Mount Shasta

Before heading North, we stopped off for supplies at Trader Joe's, which was very close to our campground. Visiting Trader Joe's may not sound like a vacation highlight, but the closest TJ's to Williamstown is over an hour's drive away, so this is a real treat. I'm still kicking myself for not buying one of their cool T-shirts with a giant hibiscus flower.

California-Style Provisions

Our original plan was to drive up the coast to Mendocino, where I had proposed marriage to Rachelle on that fateful day in April of 1995. We had hoped to show Keiko and Amaya the cliff where I proposed. After a late-night review of the the map and on-line comments from other RVers, however, it was clear that Route 1 just North of San Francisco was unsafe for our rig, and that the other roads cutting West across from Highway 101 were not recommended. Having barely recovered from the white-knuckle experience of Route 17 and the Golden Gate Bridge, I wasn't in any rush to get myself into another uncomfortable situation. Rachelle was really keen to visit Mount Shasta one way or another, so we decided just to scream North on Interstate 5. 

Truck Buddies at a Rest Stop in the Central Valley

It was pleasant and cool in the North Bay when we left, but when we pulled over at a rest stop in the Central Valley, it was 104 °F.  With the exception of the extreme heat and the number of trucks on the highway, the drive on I5 in North-Central California was pretty unremarkable. Once we got past Redding, though, it became apparent that we had been slowly climbing all day long; the descent into the Mount Shasta area was a long, long, long, sometimes steep, decline of several thousand feet. Fortunately, once I flipped the "brake buddy" switch, the engine did a lot of the speed control work and I hardly needed to touch the brakes. The scenery was pretty spectacular and when Mount Shasta came into sight, we were treated to some incredible views.

Mount Shasta from the Road

Our stop for the night was the Lake Siskiyou Resort and Camp, which was managed by the same company as the beautiful Costanoa Resort. After 275 miles of driving—our longest single-day distance of the trip—we were ready to chill out. The campground had a neat lodge restaurant where we grabbed a quick dinner and I enjoyed a pint of local beer. Amaya and I took a walk around the campground to scout the place out and she took a quick dip in the lake, but the splash zone attractions were "closed." It was getting dark and the bugs were coming out so we packed it in for the evening, but we promised the girls that they'd have plenty of time to play in the lake tomorrow.

San Francisco by Ferry

After a 10-minute walk from our campground down a nice pedestrian/bike path we arrived Larkspur Ferry Terminal. The girls didn't seem to excited about a trip to the city at first, but the ferry ride was fun. It started off slowly, but once we got out of the harbor that thing was really moving. Keiko and Amaya both got a kick out of standing on the deck in the very strong wind and sea spray. We quickly learned why no one was sitting in the seating area we picked....

Marin Hills

MC Hammer's got nothing on me!

Golden Gate Bridge Shrouded in Fog

We cruised by Alcatraz and could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, shrouded in fog. Approaching the city from the bay was really cool. Rachelle's friend, Gail, took the afternoon off from work and meet us at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal. What a cool building. Jimmy Blair had told me visit Blue Bottle Coffee, so I made a caffeine stop. Awesome.

Approaching the San Francisco Ferry Building from the Bay

Blue Bottle Coffee in the Ferry Building

Gail took us to a restaurant called Yank Sing for dim sum lunch. Fantastic, but oh my God we were stuffed! After that, I had thought we could take one of those hop-on, hop-off open-top-bus tours around the city, but it was too late in the day to make it work out well. Instead, we walked up to Chinatown. Sadly, the photo didn't come out well for my favorite view in Chinatown: A crowd of men gambling around a "No Loitering" sign...

Dim Sum!

Transamerica

Can you see the Ferry Building?

Chinatown!

Rachelle eventually walked Gail back to the Ferry Building. The girls and I started upon on a quest for some special paper scrolls, but we gave up after visiting about 10 shops that contained overwhelming numbers of tiny items.

