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