We strolled into The Big 4 Restaurant on the corner of California and Taylor Streets, as it was the closest place to where we parked. It was definitely a nice place to eat, we could tell. I did my gallant meander up to the host, and asked politely if there was a need for a reservation tonight for dinner. He apologized graciously to me and told me yes there was, as it was a very busy evening in the area. He did offer us a seat in the bar where we could have drinks and order from the bar menu. As we really were not starving, this would work out great, and we found a nice table against the wall. After ordering a couple glasses of wine, we decided on a light meal to hold us over. As we sat there, I made some small talk with the couple next to us, I think I asked if they were going to the concert as well. It turns out that they were attending the opera nearby. For about a half hour, we shared a conversation with them about the beautiful city we were in. Ray and Michelle knew much of the history there. The restaurant we were in was named after 4 very famous pioneers of the area, one of whom even lived in the building we were in. Ray explained that the Nob Hill area was the only area truly unchanged by the 1906 earthquake, as it sits on bedrock. As we parted ways with them, Ray asked if we would like a picture of ourselves there, and we said sure.
The concert...what can I say other than awesome? These 3 men were so freaking fantastic to watch perform, I pretty much had an ear to ear smile on my face the entire evening. We had great seats, center stage floor, five rows back. I could not have asked for better. Anyone who knows the real me knows what Jean-Luc means to me, and this was the realization of a 25 year dream. As a memory to this event, Delana is making me a scarf with a line of music on it from "Renasaince", which Jean-Luc performed.
Lights out...end of day 2, for you at least ;-)
Today was a day I had really been looking forward to...all day on the open seas, on a whale watching expedition. Our guide pointed out to us prior to boarding the boat, that there was no guarantee of seeing a whale, so they liked to call them whale seeking expeditions. At any rate, I just knew we were going to see some whales, and we even had a chance at seeing some great white sharks, as about 30 of them are known to inhabit the Farallon Islands region during this time of year.
We woke up very early Saturday morning, decided on the advice of our guide to pass on the coffee, as it tends to promote seasickness, and headed off to the Sausalito area, where we were to board our boat, the Salty Lady (pictured below), for our 8-hour adventure. There was off and on drizzle as we made our way into the nestled seaside community of Sausalito, just over the Golden Gate Bridge. We were both hoping that the day would clear out and we were only looking at the morning mist coming in from the bay. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Of our 5 days in San Francisco, this would be the only one that did not have picture perfect skies.
The itinerary for the trip would be about a 2-hour ride out to the Farallon Islands, where we would spend about 4 hours looking for the whales, then about a 2- hour return trip to Sausalito. As we made our way out of the bay, crossing under the Golden Gate Bridge, I stood on the edge of the boat, holding the rail, and welcoming the sea mist and breeze at my face. I was feeling just wonderful, even if it was very overcast and very cool. Delana found us a couple of nice seats, somewhat sheltered from the environment, and quickly fell asleep. She told me to wake her when we got to the islands though, she didn't want to miss anything exciting. (If she only knew).
By the time we reached our destination, I could tell it was going to be a rough day. I was about to wake Delana up, when I thought to myself, maybe I should just let her sleep this out, lol, but instead, I woke her. There was already one person on board who had succumbed the the motion of the seas, and was regrettably in dire straits. Within fifteen minutes of waking Delana, she began to feel sick. It wasn't long after that she was getting a closer view of the ocean via the side of the boat. My worst fear, she was sick. She decided to try and eat something as she had heard that putting something on the stomach would sometimes help. We went inside the cabin, got our chicken out that we had purchased the night before from KFC, and tried to eat. I took about 4 bites and realized, this was NOT what I should be doing. I almost immediately began to feel sick, and Delana was pretty much instantly sick again, and heading for the side of the boat again.
Delana eventually made it back to our previous seats, and within seconds had gone back to sleep. Great, I thought. Hopefully she would sleep the rest of the way, but I seriously doubted it, there were about 5.5 hours still to go. I on the other hand, was bravely fighting the urge to hang over the edge of the boat. This valiant effort lasted for about another hour and a half before I finally gave in, ran for the edge of the boat, then lost it...I continued to lose it as I tried to run to the back of the boat. After I reached that spot, I lost it some more, and then stood there getting wet from the rain, and trying to focus on a horizon which was barely visible. Each time I tried to sit down and get somewhat out of the cold rain, I was gently reminded that I could not do this and found myself feeling very nauseous again. Thus, I was held prisoner for the remainder of the trip at the back of the boat, so as not to get sick again.
