“1,950 miles later”
The drive from Las Vegas to Pacifica was pleasantly uneventful. The border checkpoint from Nevada into California wasn’t even manned as we made 
the crossing. I continue to turn into a “grumpy old man” – night driving with oncoming traffic not separated by a median is getting pretty difficult. I struggle to see where I’m going with the oncoming glare. So, the Pacheco Pass at night wasn’t really much fun. It’s very twisty and ill lit. That whining aside, we arrived at the hotel in Pacifica around 9pm. 1,950 miles in the books. I should have about 10 days now with no lengthy drives.
Once in our hotel room, Diana went on a mission to install the Amazon Firestick so that we could watch all our normal TV and streaming shows. She was so tired that it was easy to see her brain working but not easy to interpret what was (or wasn’t) being said. Problem one was that in order to connect to the hotel WiFi one needed to check the “Accept Terms and Conditions” box, but the remote wouldn’t go to the box. An hour later Diana noticed the “cursor mode” option and that problem was solved. Problem two – the firestick was installed and working fine but the remote wouldn’t control the TV volume and power, even after a bunch of fancy settings updates by McD. I looked at some YouTube videos of how to fix the issue and tried a number of things. An hour later, Diana finally gave up and sat down at her computer. I decided to try the regular TV remote that we had thought only controlled the Dish satellite system. Whaddaya know? Controlled volume perfectly. Two hours lost, but all TV and streaming options fully installed for our hotel stay. I wish I had some of that escapade on video. Funnily enough the firestick remote started controlling the volume just fine the next day with no changes.
We decided to be very safe and get a COVID test before visiting with Diana’s Mom. Another late hour of work showed that “Project Baseline” was the best option. After 30 minutes of data entry the site told us that we could make appointments for the Half Moon Bay location on Wednesday morning. We assumed we could walk in on Tuesday morning and planned that as our early morning activity.
The drive down to Half Moon Bay was quick and pleasant but there was no evidence of any testing activity at the church, other than a couple of tents set up in the parking lot. I tried to search for related testing locations and came up with a county run drive through site in Daly city – just south of San Francisco. We finally found the location and 30 minutes later had completed our tests with a 1 to 3 day waiting period for results.
After that interesting activity we were ready for some lunch. I spotted the City Kebabs and Gyros shop as we approached a traffic light and we decided to give it a try. The Mediterranean food was delicious with all my favourites – humus, falafels, dolmas, chicken and lamb. We were able to eat at the little table outside – one day before even patio dining was shut down.
We met Will and Christine for dinner at Town in San Carlos on Tuesday evening. The street was closed off and the restaurants had made some big investments in building outdoor dining. We were warm with the heaters and shades even though the temperature was in the forties. It was funny to listen to Diana and Will deciding on which steak and preparation they were going to share. I loved my sea bass and had some leftovers for lunch on Wednesday. It was a real treat to hang out and have a meal with Will and Christine. We had debated which night to meet and it was fortuitous that we chose Tuesday as all onsite dining shut down in California on Wednesday.
Wednesday began with a walk from Rockaway beach over to Lindamar Beach. This involves zig-zagging up a decent sized hill.
I enjoyed a good macchiato at Soul Grind at the mid-point of the walk while Diana ran back for a work call.
The surf was the biggest that I’ve seen in Pacifica – the waves cresting at 15 to 20 feet. There were a few brave surfers at Rockaway and you could tell they certainly knew what they were doing. I really enjoyed sitting on the balcony and watching the sea and surfers. Listening to the surfers in the Soul Grind parking lot sharing their experiences was hilarious – they really do have that whole special slang that you see in movies.
The sunsets in Pacifica are equally impressive:
We still didn’t have our test results on Wednesday evening and so stayed at the hotel for dinner with Diana picking up food at the Moonraker restaurant across the street. This is one of the nicer places in Pacifica (not really a high bar) and has a great view of the surf when the restaurant is open. I enjoyed my lobster BLT sandwich and clam chowder.
