crossrhodes

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1. Must do 17-Mile Drive again with a DSLR camera!!!
2. The BEST CLAM CHOWDER is at Fish Hopper on Cannery Row. More clams, less potatoes… just the way I like it.
3. The Golden Gate Bridge looks just like the Verrazano in red. Pretty, but not that exciting when you grew up near NYC.
4. It’s sunny one minute, and foggy the next. Crazy! Love the weather in the Pacific Northwest!
5. John Steinbeck would be lost in the tourist trap of what was his Cannery Row.
6. Riding the cable cars on the steep hills of San Francisco is pretty scary!
7. I prefer the movie, Escape from Alcatraz, over the real Alcatraz. It was kinda boring for me, but Don was really into the audio tour!
8. We went to a Hong Kong-style Dim Sum joint in Chinatown w/ a menu you won’t find in our neck of the woods… and what does Don order? A safe and familiar egg roll.
9. I felt like Alice in Wonderland among the sky-scraping redwood trees at Muir Woods. Wish we had time to drive to Avenue of the Giants where you can drive a car thru the trunk of a giant redwood.
10. Don and I had so much fun driving down the crooked street of Lombard, we did it twice. I can’t describe it. You just had to be there. Or, you can watch our video on YouTube :-)
11. Had my first roti canai (excellent!!!) at Banana Island in Daly City, courtesy of the locals (Don’s cousins).
12. We were serenaded by a Mariachi band over giant burritos in downtown San Jose.
13. Fisherman’s Wharf is another tourist trap, but the sea lions at Pier 39 were worth a visit.
14. Chinatown SF is just like Chinatown NYC, only you have to be a billy goat to travel Chinatown SF on foot. The hills are steep!
15. We would like to come back to NoCal for a longer vacation and see more off the beaten path. It’s just so beautiful up there! They are so lucky to have the big city, breathtaking coastlines, the mountains, and country side within a short distance of each other. Everything — but a good NY bagel or pizza — is there!

Mannn, I am pooped!!! 8 hours of air travel today, plus airport transfers and ground transportation. Such a hassle to fly! (I’m in desperate need of a back rub!) But it was definitely worth the trip.

It was good for me and Don to get away for a while. No kids, no schedules. Just the two of us exploring Northern California. I left Don in Silicon Valley — and my heart in San Francisco — in a wireless networking class. The pics I took are in his laptop so I can’t blog them until he comes home this weekend.

And now I lay me down to sleep……..

I loved flying coast to coast when I was single. And I am sooo excited to finally see Northern California. But now it’s just a hassle to travel where airports are involved. I can’t even carry lipgloss, lotion, or bottled water — travel essentials — in my purse! But this is the world we live in.

Pretty soon, we’ll be travelling like this:

Sorry, I couldn’t resist! ;-)

Back from Bermuda all of 3 days and already planning another trip!!! Don is going to Silicon Valley for business in the fall. I’d like to tag along to finally see Frisco, Monterey, and perhaps the Napa Valley, too. I’ve been to Northern Cali twice - in 2000 on business with Juniper Networks and earlier this year to visit my sister but stayed with my ill grandma in LA - and never actually saw the sights. (Three strikes, I’m out?!?!)

I really, really want to see Googleplex, the Google HQ, while I’m there. (I know, I’m a nerd!) Intel offers tours of their chip factory, so I thought Google’s famous techie counterculture might be available for behind-the-glass viewing as well. But googling the phrase “visit google” is like stopping at a gas station to ask directions to the nearest gas station. The only articles I’ve read are of travelers dropping by without notice and getting turned away at the gate. Guess that means they don’t welcome tourist paparazzis?

Anyway, I have a ton of photo opps pegged from San Francisco to Carmel Bay. And I’m looking into lens adapters for my Canon PowerShot in lieu of a digital SLR. I’m psyched and ready to go!

Now… if only we could figure out what to do with James??????????

We’re slowly settling back into our routine. James started school today. I’m almost caught up on the laundry, bill paying, groceries, and other errands. Had lunch with our Pastor and family after church yesterday. We’re going to the church’s first mid-week dinner and fellowship on Wednesday. Ladies’ craft night is on Friday. Don has guard drill this weekend. And I started cooking dinner again :)

I’ve got to work on my resume! I got a referral for a part-time customer service position with a mortgage company. And Target is “Now Hiring”. They have nothing to do with my major in radiography, but I need to get out of the house between now and when I go back to school in May. I haven’t updated my resume since I interviewed for my last job at Ford in 2002. It’s been a year since our office closed and now I can’t remember what I did there! (Sucks to get old :)