California - Part 3

7/12/21

Our last full day on the west coast! I guess we were running out of things to do, a little bit. In the morning, Valerie stayed back at Ted's apartment while he and I walked the nature trail around the outside of the Facebook campus, which is very close to Ted's place. Facebook occupies what used to be Sun Microsystems' headquarters, and we discovered (while searching for a geocache, of course) that the back side of the Facebook sign at the entrance to the complex still says Sun Microsystems. That's no accident. Sun was at one time a premiere computer brand, but they tanked in the dot-com crash of the early 2000's as dot-com companies went bankrupt and dumped their used Sun computers on the market at low prices. The company never recovered and in 2009 was swallowed up by Oracle. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg intentionally left the Sun sign there as a reminder to his employees never to be complacent, even when it seems you're on top. On our walk we also noticed that while the campus is fenced in, there are gaps in the fence and gates which are unlocked - I hope that Facebook does a better job of data security than they do of physical security (kidding - I'm pretty sure they don't!).

At Facebook

A relic of the Sun era around back of the Facebook sign

After our walk we picked Valerie up and returned to the Stanford Mall, as Valerie wanted to buy more bars of a honeysuckle soap she had found there. Stanford Mall is where the high end shops are - the Hermes, the Cartier, etc. But still, nothing which couldn't be found at the Tysons Galleria or thereabouts. I figured that in an area with so many super-rich tech people the local mall would hold yet another level of even more expensive stores, selling things like the $300 t-shirts favored by the aforementioned Mark Zuckerburg. I guess those stores are hidden away elsewhere, and if you have the money to wear $300 t-shirts, it doesn't matter if the stores are conveniently located at the mall as you probably have staff to go out and buy them for you.

Stanford Mall

The three of us walked around separately - the mall is outdoors and makes for a nice stroll - then met for lunch. We were browsing the menu at a salad place when one of the employees fairly rudely shooed us away. Apparently, in looking at the menu the restaurant had placed at the entrance we were blocking other customers. The employee said there were other menus we could look at inside, but in fact the next place to see a menu was at the counter where you ordered, and by trying to take time to look at the menu once we were at the front of the line we were once again deemed guilty of holding up the line (BTW, the place was half empty and there was no line - just one other party behind us waiting to order). I started to vent a little at the staff member who was making us feel pretty unwelcome there. All she had would have had to have done at that point to calm things down would have been to say something like, "I'm sorry - please take your time." But she didn't, but fortunately for her my family, which is more used to my playing the conciliatory role when other family members are upset about poor service, shushed me, thereby sparing her from my very mild wrath. We ordered and had our salads (which were just OK). After lunch Ted and Valerie went out to pick fruit on the Stanford campus (there are orange, lemon and citron trees there!) while I stayed home and read my book and by the time we got back together everyone was once again in good spirits.

We were by then tired of restaurant meals and so whipped up dinner from Ted's fridge - pasta with asparagus, and veggie "chicken". Then we packed our bags.

7/13/21

All I can say about this day is that we got up early, Ted drove us to the airport, and we flew home (my first flight on a 787 Dreamliner!). The flight was initially expected to get in early, but due to the need to circumvent a wall of storms (we flew all the way down over Alabama to get around the storms) the flight wound up arriving about a half hour late - but the routing was good - nary a bump along the way! I'll also mention one other thing about flying these days: right now, COVID protocols require that all passengers wear masks at all times, except when they're eating. People complied quite well on our flights - but then came beverage service, that part of the flight where everyone takes their masks off at once to have their drinks and eat their little snacks. So FAA rules make sure you're safe throughout the flight except for the twenty minutes when everyone is breathing on each other while eating. Hmmm. Time for on-board beverages to be served in mask-friendly Fauci-pouchies? And pretzels to be replaced by similarly packaged smoothies?

I'll make one other parting observation. Where we live is not quite walkable, but most of our daily trips are 5-10 minutes away on local streets (or are doable by bicycle) - the supermarket, Target, Home Depot, doctor visits, and so on. Silicon Valley is definitely much more spread out. Ted's location is pretty centrally located, but just about everything requires hopping on the highway for an exit or two. In place of our 5-10 minute trips, his are 15-25, which makes a difference. Particularly when gas costs a dollar more than it does in Virginia. Whenever Valerie and I travel these days we evaluate the place as a possible retirement destination. Silicon Valley passes many tests - good healthcare (go Stanford Healthcare!), lots of restaurants, great weather, diversity - but carries serious negatives of total car dependence and insane cost of living, with houses costing roughly double what they would in already expensive Arlington. Hmmm.  