Thursday started the same way as Wednesday with a pleasant walk between the two beaches and a coffee at Soul Grind. We worked most of the day from the hotel room and then joined our respective work happy hours. Diana’s was quite entertaining with one of her colleagues playing a Christmas carol on the tuba. We finally received our negative COVID test results on Thursday evening and were cleared to head up on Gypsy Hill and visit the family.
Diana chose to start her birthday with a run – and conquered the zig-zag path up the hill – most impressive. She had texted a picture to Marco (the ultra-marathoner) and asked if he thought she could do it. He coached her to stand up straight and take little strides – seemed to work. After her run we did another walk over for coffee and then enjoyed a sandwich from Dinosaur’s – such great Vietnamese sandwiches on yummy bread.
Birthday dinner was hosted by Adamo and family at their home. I enjoyed looking over the kid’s task lists for the day.
Massimo’s tree in his room is certainly right up there with the Charlie Brown version:
Luciano is quite proud of his ability to count to one hundred. I liked Diana’s bobbing head encouragement:
McD likes to have surf and turf for her birthday meal and Adamo made sure she was fully taken care of:
Those are lobsters that he caught diving and they were delicious. While the cooking was underway, Diana was reviewing her hand made cards from the boys.
After dinner Grammie and Massimo relaxed and watched Rudolph.
One other thing that I came across that I thought was worth sharing. Look at this 4th birthday card that Andy made for Massimo – he’s so creative with his cards. He had seen Massimo in that jacket and thought he looked like a zebra.
Saturday was a pleasant and quiet day. We ordered dinner from Mezza Luna in Princeton (just down Highway 1 from Pacifica) and ate with Adamo and the noise making crew. The pizza and calamari were both very good.
Sunday started with another walk across the hill for coffee and a breakfast burrito at Soul Grind. Then we packed up and moved from the hotel to Clorinda’s house just in time to watch the Cowboys defeat the San Francisco 49ers. The Saints played really well against the Chiefs in Drew Brees first game back from injury but were edged out in the end. Adamo and I are in the midst of a project to install a TV at Clorinda’s. Our small helpers are being exceptionally helpful.
We listened to the Ann Cleeves book “Raven Black” on the second section of our drive. This is the first in the Shetland series – I read the 4th “Blue Lighting” a year or two ago, a gift from Mum and Dad and enjoyed it. This one was a tad formulaic with the introduction and exploration of all potential guilty parties and Diana and I enjoyed trying to figure out who we thought were the leading contenders. Neither one of us was close.
The story is set against the local Shetland festival of Up Helly Aa which celebrates the Viking history of the island, and culminates in the burning of a long boat. The Guizer Jarl is the leader of the squad that builds and ultimately burns the boat, and one of the characters in the book was the Guizer for that year.
I was introduced to the “Nutcracker Suite” by Duke Ellington this week and really like it a lot – terrific arrangements and playing.
This led me to Ellington’s “New Orleans Suite” which might be even better.
I came across this performance of Led Zeppelin covers by Government Mule with Jason Bonham (son of Zeppelin drummer John Bonham) on drums. What a great job Warren Haynes does on guitar and vocals – he really is one of the most under-appreciated guitarists working today.
I’ll finish with another Christmas related song that I heard for the first time this week – “Christmas Must Be Tonight” by The Band. Great stuff:
Stay safe and patient- there’s an end in sight.
The reprise of the road trip to California was scheduled to begin early on Friday morning and so we exchanged some gifts from under the tree on Thursday evening. I’m always so impressed with Diana’s wrapping skills. She got a special edition book of Winnie the Pooh stories and is looking forward to me reading bedtime stories from it. I’m working on the voices – it seems like everyone sounds a bit like Eeyore.
Saturday began with a walk across the hotel parking lot to the Marigold Café, a new place since our last trip. It combines Indian and American foods with New Mexico influences in creative ways. For example, my breakfast taco was served in fresh naan bread rather than a tortilla and included some delicious green chilis. Diana’s avocado toast was also excellent and she raved about the bacon. I’d like to return and sample the tikka mac ‘n cheese.