Vaguely Asian Chachkas

What visit to San Francisco would be complete without a cable car ride over the hill to North Beach and Ghiradelli Square? Rachelle and the girls noted that the cable car operator was really "mean." It's true that he wasn't very friendly, but that job has got to be really hard and super stressful. The operator was clearly an ex-military type. That dude's shoulders and back look like he could have pulled the car up the hill with his bare hands if he had to.

I think that's Alcatraz straight ahead.

Amaya looks friendly, anyway...

The Ghiradelli chocolate store is a dangerous place to take a family who has been forced to walk around the city all day long. Sadly, the dark chocolate nonpareils are no longer with us.

Keiko's Fantasy World: Ghiradelli

Hey Sis, you gonna need all of that shake?  Shaa...

As evening approached, I told everyone that I had a truly awesome place in mind for dinner...but that it was about 1.3 miles away. It was starting to get cold and we had already walked a lot of miles up and down steep hills. I assured them that if they were able to hold out and walk up Columbus street, we'd head into the heart of North Beach, the Italian enclave, and I would treat them to the best pasta they'd ever had. In so many words, they told me I was full of crap, but eventually they agreed to make the walk—as long as I was willing to spring for a taxicab to get us back to our Ferry by 9:00. The mantra, "This had better be REALLY good, Dad" persisted for the entire 1.3 miles.

Caffe Sport, is a place that I had visited multiple of times while living in the Bay Area. I knew from my iPhone that it still existed and was open that night, but I was starting to worry about the deep pile of doo-doo I'd be in if it didn't live up to my memory.

Funky Caffe Sport

Caffe Sport Interior

Fortunately, everything was just as I had remembered it to be. The restaurant is decorated from floor to ceiling with a funky collection of wooden carvings from the Sicilian Chef/Owner assembled over many decades. It was actually better than I remembered it. And the food...Holy Crap!....The FOOD.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist...

Leaving San Francsico—About to disappear into a fog bank.

I followed through on my part of the bargain and we took a cab back to the Ferry Building. The sun was setting as we left San Francisco. The Ferry slowed down a lot as we slipped into a fog bank, but after ten minutes or so we emerged into a beautiful clear evening in Marin. It was a long, but memorable day!

When the lights go down in the city, and the sun shines on the bay...

The Road to Saratoga—or—The Drive Where I Thought We Might Die

Pay no attention, girls, to the drug deal going down just to our left...

Early dinner reservations awaited us at another site of historical significance from our pre-marriage days. The road to La Fondue in Saratoga—where Rachelle and I shared several romantic dates way back when—took us on CA Route 17 over the mountains. I didn't give it too much thought ahead of time, but it turned out that this was a terrifying drive in the RV. This is a super-windy, narrow road with concrete dividers along much of the centerline and cliff walls or drop-offs along the edge of the road. Cars drive really fast on this road. Amaya and I in the RV followed Keiko and Rachelle in the rental car, but I couldn't go anywhere near as fast as she. Climbing the mountain was slow, but manageable. The downhill portion, however, was a white-knuckle experience like I have never experienced before. The steep and curvy downhill required that I use the brakes a lot so as to avoid the sensation that we were going to tip over. Better yet, after a few minutes of steep descent, the RV began to "shudder" when I applied the brakes. The more I heavily I braked, the more severe the shuddering/oscillation/lurching behavior became. I surmised that the brakes were overheating, so I tried to use them as little as I could, but then we would accelerate to uncomfortable speeds. Fortunately, the grade leveled out and the brakes had time to cool and the shuddering went away. By the time we got to Saratoga, however, I was pretty wiped out. A few days later, I called Jeff the rental guy to ask him how to avoid these kind of uncomfortable situations in the future. He said, "did you use the brake assist?" "Ummmm....what's that?" I replied. Nice. It turned out that there's a switch on the dashboard that forces the transmission to take on some of the breaking function. In retrospect, I should have thought to downshift to a lower gear, which would have accomplished much the same thing—but in the white-knuckle moment, I guess I didn't have the presence of mind to consider this. Amaya was a little freaked out too. Not something I wanted to repeat.

Nice Teeth!

I have an eerie feeling that someone is watching me...

What do you mean we're eating Buffalo?