By the time we reached the end of the trip, over half of the passengers had gotten sick, many more felt sick, and we did not see a single whale. I don't regret the trip, I only wish it had turned out better for us. I have been whale watching before, and there is nothing better than seeing one of these awesome animals at sea. The seas were pretty rough that day, and the weather was bad for what we were doing. A couple of times, the boat was completely submerged inside a wave, almost sideways. It's the only time I have ever gotten seasick. Oh, and by the way, with the exception of a couple of the more serious waves which woke her, Delana did manage to sleep the rest of the way.
Once we were back on shore, the nausea went away. After a hot shower in our hotel room, we were both feeling very good again, and ready for the evening ahead. Tonight was my second surprise for Delana on this trip. She knew we were going to dinner, but she knew nothing else. I was so hoping we would both feel better after our rough day on the open seas, I would have hated to be too sick to go out. At one point, even though I was not going to let it happen, I offered to let Delana call off the evening, rest in our room, and order in. I let her decide that we would go ahead and go out, after all, we both felt much better. She later asked me what I would have done, had she said yes to canceling Saturday night. I told her I would have somehow talked her into going out. There was no way I was going to let this get past us.
We called for the car around 6 PM, even though our dinner reservations were for 8. I figured rather than sit in the room for an hour, we could cruise around. Our dinner was in Oakland's Jack London Square, which meant crossing the Bay Bridge. Interesting tidbit of information about the Bay Bridge, that I learned in one of my many traffic schools when I lived in California - It is the only place in the USA that a person can actually get a ticket for running out of gas. Anyway, it's good we left around 6, because I overran our exit and was heading for Reno, lol. It was still raining, the lights were creating that blinding affect reflection on the roads, and there was traffic in Oakland. Not to mention, we seemed to be lost in the Jack London Square area. Needless to say, we were laughing about it, and saying it's a good thing we left early. We were also listening to the jazz station on the radio as we searched Oakland for Jack, when for the second time, we heard the ad for Rick Braun appearing Saturday night, and for a matinee on Sunday at some Japanese place called Yoshi's. The first time I heard it, I kind of acted like I didn't hear it, but Delana sure did. This time, she said, "see? There it is again." We both agreed again that it would have been nice to have known about it, as Rick Braun is one of our very favorite jazz artists. I told her maybe we would see about getting to the Sunday show, we'll see.
Finally I got my wits about me, and my directions straight. I saw the restaurant I was looking for, found a place to park, and we headed in. It wasn't until we walked in the front door, that Delana realized we were in Yoshi's. I walked right up to the ticket booth, mentioned my name, and they handed me our two tickets that I had purchased over a month earlier. They then asked if we were having dinner, and we were. The man told me to tell our server at the dinner table, so they could reserve our seats in the jazz club. Delana looked to be in shock a little, but looked very excited also. She told me she could not believe I played along with this like I did and did not tell her. She was thrilled, and so was I.
On a day that started off dreary, and consisted of us becoming "California Hurlers", the nightcap was tasting very sweet indeed. The dinner was pretty good, I would probably order something different next time, but it was a great meal. One could really tell we were tourists though, I swear, with the exception of one other table, we were the only ones not using our chopsticks. We tried, but it was damn tough, and we were laughing too hard to hold anything in them when we managed to squeeze something between the two chopsticks.
When we were done with dinner, we made our way to the club portion, and were promptly taken to a booth no more than 15 feet from the stage. These seats, again, were awesome. Soon, Rick was announced, and he came out and...can you say, Juh...ammmed! If you have never seen him, and have the chance, don't hesitate. It is well worth any price you pay, and he puts on an extremely high energy show. Did I tell you the guy can blow? Man, he blows that horn like no one I have ever heard. Totally awesome. During his show he would make his way through the crowd while he was playing, and at one point was standing at our table blowing that trumpet something fierce...way flippinn cool I tell you! Another thing that really impressed me about him was the way he promoted his supporting band, continuously through his show. That was great, and that's an artist. After the show, he met in the lobby with those who stayed around (us) and signed our CD for us. Yeah, we had a great evening.
Lights out...end of day 3, for you at least ;-)
After an event filled first three days in the bay area, our fourth day was kind of wide open. Originally, we were going to go to the wine country of Napa and Sonoma but decided against it. We just felt like having a leisurely day with no real deadlines. I truly wanted to share the beauty of Muir Woods and the northern coast with Delana, so this was an opportune day to do so. I visited Muir Woods nearly 20 years ago, and remembered still the breathtaking works of natural art that lived there. Yes, there would be more walking and climbing to do, but there are tough and not-so-tough trails within the woods, we would take a couple of the not-so-tough ones, ha ha ha.