After checking into the lovely, historic La Fonda hotel, we walked over to Canyon Road and had a ramble past all the art galleries and sculpture gardens that line the street. I really enjoyed these wind machines – so creative and attention grabbing.
We walked back to the square and then enjoyed coffee and a slice of quiche at the hotel. I was interested to see the red chilis hung as ornaments on the square. Here’s the view from our hotel room balcony. The cathedral bells are quite loud. Fortunately the Trump rally (no masks in sight) in front of the cathedral cleared out quickly.
Why did we take the time to detour up to Santa Fe on an already long road trip you ask? Very solid question. Our friends Amy and Ray were getting married on Saturday evening at the La Fonda hotel. We hadn’t planned on attending but couldn’t say no after Amy heard we were just going to be an hour away in Albuquerque. Here’s Diana dressed up for the wedding with the favour that Amy left at the front desk – red chili peppers.
We loaded up and headed out early on Sunday morning – destination Las Vegas – a mere 8 hours of driving away. On the road by 8am and we should be relaxing at the lovely Aria hotel on the Vegas strip by 6pm or so. All was smooth with some slow initial going on the snow in Santa Fe and the pace picking up when we merged onto the interstate down to Albuquerque. And then everything changed – and not for the better. There were multiple semi-truck accidents on I40 – we sat stopped on the highway amidst all the trucks for 2 hours straight at one point.
After our quick dinner, we walked down the strip to Bellagio and watched the fountain show with Christmas music. Always such an impressive sight. On the way we passed through a new and extremely upscale mall called “Crystals” something or other. We were amazed at this tree where each ornament was one of the Swarovski crystal special editions – I hate to think how much it cost to decorate that tree.
Passing the smaller Eiffel tower at Paris hotel reminded us of a wonderful dinner we enjoyed there and of the very special 50th birthday dinner that we enjoyed with Mum and Dad at the real version in the real Paris.
I didn’t make too much progress on “Utopia Avenue” this week, but am happy to report that my interest was held much better again. I suspect I’ll finish the book off quickly on arrival in Pacifica as I get plenty of quiet reading time with Clorinda.
After a busy Thanksgiving weekend, this week was very quiet with our only real outing to downtown McKinney for coffee today. Diana took my picture with the Xmas display outside the coffee shop. Not quite a Christmas card since Diana and BP didn’t make it in.
She said several times that the grilled lobsters were perfectly cooked. A nicely cooked sea bass makes me happy. So we were both very happy with our meals – and had plenty of leftovers for a late dinner. I laughed when we checked in on the chaos at Amy and Adamo’s home and heard that Adamo had said, “maybe we can go out for lobster on Thanksgiving twenty years from now.”
After Peche, we walked across the street to the Parker Jazz Club (capacity reduced from over 100 to 30) and enjoyed our first live music in 9 months with 12 other folks. Kris and the team are trying really hard to keep the place going with very limited seating weekend shows and live-streaming. The house band was excellent as always – although the new drummer over plays too much for my liking. Kris might have played almost all of his 8 or 9 instruments – going from bass flute to multiple saxophones and a flugelhorn.
Brunch was at the Odd Duck – one of my top three Austin brunch spots. The shrimp and grits with a perfectly cooked deep fried egg were fabulous, as was the ceviche with green curry sauce. It’s always so hard to choose from all the options – and the menu is new every time we go. Diana loved their take on the Paloma cocktail. I’m now expected to try and replicate that – oops, maybe she’d forgotten already and I just reminded her.
Sunday was a dry day and so we were able to execute a 4 mile circuit around the river trail, culminating with another snack at TacoDeli. Then another excellent brunch at Suerte – my top ranked Mexican restaurant. The masa that they make all the corn tortillas and tostadas from is ridiculously good. Diana had a smoked salmon tostada and I tried the bacon and sweet potato tetela (like a corn based pie with bacon and sweet potato puree inside). They were both perfect – particularly the mornay sauce, which I learned is a classic béchamel sauce enriched with a blend of Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses. We have really missed the creative food that is so readily available in Austin. And the great live music.