We were the first patrons at La Fondue with our 5:00 reservations. Since we had been there last (Summer of 2004 when we did a home exchange in Berkeley) The restaurant had moved to the space next door, but the menu hadn't changed and neither had the vibe. We had three courses of fondue: traditional Swiss, meat fondue including buffalo, and a killer chocolate fondue. 

Damage Done

We rolled out of there at around 7:00 and still had to return the rental car to the airport in San Jose before driving up the peninsula to our campground. It was starting to get dark and we were down to 1/4 tank of gas, but we cruised up I-280 and then to Route 1 through the Western section of San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge. The tunnel preceding the bridge was pretty exciting by itself, but the bridge was a new level of stress. Trucks and RVs are restricted to the right-most lane because it's the widest lane (God save anyone who was driving a truck in any of the other lanes). It felt like we had about a 6 inch clearance between the right side of the RV and the bridge structure. Meanwhile, cars are whizzing by us, seemingly inches from our left side. I'm not sure if I too a full breath for the entire span. Holy crap. That was cool, but I don't need to do that again in this lifetime.

It was just a few minutes more until we reached our RV park in Greenbrae. It was pitch dark in the RV park and we were supposed to back into a very narrow spot (that also happened to have a giant speed bump right down the middle). An old-timer who owned one of those 45-foot-long monster big rigs helped us maneuver into our spot. I'm pretty sure that his act of kindness saved our marriage. I don't think we could have backed into our spot without him. It's hard enough to back that thing up in the daylight. At night, the reflections cast by all of the different glass surfaces make it impossible to use the rear view mirror. Our RV was equipped with a backup camera, but it only functioned about 20% of the time—and was never operational when we were trying to park. He stood by my window and gave me step by step instructions for when to turn. It wasn't until the next morning that I saw how we had bee shoehorned into the tiniest spot possible.

After we had shut down and had set everything up for sleeping, I told Rachelle that I had no adrenaline left in my body. The girls didn't care. They asked me to help them with math problems...

Santa Cruz

After spending four days at Costanoa and the surroundings, we were headed to a campground just beyond San Francisco by the end of the day. We decided to spend the bulk of the day in Santa Cruz. Rachelle went to college at UC Santa Cruz and lived in the area after that. She was really keen to show Keiko and Amaya her old stomping grounds. Since we had use of the rental car until the end of the day, we parked the big rig in a Safeway parking lot and used the rental to shuttle around town.

University of California Santa Cruz

Rachelle's dorm at UCSC had changed somewhat, but we were able to go right up to the window of her old dorm room and let the girls peek in. They seemed rather confused about why a school would choose a Banana Slug as it's mascot, but noted that it probably makes more sense as a mascot than a Purple Cow...

 

Rachelle's stories about the guy who went to class naked were also met with bewilderment, but the girls clearly enjoyed hearing about their mom's earlier life in California.

No trip to Santa Cruz would be complete without a visit to the Beach Boardwalk. Coincidentally, this was also the site of Rachelle's and my third date together back in the spring of 1994! We made a bee-line for the arcade and found all of the games from our youth clustered in the "classics corner." Sadly, the Q*Bert game was out of order so I could not reclaim my title as "The Supreme Noser."

Out of Order!

Amaya, Kickin' it Old School

We played Galaga and Donkey Kong, but the biggest hit for Keiko and Amaya was Ms. Pac Man. It was unbelievable to see how quickly they mastered that. I probably spent $50 on that game as a kid, but by her fourth game, Amaya had already destroyed my score on the way to the high score for the machine.

Think They're Related?

 Not wanting to pass up any chance to swim, the girls jumped in the ocean right off of the boardwalk. They said that it was warmer than the summer ocean water in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. That's my girls....

Pacific, Atlantic, Whatever!

We cruised the boardwalk and managed to squelch almost all of the requests for junk food from every vendor they saw. In the end, we agreed to one treat:

How Many Donuts Do You Eat On These Trips, Anyway?

