California (Sat-Mon)

John and I are out in California for a combination vacation/business trip. We left Saturday, 10/5, and will be here until next Saturday. Reluctant fliers, we were pretty low key in the weeks leading up to the trip, but surprisingly packed early and ready to go. Saturday morning I decided to go for an "emergency" manicure and in honor of the trip picked "Lost on Lombard" from the O.P.I. San Francisco collection. It's a deep burgundy, a color family (red/pink) that I never wear. Nice, though.

The flight from BUF to ORD was in a small plane. I had diarrhea the whole trip. But by the time we boarded the plane in Chicago, my stomach had settled down and this flight went off without remark. It was a bigger plane, 6 seats across instead of 4, and it turned out that the 3rd seat in our row was empty, so we had some extra space. We got into SFO about 5:30, and by the time we retrieved our luggage, got a rental car (that was a mess) and got to our hotel, an hour north of San Francisco it was 8:00 (think 11PM, EST) and we still hadn't eaten anything. We drove through the nearby Wendy's and I wolfed down a small sandwich and prepared for a night of heartburn. But, to my surprise, it never happened.

On Sunday, we decided to drop off as many of the travel bugs we brought, as possible. I did a route query from Fairfield to Reno NV, and we were off. As we approached the NV area, we decided to forgo the quicky divorce and see Lake Tahoe, instead. We came upon a young couple there taking pictures of each other, and offered to take their picture together. In return they took one of us:

After a short hike, we went into Tahoe for an ice cream cone and something to drink, and watched a little of the Bronco/Cowboys game that was on in the burger place. There were two other couples there, both Broncos fans, so it was a fun time. When we finally got back to the hotel, it was once again late (8:30 EST), but we walked over to Straw Hat Pizza and had dinner - again without incident!

Monday we went to the coast. It didn't work out as well, since with the government shutdown, we couldn't access the public beach to go dip my toes in the ocean. And then we drove on Highway 1, which is long, winding, and on the side of a cliff. Not my idea of a good time. Regardless, sharing the day with John made it worthwhile. We were back to the hotel a little earlier, and took a 2 mile walk around Fairfield, picking up some local caches and eating once again at the Pizza Place.

Today we check out, drop off our luggage at the Berkeley City Club, our car at the airport and figure out how we get back to Berkeley (on BART, I believe).