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entry 7: san francisco, california to carmel, california 10/23/05

Checking out Monterey with Carol and Bill.

Vacation week! I know, I know, most people would see us as being on the vacation of a lifetime, but when you’ve been on the road for five weeks – mostly in hotels – it’s nice to unload your bikes and give your backside a rest. We have arrived at Carol and Bill’s home in San Jose, CA. They had recently moved out to California from Denver so this stop was a great opportunity to catch up on their activities and also to see some of the San Fran area. They have a great home that allowed us to relax and check the bikes over. So far the bikes are still running great. Very little oil consumed, no parts have fallen off and I have not knocked one of them over recently. (You just wouldn’t believe how tipsy they can get, no matter how low I load the heavy stuff – which leads me to the conclusion we should have left most of our living room at home.)

Our first tourist outing took us a short way down the coast to Monterey, which included driving past fields of strawberries – harvested up to four times a year and planted on raised rows of plastic covered dirt – crops of artichokes, which appear on very prickly looking bushes and of course garlic. This area is known as the garlic capitol of the world and I do love garlic but garlic wine and toothpaste just seem a little over the top! The town of Monterey has gone through a renaissance, turning what was a sardine packing powerhouse gone bust (read John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row to get the scoop) into fashionable boutiques, restaurants and, my favorite, a factory turned into an impressive aquarium. After Monterey we took a drive THROUGH a little golf course known as Pebble Beach. I am not much of a golfer, well to tell the truth my golf career never got off the ground, having put a divot in the concrete pad at the driving range, but I do appreciate the beauty of golf courses and this one was first class. They charge a small fee to take your car along a road that leads to the clubhouse/resort and past a lot of nice homes. We ended the day in Carmel, another nice upscale "couldn’t afford to live there" kind of town. We started to comment on how the Volvos and Saabs were as common as Fords and Chevy’s - and Rolls and Jags ruled the roads.

Norah Jones was the highlight of the concert for Lynne.

Another great outing we had was to a benefit concert that Neil Young and his wife Peggy put on every year for the Bridge School. Every year different artist show up to help raise moneyl. This year Neils's cronies Crosby, Stills, and Nash were there as well as Jerry Lee Lewis, Dave Mathews, Nora Jones, Emmy Lou Harris and a few others took the stage. It was a great, sunny day on the lawn for a concert and the performers really jammed! We also took a day to tour downtown San Francisco, went across the Golden Gate Bridge and Pier 39 with all of the tourist activities.

San Jose was also the stop for the last in our series of hepatitis shots. We now have an official yellow vaccine card that should be good enough to get us into Mexico and beyond. With our butts now rested we leave Carol and Bill with a big THANK YOU! And head toward Los Angeles, which has me totally freaked because everyone has told us how bad the traffic will be. I’ll let you know how it went in our next post.

San Francisco has been a favorite of ours for a long time.

From Lynne:

How great it is to have Carol's full blown kitchen at our disposal - not to mention that she bakes some mean scones and sweets. It's a wonder we left.

I need to note (gloat) that for the first time ever Tom and I beat the almost always unbeatable team of Carol and Bill at Trivial Pursuit.

I'm now the proud new owner of a bodacious pair of SIDI boots - with any luck they'll hold the water at bay a little better than my last ones. Time will tell.

We downsized one more time here (we had sent many things to them which we weren't sure whether we would need) and forwarded another two very large boxes to my dad's. He and the mailman have agreed to share a hospital room when their hernias kick in.