 

California - Part 2

 

7/9/21

Friday was another outdoor adventure day and followed pretty much the same contours as the previous day, except that Valerie opted out of the physical exertion. Prior to the trip I had planned on hiking at Point Reyes National Seashore (which Ted had previously visited and found quite beautiful), but as with Monterey, once we got to California I decided to cut down on the driving time and opt for something closer to "home". I think I might have felt differently if we had rented a car and were doing some of the driving, but we were relying on Ted and his aging two door Honda Civic for all our transportation, and I really didn't want to make too many demands on him as our chauffer. So Ted and I decided instead to hike at Ed Levin Park in Milpitas, not far, as it happens, from where we had rented kayaks the day before. On our way out we dropped Valerie at the Stanford Shopping Center - she was happy to spend the day hiking the mall while we hiked the mountains. After dropping her off we headed for Ed Levin, in the foothills of the Diablo Mountains. I smiled at the incongruous park name - in a place where just about everything is named in Spanish after some saint or other (San this and Santa that), this park, named after a former Santa Clara county supervisor, had a very Jewish-sounding name.

At Point Reyes we would have been treated to lush ocean scenery, but the Diablo Mountains are dry and desert-like. The Tularcitos Trail looked like someplace where ill-fated settlers would be found crawling on all fours, gasping for "water! water!" before collapsing into the dust. After reviewing the warning signs (rattlesnakes!! mountain lions!!), we headed up the trail. The trail was pretty vertical and it was an unusually hot day by Bay Area standards (well above 80 degrees), so we took it slowly. As my initial shock at the barrenness of the landscape wore off, I began to see the beauty of the desert setting. Ted, needless to say, had researched the geocaches in the park ahead of time and we paused here and there to find caches as we hiked. Geocaches were pretty easy to find in this environment: when you're hiking through low scrubby grass and suddenly come upon a lone tree, and your app tells you that there's a geocache in the area, chances are it's in that tree. That's a lot easier than caching in the woods of the northeast - though, given the rattlesnake warning, I was unwilling to stick my hand into little crevices searching for geocaches.

Ed Levin Park is also known as a hang-gliding spot and we got to see some hang-gliders (they may have been para-gliders?) as we hiked. We went far enough up that they were launching below us, and from our high elevation we got some pretty views of the valley below.

Another reason I wanted to hike close to home base was the big secret of the trip - that we had arranged a surprise birthday party for Ted! Well before the trip, Valerie had the idea of trying to pull off a surprise party. I contributed by finding contact information for Ted's work friend Audris. Valerie reached out to her and the two of them did the rest. We arrived at the restaurant, supposedly for with a reservation for just the three of us - but when we got there about half a dozen of his work friends and other friends were waiting for us. We had a great dinner, Ted got presents, and thanks to Audris, there was even cake! Ted was genuinely surprised.

7/10/21

This was Ted's actual birthday. I decided to step back and not be prescriptive about activities on Ted's actual birthday - particularly since I had planned the previous two days and had also already made plans for the following day. As a result we got a slow start to the day and eventually defaulted to going over to the nearby IKEA to browse around. Now, I find the idea of going to a national chain store as a vacation activity to be FÜKIHN KRÅYZEE (or maybe that was the name of one of the IKEA sofas we looked at?), but we went - and to tell you the truth, we had fun just because it was great spending time together. We even tried on (and Ted bought!) hats made of the signature IKEA blue bag material, and of course we ate at the IKEA restaurant, which offered two different varieties of veggie meatballs (the curry ones were really good, BTW). 

Lunch at IKEA

Stylish hats

On the way home we stopped to take pictures at the crow statues in Palo Alto. These are an installation by artist Sylvi Herrick, I believe at her residence. Previously, Ted had said that you have to sneak onto someone's property to see them, but they are on the front lawn and after looking at the artist's web site I believe they are meant to be interacted with by the public. Having had a couple of busy days, we took this one a little slower and after the crows we went back to Ted's to relax for a bit. 