After brunch we met our friend Neffie at Fixe – a new place she introduced us to that specializes in southern comfort food – supposedly the best biscuits (scones) in Austin.
We passed this sign on the walk to Fixe – so nice to be able to walk everywhere again. My Mum had just been telling us the story of the Battle of Bannockburn where the English tried to sneak up on the Scots at night, taking their boots off for stealth, but were foiled by the thistles that made them yelp and awake the sleeping Scots. And like a responsible Scotsman who payed attention in History class, I do indeed remember that happened in 1314.
I listened to a short story called “Climbing with Mollie” by Bill Finnegan on a couple of my swims this week. A small MP3 player that clips onto the strap of my goggles and some waterproof earphones made this possible. Those and a bit of patience deciphering how to find an Audible book download file, convert it to MP3 format, and load it onto the player. Then some trial and error with different sized earphone end pieces and “fitgoo earbud insertion helper”. Now I’m all set to listen to books while swimming.
I read the book “Silver Sparrow” by Tayari Jones this week. Sometimes I really can’t remember what possessed me to order certain books, and this is certainly one of those. I suppose it popped up on one of those “if you liked this, you’ll love this” lists or on a book review that I trust. Here’s what the Los Angeles Times reviewer had to say:
Wednesday was the 3rd anniversary of that lovely day in Cozumel. I found a card with the caption “May the Honeymoon Never End”. It’s funny to me because we didn’t have an official honeymoon and I think McD has given up on it now. We did have a planning session a few months ago but couldn’t come up with anything that we really liked. Some nice flowers took the sting out of the message in the card.
finally a FaceTime with the Wahbas. We finished up in time to catch the last couple of songs from a Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen song swap live stream. Seeing them both reminded me of the night that I broke my finger. Keen was the emcee and Lovett an Austin City Limits Hall of Fame inductee.
I started “Sontag” by Benjamin Moser this week. At over 700 pages it might be with me for a few weeks. It’s described as “The definitive portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private face”. I can’t honestly remember what drove me to pick this biography, but I’ve started and I’ll do my best to finish. I don’t know too much about Sontag and so I’m sure I’ll learn a lot along the way.
The audio book of “Where the Crawdads Sing” kept us company as we traversed the mountains, mesas, and then wide, flat open spaces to Amarillo. We were most certainly road weary on arrival at the downtown Courtyard – this one is part of the “historic” collection and is a remodeled downtown bank building. It certainly has a lot more character than most. Only in this kind of rural location can you stay in a corner suite with wrap around windows for $102.
My book on the road trip was “All Adults Here” by Emma Straub. This is a very enjoyable ensemble family drama, set in small town Connecticut. Three generations of Stricks play out their lives in quite different fashions, and it’s all very enjoyable and engaging.
There was an issue with Clorinda’s hot water heater that Marco was in charge of remedying. He tried to enlist friends to assist with the replacement – this was unsuccessful but one friend did recommend the Vietnamese sandwiches from Dinosaur’s. I filed that away and we ordered a variety of those for lunch on Monday. We sat outside and enjoyed these on Amy and Adamo’s patio. My portobello was delicious.
hosts as usual and showed us videos of the resident mountain lion and cub playing in their fountain. The wildlife on Gypsy Hill has expanded quite a bit over the last year – deer were the main attraction but now we have added bobcats, mountain lions, and wild turkeys. Really, seven wild turkeys were congregated outside Clorinda’s kitchen window on Monday afternoon. I understand they peck at the glass pretty relentlessly – doesn’t seem like very “wild” behaviour.
On Friday we drove down to San Luis Obispo (home of Cal Poly where Will studied Mechanical Eng) with a brief stop to see Will at his office in the afternoon. It was entertaining to see his face when one of his co-workers told him “Your Dad’s here” – not what he was expecting at all. Will gave us a tour of the school that he’s remodeling and then we were on our way south.
After D’s morning exercise, we drove to Alicia’s house for breakfast. She made us some amazing Bloody Mary’s with crispy bacon stirrers and avocado toast – definitely becoming quite the hostess.
