Leaving the "city"

Our day in San Fran ended with a beautiful drive along the coastal 101 highway, where we parked and soaked in a bit of sunshine while the kids napped. I ran down the 50 yards or so to the ocean's edge, took what I hope were some cool shots. watched a couple of die hard surfers, and touched the water before heading back to the car. On the way back, I grabbed long piece of seaweed that had washed ashore - and when I say long, it was a good 10 ft - a thick tuber end tapering off like a whip, which was exactly the sound it made when I cracked it in the air. Brian gave it a try and snapped the rental car with a "whip-schaaaw" to the amusement of some passersbys, who had never seen someone 'whip their own car'. What a beautiful day to be at the beach.

The drive back to Palo Alto was uneventful, easy, and quick. Without traffic, SF really is only 40 minutes away.

Back at home: It always amazes me that no matter where I've gone on vacation in the past five years (which is what this still feels like right now), baring my trip to Greece, I almost always end up in a Walmart or a Target within 24-48. In this case it was a Walmart, and it was an absolute zoo. I had to get all the basics, and I was competing with quite a mob like crowd, including the insanely long lines, and a squabble over something in aisle 9, not to mention carts and elbows everywhere.

By the time I escaped Walmart and headed over with the rest of the family to the mecca that is Mountain View's Wholefoods, the two baskets we filled with various sundries and tidbits was a glorious and pleasurable experience, filled with squeaky clean aisles, cool smells, perky store staff every helpful with any requests. Yes, we semi-filled two shopping carts - not quite full, but enough so that it took a little creative moving of our Walmart crap to fit in the 10 bags of groceries amongst the bags.

Sadly, due to sleep deprivation and just general lack of any semblance of ability to pay attention these days, it did not sink in until around 8pm at night that our boxes still had not arrived (bedding, etc), and that they would not be arriving for several more days (I finally checked the delivery date on the email). My foggy brain had not bothered comparing UPS's estimated delivery date (29th) against the actual listed delivery date (Jan 2). Don't know why. So, tomorrow we wait for Comcast and in the afternoon we shop for stuff to get us over the hump until the moving trucks arrive in a week or so.

Of course we could just keep hoteling it. This place comes with a continental breakfast :)