Horseback Trail Riding With Amaya—or—The Day I Spent Stoned on Benadryl

When we checked in to the campground, Amaya overheard the attendant mention that they offered horseback trail rides. The next morning she was up at the crack of dawn begging me to take her to the stables and sign her up to ride. They said that she was old enough to ride, but it was $90 a pop and they didn't have any openings for a couple of days. After several hours of her pleading to ride, I finally agreed to spring for it. Of course it wasn't until after I had told her that she could go, and we went to confirm the reservation, that they mentioned that she was not old enough to participate without an accompanying adult.... who would also be charged $90.  Right. So, what started as an expensive treat turned into a doubly-expensive affair obliging me to go along for the ride. Ugh. Ok, it was too late to bail now without major drama, so I decided to play the hero and chalk it up to a super-special morning of father–daughter one-on-one time with Amaya.

Amaya and Her Trusty Steed, Cappuccino

We got up early, had a good breakfast, and headed to the stables. The woman "wrangler" was a super-crunchy, affable lady in her 50s who welcomed Amaya with a big smile. The horses, for the most part, had been working here for several years and were pretty tame trail steeds accustomed to following each other around. I was a little nervous at first, but it became clear pretty quickly that my horse (Chestnut) was not going to venture more than a nose-length away from the tail of Amaya's horse (Cappuccino).

Tail Trail

The trail ride was beautiful. The scenery was much like that from the hike with Keiko the day before, but we travelled much further into the pine forest and much higher up into the hills. Amaya was having a great time, of course, and I was starting to enjoy myself, too, until I began to notice that I was getting a stuffy nose. I started sneezing and then getting a bit short of breath. Crap. I was having an allergic reaction to something—presumably the horse. It wasn't a terribly bad episode and I didn't want to spoil Amaya's ride, so I toughed it out—but it wasn't much fun. By the time we were done, I was wheezing pretty deeply and had a splitting headache. It didn't help that were were barely able to walk back to the RV when we were done! Spaghetti legs!

Amaya and Daddy, Horseback

I didn't have much of a choice but to pop a Benadryl when I got back, fully knowing that this would pretty much put me out of commission for the rest of the day. That stuff just turns me in to a zombie. We had a lunch date with Rachelle's friends Gail and Hector Gonzales, who were driving from Oakland to meet us at Half Moon Bay. The allergy symptoms went away within an hour, but I don't think I was much of a conversationalist at lunch. We spent some time walking down the old Main Street in Half Moon Bay, but Hector didn't feel well either, so we headed our separate ways sooner than we had planned.

By the time evening came, I was feeling better but needed to get some fresh air. Rachelle and the girls watched the Muppet Movie (which I had already watched with the girls the night before while Rachelle was passed out). Since we had already extended our stay by an extra day and this was going to be our final night at Costanoa, I decided to take a little hike on the trails down by the shore. A cold wind was blowing and it was starting to get dark, but I'm glad I didn't miss this.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Costanoa Beach Trail Boardwalk

Costanoa Beach Trail

View from Trail

Rocky Coastline

Close Up

Danny!

Danny Marquess, an old buddy from my Stanford days, had us to dinner at his house in Half Moon Bay, just a half-hour up the coast from Costanoa. Originally from Ireland, Danny did his graduate work in England and then came to Wender's group for his postdoctoral studies. The last time we had seen him was at his wedding in Whales in 1997! He worked in the UK for a few years and then moved back to the Bay Area as one of the first employees at a startup pharma company. Now,  that startup has become a publicly traded company called Theravance and Danny is the Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry! As a strange coincidence, the spouse of our newly hired bioorganic chemist at Williams had been working at Theravance for the last 7 or 8 years before moving to Williamstown just as we were beginning our RV adventure. I think that Danny would be pretty cool to have as a boss.

I frequently invited Danny to join me for lunch at La Casa Italiana at Stanford—where Neb lived and I paid for a dining membership. That place was awesome and we had a lot of good times (mostly outside of the lab). We all still remember the spaghetti carbonara that the Italian chef would make for lunch once a week. I have never tasted better.  There lots of stories involving Danny, but few that I can tell here. My favorite semi-acceptable story about Danny was from one time when Neb and I were talking to him about college days. I asked him what were the european equivalents of drinking games like "quarters" or "whales tales" or "thumper" or any of the silly games I played with friends back in the day. Not skipping a beat, Danny retorted, "Tom, I'm from Ireland. In Ireland we DRINK. We don't f#@& around!"