We were out of bed by 8 AM, and decided to walk up the street to a little breakfast café for our morning mocha. Neither of us could pass up breakfast either, which is not a usual menu item for us. After breakfast, we walked back to the hotel (I naturally looked on the trolley tracks we crossed to see if I might find the breakfast fare, no luck this time), and requested the "Bonnie". Shortly our coach arrived, and off we went. We were heading north, over the Golden Gate into Marin County, then towards the coast. Muir Woods sits about 20 minutes north of the bridge.
When we arrived at the park entrance, we noticed that parking was very limited. The lot had already filled up by the time we got there, so we had to park about 300 yards away on the side of the road at the next available piece of real estate. With my cameras wrapped round my neck, my coat tied to my waist, and my beautiful wife by my side, we were off, slowly taking in all around us. I noticed some big nut looking things on the ground and picked one up as a souvenir. Later we found out it was a California Buckeye, a bit ironic we thought, as we are from Ohio, the Buckeye State. Delana was laughing at me, again, for putting it in my pocket, "They probably have rules about taking things from the park Paul." I could always say it fell from the tree and landed in my pocket. What are they going to do, send me to "The Rock"? She laughed at me yet again, when I just had to get a picture of the Banana Slug. Hey, I thought it was cool looking!
Muir Woods was just as I had remembered, beautiful. We did not explore all of it, but that leaves some for us next time. There are numerous different trails within the woods, some taking as long as 4 hours to complete, and others less than an hour. We chose the shorter ones for a couple reasons, our legs hurt, our feet hurt, and we were tired. We also didn't want to spend all day there, as we wanted to drive up the coast. The size of the trees was amazing, and their canopies kept the woods in near darkness, even on a sunny day. There is very little wildlife in the woods, mainly it is said, for that reason, so it was very quiet. There was this one bird though that was calling from the treetops, that could be heard for a long distance. I managed to get a poor picture of it. I could have gotten a much better one, but Delana made me get out of the Redwood before I hurt myself.
We finished our trek through the woods around 1 PM, and headed back for the car. Soon we were back on PCH heading north. I didn't know how far I really wanted to go, but I did want to make sure that we were along the coast when sunset came. Delana and I wanted to share a sunset over the Pacific before we left to come home, and this would be a great day for it. Part of PCH took us a bit inland, away from the coast, but for the most part, we were against the shoreline for most of the drive.
Around 2 PM, we decided to stop for lunch in a small café in Olema. It was such a nice day that they had the back patio opened for lunch, and we were seated there. We had our lunch, then continued north. We kept see signs for the Point Reyes and the Point Reyes Lighthouse, so we decided to head that way. Lighthouses are one of Delana's favorite things, and Point Reyes should be a nice spot for some pictures.
The drive to the Lighthouse seemed to take forever, as the road led us completely through the Point Reyes National Seashore. It was here that Delana keenly observed the very large water birds in the very shallow marsh area we were passing. These birds were so big you would have thought they were sea lions...oh, they were sea lions, lounging out in the sun. Boy did I get some mileage out of that one. We laughed and laughed about the huge water fowl. The road eventually led us somewhat inland where we were surrounded by rolling hills. Soon we began passing cattle ranches where the "happy California cows" lived. The first one we saw was called Ranch G, established 1879. We passed ranch after ranch until we got to Ranch A.
It was another 15 minutes or so until we finally reached the end of the road, Point Reyes. We parked the car, and began to walk, yes, uphill, toward the lighthouse. Unfortunately, we arrived about 4:45, and the information and lighthouse centers closed at 4:30. We continued the walk anyway, so we could at least see it. It was very windy, we were right on the coast, and it was cold, but the views from the top were phenomenal. At one section, it looked like we could see 20 miles of nothing but straight coastline, see the pictures below. In retrospect, we were kind of glad we could not get down to the lighthouse. There were steps leading down to the point, equivalent they say to the steps of a 30-story building, and we did not really want to climb back up them, ha ha ha.
We left the area and headed back south towards San Francisco. The sun was getting very close to setting, and we were not very close to the shore at this point. I was beginning to think maybe we would miss the sunset, so I began driving faster. At one point, Delana asked if I was in a hurry. In reality I was, I had already lost the sun behind the hills, but I told her that the guy behind me was on my tail, causing me to speed up. I pulled over quickly and let him pass.