For dinner we went out to Ted's other restaurant choice, Doppio Zero in Mountain View. We headed to Mountain View a little early and spent some time browsing the shops on Castro Street, then at the time of our reservation (reservations recommended - all the restaurants are quite busy, like the pandemic never happened, or is totally over) we headed to the restaurant and were seated at a pleasant table outside. I must say, the food was excellent - one of the best pieces of salmon I've ever had - though the service left a little to be desired. Our waiter was a harried guy from New York (we could tell by his accent and attitude). He never took our drink orders, and in general seemed too busy to waste time on things like waiting on his tables. He did, however, take the time to tell us about all the important positions he had held in New York restaurants.

Robots are everywhere - including delivering food on Castro St.

After dinner we took a sunset stroll through Baylands Park and visited Ted's office, which was of course deserted on a Saturday night. Since most everyone has been working remotely for the past year, the place has an abandoned sort of vibe to it, as I imagine many offices do these days. Then it was back home.

Sunset at Baylands

7/11/21

I always love seeing live music, and thanks to playing in Great Northern I've gotten back into the world of the Grateful Dead, so when we started planning our trip I looked up what, if anything, was scheduled at Terrapin Crossroads, a small music venue in San Rafael owned by Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. Sure enough, they were just opening post-pandemic and Melvin Seals and JGB (a carrying on of Jerry Garcia's side project, the Jerry Garcia Band) were playing a two day engagement during our stay. I grabbed tickets to what I knew would be a sold out show. Our plan for the afternoon was to head up to San Rafael for the concert, but first ... more Frisbee.

Ted had described Sunday morning Frisbee as a laid back, Sunday in the park feel, which was indeed the case. After a good pancake breakfast at home we headed out and set up under a tree to watch all the young tech bros (and a couple of tech women) through the Frisbee around. Throughout the trip I was concerned about my lack of opportunities for daily exercise (Ted's neighborhood is just skeevy enough that I didn't feel really comfortable going out for early morning runs there) and so once again I took a walk while Ted played. I came back to find Valerie interrogating the players during a break. After Frisbee we stopped to grab sandwiches (Erik's this time - the Bay area has some great sandwiches!) for lunch and headed back to Ted's place so he could get cleaned up. Then we drove up to San Rafael.

Upon arrival at Terrapin Crossroads we were met with quite a hippie scene - sort of like the parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert in miniature. As I expected, the crowd inside was more of a normal bunch, but the folks hanging out were hippie flotsam and jetsam, either selling stuff (tie-dyes and the like) or maybe just hanging out outside to hear the music for free. This show was outdoors on the "beach", which is genuinely waterfront, if not a true beach (the venue has an indoor stage as well). Lots of people, sunshine, palm trees, good vibes. Several people with whom I chatted mentioned that this was the first live music they'd seen since the beginning of the pandemic, making me all the more appreciative of the way venues in the DC area (particularly right in Falls Church) managed to keep music going throughout COVID with socially distanced outdoor shows.

Grateful Dead themed motorcycle outside of Terrapin Crossroads

Melvin Seals and JGB at Terrapin Crossroads

At one point I heard people behind me talking about New York. I turned around and recognized well-known Grateful Dead photographer Bob Minkin, who I sort of have a connection with. He's from Brooklyn and is childhood friends with a couple of musicians with whom I used to play in New York. I introduced myself and we chatted for a bit. I also spoke with a woman named Alicia who owns the store Land of the Sun in Haight Ashbury. It was funny - at first was a little hesitant to tell her we'd been to the Haight since it seemed like a cliché touristy to have done, but then it turned out she owned a shop there :) It was another hot day and Valerie took shelter in the shade and wound up chatting with a woman who, while she had lived in the Bay area for years, had spent part of her childhood just around the corner from Valerie's childhood home. Weird. It was a good show, though I spent much of it worrying that Ted and Valerie weren't having a good time because (a) it wasn't their kind of music, and (b) it was hot out. We left just before the last song to beat the crowds out.

We had driven up the East Bay side to get to San Rafael, but on the way home we drove through the city so we could stop at Toy Boat Dessert Café. The first trip Valerie and I took together when we were dating was to San Francisco. On our last night in town, while killing time before our flight home, we wandered into a neighborhood dessert place in the Richmond District called Toy Boat. We were feeling the magic of new love and ever since Toy Boat has been special to us - we try to visit whenever the family or subset thereof is in SF. The restaurant almost closed during the pandemic, but fortunately was rescued by another local restauranteur (it's now Toy Boat By Jane). We all got ice cream (a real treat to get ice cream for the second time in a week - since we're all normally watching our diets for one reason or another) and of course, took pictures. Then we went over to Chinatown and ate dinner at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant (ha ha - I'm turning them all into veggie eaters), which was quite good. After another eventful day, we headed home to Ted's place, a little sad that we had only one more day all together.