Not As Evil As We Look

I guess some things never change. Danny must have pulled out 5 or 6 bottles of (amazing) wine for us to sample over the course of the afternoon and evening. I don't our gracious hosts originally intended for us to spend 7 hours at his house, but his three kids (Ryan, Harry, and Katie) seemed to have a pretty good time playing with Keiko and Amaya (thank God for the Wii) and we were busy eating and drinking like kings. It was really nice to catch up. They have built a nice life there. I hope they'll come visit us in Williamstown sometime and let us return the favor.

Fortunately, Rachelle was able to drive us back to the campground...

Mama Arrives!

...and then sleeps for 14 hours.

Rachelle finished up her work in the Berkshires and managed to get an earlier (6 AM) flight out of Albany. She was due to arrive in San Jose around noontime ad would be driving a tiny rental car (super cheap deal) from the airport to our campground (about a hour's drive). Keiko and Amaya were totally amped up about her arrival. We didn't have any plans for the morning. Just a time to recharge before Mama arrived. We slept late and walked to the Pine Tent for pancakes—as big as plates. We borrowed a real volleyball from the activity center and played on the grass court for about an hour as the morning fog burned off to reveal a stunningly clear day.

The only (minor) bummer about Costanoa was that there was no cell phone service and the campground WiFi coverage was spotty and unbearably slow. I discovered that if I walked to the very front of the property and sat under the welcome sign, I could get a semi-reliable signal. This was a relief, because Rachelle didn't know exactly where we were and I was able to email her directions and let her know that she wouldn't be able to contact me by phone. It's pretty funny that once you start to rely on the instant mode of communication and navigation that the smart phone provides, it's surprisingly disturbing when it's not available. I had hoped to catch up on my blogging, but instead ended up taking advantage of this off-the-grid situation to spend more time enjoying the natural beauty of the place. Not such a bad thing.

Rachelle arrived in her nano-compact car, we had lunch together—finally cooking up some of those Costco tamales—and Rachelle was fading fast. She had spent the last week putting in extra hours at work, coordinating a special group trip to the James Taylor extravaganza at Tanglewood, and preparing our garage loft apartment for new tenants—who would be caring for all of our animals during our trip. She was whipped. Rachelle and Amaya had settled in to watch a movie together in the RV bedroom and before long Rachelle was out for the count. Keiko, however, was full of energy and acting like a kook. She needed to get her ya-yas out.

Keiko Billy Goat

I needed to get some exercise and it was a beautiful day. There were well-kept walking trails on the property and Keiko agreed to join me for a hike. We decided to take the trail up to an overlook in the hills. The scenery was beautiful and we saw some cool wildlife. In fact, at one point on the hike, Keiko walked around a sharp corner in the trail and let out a startled "aaahhh" when she brushed up against a wild deer that was grazing on the path. It took off like a shot and scared the crap out of both of us. Pretty cool, though. 

Hiking In The Hills Behind Costanoa

Signpost Up Ahead

The Keiki Trail

Flowering Nastiness

At the overlook, someone had built a little bench so we spent some time there soaking in the view. It was a 3+ mile loop and we hiked for over an hour, total.

View from the Overlook

Enjoying the View

Meadow View of the Hillside

View Back Toward the Lodge

The Garden Path

Every time I return to Northern California, I am reminded of the special smell of the place. The pine and eucalyptus and grass combine to produce an odor that instantly transports me back to my days at Stanford. Mercifully, with the passing of 16 years, the traumatic memories have mostly faded and now I can appreciate what a cool place the Bay Area was live when I was in my 20s. It still amazes me that you can be surrounded by people and traffic in suburbia at one moment and then, after a 15- or 20-minute drive, you can be in a completely remote area alone with only nature and your thoughts. Here we were, just 30 or 40 miles away from San Francisco, but it was like we had the whole California coast to ourselves. Pretty awesome.

Coastal View