Soon, we were at a point close enough to the coast that I felt good about stopping and catching the sunset. We were now on the coastal portion of PCH again, and approaching Stinson Beach. It's very ironic that this is the spot that we pulled over to view the sunset, as the last time I visited Stinson Beach was my one and only nude beach appearance, in the early 80's. The spot we pulled over at overlooked the path down to the nude portion of the beach, and I could see a grouping of rocks that I sat upon over 20 years earlier. I had no intention of repeating the performance, as I did not want to be confused with a sea lion, aka very large water fowl.
When we pulled over, the sun was quickly dropping on the horizon. We stood there at cliff's edge and watched. Delana was amazed at how fast it set, it took less than two minutes. Watching it with her was perfect, it seemed our whole trip had been perfect, with the exception of the sea hurling exercise. Once the sun disappeared, we headed back towards the city. We decided to walk up to Uncle Vito's Pizzeria and get that pizza I spoke of earlier, took it back to the room, ate it and went right to sleep ;-)
Lights out...end of day 4, right...
Again, there was no great rush to get up today, it would be our last day in San Francisco sadly, and we planned to spend the entire day in Sausalito, just across the Golden Gate Bridge. We checked out of the hotel around 10 AM, headed towards the Presidio, which was the last exit before entering the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove through the Presidio, but did not get out at all. We then had a great desire for a Mocha, so we looked for a place to get one while we headed for the bridge, and found one pretty quickly. The young lady inside the cafe was extremely nice and talkative with us. She apologized for the California prices (3.75 each) on the Mochas, and even offered us passes to the zoo out of her wallet, but I politely declined and explained to her that our last day was pretty mapped out and that she should give them to someone who would have the chance to use them.
It was another beautiful day in San Francisco, we were feeling a bit sad to know that this would be our last day there. We would however make the most of it. We made our way into Sausalito, found an all day parking lot, and started walking. The main street there runs along the coast, and is well populated with gift shops, sidewalk cafes, and some art galleries. We spent the latter part of the morning and early afternoon just meandering in and out of gift shops, picked up a few souvenirs for the kids back home, and talked with a few of the friendly shop owners as we passed through their shops. One of the ladies told of us these wondrous house boat homes located on the north side the city, and said we should go look at them. She said some of them sell for millions, and that she had just been outbid on one that she put a bid of 300K plus dollars on. As we left her shop I told her thanks for the info, and that I was happy for her that she could put a bid in like that. Delana laughed, as did the shop owner as she wished us a great day. We eventually picked up the car again, made our way down there, and to be quite honest were not that impressed. I did however, look them up on the Internet when we came home and saw that actually there were some pretty sheik house boats there, and they had some big square footage to them. Might be worth the price after all, if only I could afford the bid, ha ha ha.
We then made our way up into the residential areas of Sausalito to look at the homes on the hillsides. The roads to them were steep and winding, and Delana said that there was no way she could live there, unless she had a driver to take her everywhere. We stopped at one house that was for sale, it had brochures for the taking by the mailbox, and a beautiful view, just a mere 2.3 million. Then we found another one, that had been newly constructed for 4 million. We decided on that one, and I would get a driver. Baby go get a lottery ticket!
We made our way back into town, parked the car again. Our last dinner was to be in Sausalito, at The Spinnaker. I had researched it before we left and made reservations way in advance so that we could dine and watch the sun setting. The restaurant was situated out over the water, which provided us with a spectacular setting for the evening. Our waiter was very helpful in offering assistance in ordering the right meal, and even took our picture a couple of times. The dinner was great, we watched boats coming back in from a day at sea, pelicans diving over and over again into the water in search of their dinner, and then were treated to a wonderful sunset and view of the lights of San Francisco twinkling on until night fell.
By the time we left The Spinnaker and headed out of Sausalito back towards San Francisco, it was around 7:30. We still had a lot of time before we had to be at the airport, and still had to clean out the nonsmoking car we rented, cause we were bad and smoked in it. We found a car wash, washed it, vacuumed it, and no one would have ever known we had smoked in it. I even sprayed a little of my cologne in it as insurance. We were getting close to the airport, and had so much time left, that I decided to pull off of the freeway near the south bay area. It just so happens that it was the exit for the ballpark that the Giants play in (used to be Candlestick, I am not sure what they call it now). We made our way to the ballpark, which was dark, and realized we had stumbled upon a "lovers lane". When in Rome...We pulled over, rolled down the window, and listened to the ocean lap at the shoreline only 25 feet from us. We then got out of the car after a few minutes, strolled along the shoreline, and reminisced about what a wonderful trip we had.
Lights out...end of day 5, end of trip...thank-you San Francisco, we had a great time.
