Travel Day Concludes

After a morning of unexpected pleasantries inside the airplane, the afternoon’s leg from DFW to SFO added pleasures outside the aircraft with some spectacular views of deserts, and I think fields of California Poppies, and snow covered peaks as we plied north to the bay area. It’s always amazing to see the face of the earth from such a vantage point. No wonder those astronauts have life experiences. Anyway, inside the plane the same warm nuts were supplied, this time with a real glass serving of Glenlivet over ice, followed by a Chicken Salad (MFO) and a Steak Quesadilla for moi. The salad bested the pair, with again crisp fresh greens, and diced chicken. Which leads me to wonder, while sailing along at .7 (?) Mach, can you serve a salad with fresher greens than you get at the mid chain of restaurants in SOMD? Another thought for another time. My quesadilla was little bits of some sort of steak in one of those pinky tortillas (which should be banned along with their green brethren), glued together with melted cheddar cheese. Wasn’t awful, but with the recollection of the surprisingly good one the previous evening, it sort of paled. The welcome little blue foil wedge of “Brie” and Carr’s water crackers capped the meal along with the apparently standard fresh baked cookie. The afternoon equipment was a 757 which afforded the option of listening to music with the little ear buds, so on top of the views, the Glenlivet, and the cheese course, the Eroica Trio provided some very nice listening including Beethoven’s 8th Symphony.

I failed to mention in (a hastily prepared) Post 1 that during the book sale, I picked up a hardcopy edition of McCullough’s “John Adams”. Of course I made the logical decision that this was the tome I should take for reading by the bay, so lugged along the rather weighty tome. In the early pages, it speaks to Adams travels as part of his law practice then back and forth from Massachusetts to Philadelphia for the Continental Congress. It took him two weeks for that journey, often in cold wet conditions of the winter of ’76, and here we were transversing the whole continent in a matter of hours, with ice in a glass, crispy greens, and classical music. Wow. Before leaving John and returning to the present, it also struck me how much he wrote in his diaries which supply a wonderful insight (through David McCullough) to his mind and a mirror of the times. Perhaps an early bottom feeder.

Anyway we landed in San Francisco, retrieved the luggage, including the bulky golf clubs, used one of those little carts, and did the Sky Train to the Rent-a-racer facility, and loaded them into the Altima (hey, I’m retired now, live it up). We headed out of the garage, and encountered the worst “gate attendant” I have ever run across. Maybe “We’re No. 1” is the claim of the company, but he exuded “I’m number 3,346,219”. No eye contact, multiple squints at drivers license, bar codes, contracts, clipboards, finally shoving same in the window for MFO to sign. Just before we left, we asked if we could have a map. He handed us one while apparently making sure our tires were not flat and off we went. Only after heading down the interstate did we discover that our map was of the East Bay. You know what Joe Pesce always said about the drive through..

Then a somewhat guessed route took us down I280. off on SR 85, right again on CA17 for a harrowing 30 mile transit on a two lane, narrow winding road chock full of these drivers from California. Nuff said there. So, somewhat drained by that we finally arrived at last night’s stop in Santa Cruz at a Hampton Inn (economize where you can). Not wanting food (pretty late east coast/body time), we settled for another course of Ritz Cheese Crackers accompanied by a transcon bottle of Cono Sur ’07 Pinot Noir. Watched two of the three Big Ten teams survive, with MSU getting an easy ride into the second round, Wisconsin winning an (OT) game the probably shouldn’t and Ohio State losing (another OT) because some little twerp from Sienna couldn’t miss a three from the next zip code.

Anyway, I find my spirits are rising with the square of the radius from the cares of SOMD, and am looking forward to today’s trip down the coast to Monterey, where there are wineries to visit, restaurants to attend, food to be eaten, family to greet, and golf to be played.



Sorry for length…

We will continue to

DFD and DFT


Overnight Lodging: Hampton Inn, Santa Cruz, CA. one fecu. mostly for toilets that sound like Mt. Vesuvius upon flushing (like the old trailers at Pax). same round tasteless stuff for "breakfast".