Toy Boat 2010 with David

Toy Boat, 2001

Inside Toy Boat, 2021

California - Part I

7/6/21

Ted got an amazing job offer and moved to California back in November of 2019. We've been itching to go visit him, but, y'know, COVID. With the pandemic at least temporarily) on the wane, we finally boarded a plane and headed out for a visit.

We went first to Ted's apartment - which takes a little explaining in and of itself. First of all, he lives in East Palo Alto, a former slum which is now gentrifying as one of the last semi-affordable places to live in the area. It's at that point in transition where people still have high security fences around their properties, but there's an IKEA and a Target within walking distance. Transitional, as it were. Ted rents an in-law suite built onto a garage. To get to his apartment, you first unlock and slide open the property's gate (making sure to lock it behind you). Once inside the gate, you look around and realize the property is probably about 3/4 acre - an estate sized lot for the area - but is hardly an "estate", as it is overgrown and littered with years of accumulated stuff. A rusting hearse, a seemingly dead Honda sedan as well as a few other vehicles, a few motorcycles, a giant smoker, some rusty old welding tanks, etc. While taking this all in you will probably be greeted by the landlord's four dogs - three friendly Rottweilers and a Pekinese. To get to Ted's apartment you open the garage door, walk through the cluttered garage and go through another door to get into the apartment (the bathroom and the washer/dryer are in the garage itself, outside the apartment). The landlord's house itself looks to be quite nice, I must say, with a pleasant patio out back. Ted's apartment is quite a bargain - reasonable rent, and he can make use of the property as well as the storage room which is also part of the garage building. The apartment is reasonably nice too - good sized open living room/dining room/kitchen area, plus a small bedroom.

I should mention that it was no surprise to discover a few motorcycles around the property, as Ted's landlord is the former leader of the Daly City Hell's Angels. Now in his 70's, he is a pleasant fellow; he even offered to lend us his truck to more easily carry Ted's paddleboard on the day we went kayaking/paddleboarding. Nothing from his demeanor would suggest his past conviction for drug dealing, or prosecution for kidnapping and attempted murder. Those were a long time ago, and I do believe that he has settled down in his golden years. But I still wouldn't cross him. Apparently, he's still active in the club (the local HQ is just a few blocks away), but as something of a senior advisor - much like what I do as a management consultant, except my clients are tech companies and his are motorcycle gangs.

Having explored Ted's apartment and played with his Google Home smart devices (you can do various things, such as controlling the lights, voice command), we headed out to explore Palo Alto. We walked around downtown Stanford, a collection of nice shops and restaurants - clearly affluent, but not ultra-high end in any way which would indicate the level of wealth in the area. We got ice cream at Salt & Straw, the type of place which has flavors like goat cheese habanero lingonberry, olive oil, and lavender. Then we did a quick drive around the Stanford campus, which is truly beautiful. As it got towards dinner time Valerie and I, being on East Coast time, started to wilt a little, so we grabbed sandwiches from a local chain called Ike's (also quite good - and many vegetarian selections!) and headed back to the apartment.

I like Ike's logo

At the "OY/YO" statue on the Stanford campus

7/7/21

Ted is a gracious host. He vacated his bedroom and slept on the living room couch so that we could sleep in his comfortable queen-sized bed. We slept well but woke up early, as Ted's plan was to take advantage of our bodies still being on Eastern time and head out to see the sunrise. We were out the door at 5 AM, headed for Twin Peaks, listed in online guides as the best place to get a view of San Francisco. Our plan was perfect - except - as we got closer to the city we started to notice fog. The closer we got, the foggier it got, until we found ourselves pretty socked in as we climbed the narrow, twisty roads to the 900 ft. elevation of Twin Peaks. Valerie and I occupied our time silently praying as Ted navigated the switchbacks in the dense fog. Oh yeah, San Francisco is incredibly foggy, especially in the morning. Duh. It's also a weird microclimate which is typically much colder than Silicon Valley. 

When we clambered out of the car at the top, we found temperatures in the 50's, a strong breeze, and pea soup fog. Our only indication of sunrise was that the pea soup got lighter colored over time. There was no indication at all that there was a city out there, but I later looked online and found some nice pictures. Ted was right - when there's no fog, it's a heck of a view.