Sunday took us on down the coast to Pacific Beach in San Diego to meet up with Campbell and Molly. Diana found an excellent hotel room for us on the beach at a boutique hotel called Tower 23. The balcony had a great view of all the action on the beach.
Campbell and Molly came over and joined us on the balcony for a while before we went downstairs for dinner at the Jordan restaurant in the hotel. Then they came back upstairs to watch the last of the sunset. I really enjoyed Molly telling us that, having to much time listening to Campbell’s sales pitches and follow up, she could easily tell the story for him. I particularly enjoyed her rendition of “and what have you” – something I say quite a bit.
My fancy new kettle arrived on Monday. It allows me to heat water to the perfect temperature for my fancy new cafetiere – 96 degrees, and also features a “goose-neck” spout for precision pouring. I know people in Guatemala who take the art of preparing coffee way more seriously than this – they have three different setups for different styles of coffee. So I’m not that nuts at least.
The Bakersfield sound is a sub-genre of country music developed in the mid-to-late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. … Wynn Stewart pioneered the Bakersfield sound, while Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, and Merle Haggard and the Strangers are the two most successful artists of the original Bakersfield era. We stayed just off Buck Owens Blvd and I played a couple of his songs for Diana on the drive.
I finally finished the Robin Williams biography this week. The first half was a bit of a slog but the second half really captured my attention. What a tortured and supremely talented individual. I forgot how many wonderful movies he made in the early 90s – “Good Morning Vietnam” being the first big breakout from stand-up comedy to blockbuster movies, followed by Awakenings, The Fisher King and many others. It seems that a lot of people took advantage of his kindness and generosity. Very sad that he couldn’t ultimately handle his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
He’s one of the folks that has a tremendous feel for the music, coupled with ridiculous dexterity. I get exhausted just watching how hard his left hand is working. Joe started with “Classified” by the legendary New Orleans player James Booker. It sounds and looks to me like an incredibly difficult piece to play well. The credits at the end of the show indicated that Joe had a large part in organizing and producing the show.
Jon Cleary, an Englishman who plays piano like he’s a 3rd generation New Orleanian, is another one with a great feel for the music. Jojo Herman, of the jam band Widespread Panic, was a revelation – he clearly has spent a huge amount of time listening to James Booker and Professor Longhair. He had spent some time learning from Dr. John, who passed away earlier this year, and shared a personal video of Mac performing “Tipitina” at the end of the show. “What is a tipitina?”, asked Jojo of the Dr. “Fess (Professor Longhair) told me it was some kind of bird, but I never heard of such a thing.”
The show finished up with my all time favourite, Long Tall Marcia Ball. Excellent as always with a rare performance on a grand piano – we typically see her with her electric keyboard, legs kicking in time to her beat.
our future. We attempted to finish watching “Ford versus Ferrari” after dinner. One of us finished and the other only made it for a few minutes. I really enjoyed this movie and found Christian Bale and Matt Damon to be excellent – particularly Damon as Carroll Shelby – quite different than some of his more typical roles. The tug of war between the GM “suits” and the entrepreneurial and freewheeling Shelby/Ken Miles collaboration was well depicted. What beautiful cars Shelby made.
My first book this week was “Travels with Charley (In Search of America)” by John Steinbeck. I hadn’t heard of this work until it was cited by Stephanie Land as a big reason for her desire to explore Missoula, Montana. I thought maybe the descriptions of that territory may convince McD to give it a try. Or at least that overly optimistic child living inside me thought so.
All the time at the pool this weekend allowed me to finish another book – a fast paced mystery set in Paris during World War II. “Three hours in Paris” by Cara Black tells the story of an assassination attempt on Hitler when he pays a quick visit to attend a mass at Sacre Couer in Montmartre. The sniper is actually an American from Oregon who is recruited while living on a UK Army base in Stornoway with her Scottish husband. Her attempt fails but she does kill the leader of the German Navy by accident as Hitler ducks. The cat and mouse pursuit of Kate through various Parisienne neighbourhoods by the German forces is well written and keeps the pages turning fast. I recommend this as a good pool or beach read and a good one for those that have visited Paris to reminisce over.