Today was our day to drive from Sacramento back to San Jose. It started out with Not So Small and Grumpy waking up on the wrong side of the bed, so to speak. She was just in a pissy mood, which lasted all day. Not that much fun, but it does serve to remind us that, yes, she is only 11.
The drive into “The City” (San Francisco) was uneventful, but driving in San Francisco reminds me how much I hate driving in San Francisco. The rest of the bay area is fine, but The City is a pain. We originally planned to have lunch in Chinatown. However, we had no luck with the parking gods: twice we found lots, twice we found out they were valet only after we got past the gate. This was extremely frustrating, We gave up on the Chinatown idea, and ended up at Mel’s Drive In on Lombard for lunch. Mel’s is a known quantity, and lunch was enjoyable.
After lunch, we drove on over to the Exploratorium, which is in the Palace of Fine Arts originally constructed for the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exhibition. gf_guruilla had fun with the exhibits–it was really neat watching the little girl come out. NSS&G was grumpy–she wanted to be a mouse potato. Me… I was fascinated with the buildings, especially the statues made of staff. Partially, this was due to my fascination with Forest Park and the 1904 Worlds Fair, which was constructed in a similar manner.
After leaving the exploratorium, I let the roadgeek out. We drove out Route 1 to the edge of Golden Gate park, then over to Route 35 to where we could pick up Route 1 again, up to I-280, and down into San Jose. This allowed me to see some of the area that’s got some interesting history: the area near Thornton State Beach where the route was shifted due to earthquake damage. I-280 was also interesting: it goes through some very beautiful country.
For dinner, we found an excellent Indian restaurant: Mezbaan, at 3939 Rivermark Village, where Montague meets Agnew.
The plans for tomorrow (Wednesday) have sort of changed: deedeebythebay needs the day to prepare for teaching on the weekend. We still plan to visit Oakland and Berkeley, however. Our target in Oakland is GB Rattos. In Berkeley, we want to visit Lacis and Stonemountain Fabrics in Berkeley, and my daughter wants to visit the Hall of Health in Berkeley. We also want to show her Shatto Shattuck Street. kaottic97: we would still like to meet you for lunch, but we might need to do it in Berkeley. Call me in the morning. We’re also currently open for dinner, if any of the East Bay folks want to get together. Again… just call me.
Thursday, we’re visiting the San Jose Quilt Museum, and hopefully seeing Jon and Von again. We might visit the Intel Museum.
Friday, we have bunch with ellipticcurve‘s parents, and then it is back to Los Angeles.