Freezing and seeing nothing at Twin Peaks

When we got off the mountain (more switchbacks in the fog, more praying), it was 6:30 AM, still too early for much to be open. The place we targeted for breakfast didn't open until 8 (what the heck kind of city doesn't serve breakfast until 8? Maybe it's a COVID thing) and so we settled on going to see things that couldn't close. We drove around Golden Gate Park, stopped at a Starbucks, then went and strolled the Palace of Fine Arts. We visited the Yoda fountain at the Presidio, and at 8 AM we headed for breakfast.

Palace of Fine Arts

Palace of Fine Arts

Yoda Fountain at The Presidio

Ted said Sweet Maple offered the best breakfast in San Francisco. Unfortunately for me, their signature item is "Millionaire Bacon" - a supposedly super rich and tasty bacon. But I don't eat bacon. I had a rather tasty scrambled eggs, sourdough toast and fruit cup combo. Quite tasty, and my introduction to Bay area restaurant prices: $18 for the eggs, plus another $5 for coffee.

Golden Gate Bridge Overlook

Golden Gate Park

In the bathroom at Sweet Maple

Fortified by breakfast, we headed back to the Presidio to get some good scenic views of the Golden Gate Bridge. With my new recidivist Deadheadism (thanks to playing in Grateful Dead tribute band Great Northern), I wanted to go to Haight Ashbury, the city's traditional hippie neighborhood. There we took pictures in front of the house where the Dead lived in the 60's, and strolled Haight Street. Many of the stores were closed (COVID) but we went into Love on Haight, a tie-dye shop. I knew about them - I've ordered from them online - and the store was friendly and fun. We marveled at the enormous tie-dye stretched across the ceiling (said to be a former Dead set piece). the staff snapped pictures of us, and I bought one of the few non-tie-dye items in the store - a t-shirt with the image of Grateful Dead keyboardist Brent Midland. You always see images of Jerry Garcia, but almost never see any of Brent. I also thumbed through a - signed - copy of a book of photographs of the Jerry Garcia by well-known Grateful Dead photographer Bob Minkin (remember that name - it will come up again later in this story). We also went into The Love of Ganesha, a very hippie-dippy store with crystals, hippie ornaments and lots of Eastern doodads. Valerie bought a present for her friend Laura and a little six-pointed star tchotchke (a Star of David in our eyes, though probably not in the eyes of people who made the thing in a sweatshop somewhere in Tibet).

At Love on Haight tie-dye shop

Outside the house occupied by the Grateful Dead in the 60's.

Haight Street store

Love on Haight tie-dye shop

Love on Haight tie-dye shop

It was hard to believe, but at this point it was only noon. We decided on one more stop before heading back to the apartment: we went to Japan-town and checked out an origami exhibit at an origami shop (Valerie and Ted are into origami). Then we headed home for a nap, after which we hit the supermarket for some basic supplies - breakfast food, snacks and the like.

Fabulous origami

Ted has gotten really into ultimate frisbee; he plays games three or four days per week. Not wanting him to miss a week, we tagged along to a park in Mountainview where the Wednesday game is held. Ted played frisbee (Ted, being in healthcare, is an outlier in this group - most of the players work for tech companies - Facebook, VMWare, Splunk, Google, etc.). Valerie sat and read a book and watched the game. I went for a walk around the park and re-joined Valerie in spectating towards the end of the game.

That was one long day, and after Frisbee we were ready to head home and collapse for the evening, because the next day would bring more action and activity.

7/8/21

The family left it to me to do much of the day-by-day planning for the trip, so of course our itinerary included a kayaking day! My pre-trip thought had been to go to Elkhorn Slough, a neat little stretch of water near Monterey with lots of marine mammals; however after just a day and a half of our trip, I realized that every day was going to involve significant driving - Ted lives not to far from anything, but a drive from everything - and so I reconsidered, given that Monterey is nearly two hours away from Palo Alto. Also, Valerie decided to join in on paddling. I was very happy that she was going to participate, but it most certainly meant that we weren't going to do a trip of a length which would justify almost four hours of driving. I investigated other, closer by Pacific locales - Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz - before finally settling on the very convenient, if considerably less scenic option of Alviso Slough. 

On the water in Alviso Slough

As an aside, "slough" is a word we don't seem to use on the east coast. It means a wetland or a backwater to a larger body of water. In my experience, the things called sloughs I've paddled have all been long, narrow fingers of water. It's funny that different places have different names for types of bodies of water - like "run" in our area. Until I moved to Virginia I had never heard of a stream being called a "run", but I live right near Four Mile Run,  and of course, not far away there's the Bull Run of Civil War battle notoriety (of course, in Virginia the battles of Bull Run are known as First and Second Manassas, but that's a whole other story).

Taking a break

Anyway, at the head of Alviso Slough there's a bait shop which also offers kayak rentals. I called them to confirm they were open and spoke with a guy who was pretty taciturn - for the most part I got one word answers to my questions - but the answer to "Are you open?" was "yes", so we loaded Ted's paddleboard onto the roof of the car and headed over there. We arrived and were met by what I assume was the same guy, since he was equally laconic. The bait shop is located just outside the park where you launch. The rental guy drove the kayak over to the launch, while Valerie, Ted and I followed him in Ted's car. I helped the guy unload the kayak from this van then while returned to the car to help Ted unstrap the paddleboard Valerie had a few minutes alone at the boat ramp with the rental guy, who as far as I could tell had no interest in speaking anything beyond monosyllables. Now, I must say that Valerie has a gift (which I envy) in being able to strike up a conversation with just about anyone, and further she loves a challenge. Suffice it to say, by the time Ted and I made it to the ramp, she had learned the rental guy's name (Norman), how old he was, that he was one of ten children, 8 boys and two girls (the sisters, sad to say, have both passed away), where he grew up, etc. She's amazing.

As we launched we got a little taste of California weirdo-ism. There was a couple about our age hanging out on the dock, and we chatted with them as we launched. They'd lived in California for many years and said they loved the weather but hated the lifestyle. When we inquired as to what that meant they launched into an increasingly impassioned rant about politically correct speech and how if you say the wrong thing in California you'd wind up in jail. Realizing that the conversation was veering into right-wing wackiness, we bid them good day and got under way. 

Ted paddling

The kayak trip itself was pleasant and uneventful. The slough turned out to have high berms on each side and so there was no scenery to be seen. If we had gone farther we could have escaped the slough into the more open water of the bottom of San Francisco Bay, but we were fighting a significant current, Ted was paddleboarding for the first time since moving to California in 2019, and Valerie and I were in a double sit-on-top which only sometimes had two people paddling it. So, we didn't make it all the way to the end of the slough. Still, it was a very nice trip and something a little different for us to do as a family.

Upon our return we had several more interactions with Calfornia weirdos. When we first landed there was a guy on a nearby bench who started a conversation with us and gave us recommendations of other nearby places to paddle - so far, so good - but then abruptly switched to telling us about all his medical conditions and ultimately hit us up for money. I (truthfully) told him that I didn't have any money on me, at which point he left. About the time our good friend Norman from the bait shop arrived in the van to pick up the kayak another guy drove into the parking lot. He ostensibly had several boats he was looking to give away and had driven into the marina to see if anyone there was interested in his free boats, which he was giving away. When I told him that we weren't locals he repeated the whole sotry about having boats to give away to Norman, who was by now our friend, all the more so because we now had a common antagonist. Norman muttered to me that he deals with weirdos at the launch all the time, before telling the guy what must be a standard response - that he'd have to check with his boss, and to please write down the relevant info on a piece of paper (which he supplied). The weirdo guy spent way too long repeating himself again and again about having boats to give away and giving details of said boats, and when he finally got to writing down the details I settled up with Norman and we went on our way.

Despite the fact that Valerie was already over her Recommended Daily Allowance of time outdoors, rather than go straight home we took a walk through a nearby nature area with a nice boardwalk trail. Then we went back home and had a delicious lunch of veggie hot dogs (!) and carrots and Valerie and I napped (I swear, we're not that old - we were just jet-lagged). For our late afternoon activity we played miniature golf at a course which offered all the best of kitschy mini-golf - castles, dragons, windmills and the like. I dominated the front nine but my game completely collapsed on the back nine and I wound up coming in third. We then went for dinner at Zareen's, a very popular Pakistani restaurant. Just seeing Ted, who ate only kid's menu items well into adulthood, tuck into Pakistani food was pretty amazing. We then returned to Ted's and took appropriate medications to deal with the day's physical exertions, then nostalgically re-watched some old cartoons the boys used to like when they were little (Fillmore - a Disney kid's show spoof of police procedural shows).

Valerie on the Boardwalk trail

Boardwalk walk scenery

Mini-golf