Thursday, April 21, through Wednesday, May 4, 2011: At Pacifica:
It was an easy 103-mile trip from Morgan Hill to Pacifica---and the San Francisco RV Park. The park is a typical in-city RV park---small spaces and no grassy areas. But it's nice, the people are very helpful, and the location is spectacular---on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and just a few miles from San Francisco.



We celebrated arriving with a lunch (substituting for dinner) at a local Japanese resrarant (Ocean Fish). Good food and reasonable prices.

Friday included a quick trip to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, a round trip of fewer than 15 miles. We saw bison,


a gazillion people who apparently have no need (or desire) to work, and Anglers Lodge, a depression-era facility for flyfishing enthusiasts. It has a nice building and a pond that is still used regularly for casting competitions. Very civilized.



The park itself is vast (more than 1,000 acres) and provides a nice refuge for residents of San Francisco, which, while a magnificent city in many ways, is very compacted and tension-producing. The last time we visited Golden Gate Park was many years ago, when we rented bicycles from a bike shop at the Haight/Ashbury corner---across the street from one of the park entrances. It's still very popular, and very nice.

On the way back from the park, we went through some areas (mostly along Junipero Serra Street) with quite nicely preserved, fine homes dating back to probably the '20s. I imagine they are spectacularly expensive. Lunch (again a substitute for dinner) was at Tam's Chinese Restaurant, a block from our RV park. Yummy!

Saturday saw us taking a short trip to Half Moon Bay, a half hour away. We took the dogs for a walk on the beach.


It reminded us of the Atlantic coast in Massachusetts, probably because of the wind and cold, and the bleakness.

Sunday involved a 20-minute BART ride to the Embarcadero in the city,


meeting Lucy Daggett and her significant other, Joe Friedman, at a wonderful restaurant. called The Slanted Door, located in the Ferry Building. Lucy and Becky were classmates at San Marino High School. We last saw Lucy at the El Tovar hotel at the Grand Canyon several years ago. They were fun to be with.


It was the first time I've been on BART in many years. It's a very efficient system.

Thursday involved another BART ride to the Embarcadero to have a glass of wine with Carla Schmidt


at the Franklin Bowles Gallery next door to Ghirardelli Square and to meet Harry Murphy and Deborah Gilden


for dinner at a restaurant called Fuzio in the Embarcadero 1 building. Carla was a schoolomate of our friend Barbara Coad many years ago. She sells high-end art. Very nice lady.

Fuzio was mostly neo-Italian food. Very good; small portions. We first met Harry and Debbie 14 years ago on a cruise in the western Caribbean, including the Panama Canal and Acapulco. We've only seen them sporadically since, though we've always stayed in touch. They travel so much (even delivering on-board lectures) they make us look like shut-ins. Interesting and fun people. They've been together for 24 years, and actualy got married a year ago.

Thursday night I set our DVRs to record the big wedding on two different stations. Didn't want to miss a moment. It took place in the middle of the night here, of course. I thought Kate was spectacular and William was properly royal. Altogether a fun few hours.

On Saturday we met Deborah Lepold, a banking buddy of Becky's (from Union Bank days) at the Woodside restaurant called Buck's---which, judging from the crowd, is a local favorite---


after which we went to Filoli, a 654-acre, very well-preserved mansion and grounds dating from the 'teens. It was built by a gold mining mogul after the San Francisco earthquake caused many of the wealthy locals to rebuild down the peninsula. Filoli is the last remaining of the genre. The original owner died in 1936 and the place was bought by William Roth, the owner of the Matson shipping line. His wife, Lurline, after whom several of the lines' ships were named, loved gardening, and the place shows it. It is simply magnificent. (The place now has 10 full-time gardeners on staff.)



The home was, incidentally, used in the flyover opening of "Dynasty" the TV series that was set in Denver. In 1975, Mrs. Roth donated the place to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

On Monday, we visited Mike and Karen Obley (friends of Becky's from Union Bank days, once again) at their beautiful home in Tiburon.


It even has a wine cellar that will hold 3,000 bottles.


They took us to lunch at Sam's Anchor Cafe, located on the water. It's been there since the '20s. Funky place; good food; great weather.

On Tuesday, Becky walked into the local Verizon store to talk about a new phone. An hour later, she walked out with a red Droid Something-Or-Other. She's loving it. It really does amazing things.

Wednesday was our day to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum, located in the Presidio---which was closed as a military base some years ago and is now operated by the National Park Service as a National Recreation Area. A lot of the old buildings are still there, so it still looks like an army base. The Disney Museum is located in what used to be a barracks building that was completely gutted and rebuilt (inside) into a magnificent site for an incredible array of Disney family memorabilia.


It's quite an amazing place. Well worth seeing. We were told that the reason the museum is so far from southern California where Walt did his most famous work was primarily that his daughter Diane now lives there and most of the artifacts have been stored there for many years.

We then topped off our stay in Pacifica by having dinner at Ocean Fish, the sushi place we have now visited three times while here in Pacifica. Tomorow, it's off to the Lake of the Springs Thousand Trails Preserve in Oregon House, California, of all the oddly-named places we could have chosen.

Friday, April 15, through Wednesday, April 20, 2011: At Morgan Hill:
The 165 mile trip from Yosemite Lakes to the Morgan Hill Thousand Trails preserve was uneventful. I haven't been through the Pacheco Pass for many years, and it remains a beautiful drive. The only downside was that we started two hours later than planned because of another glitch in our new rig. The stabilizing system wouldn't retract, meaning we couldn't leave. After three phone calls to the manufacturer, we solved the problem by adding hydraulic fluid---something which, according to the manufacturer, should have been done by the dealer. Again, there was a slight defect in the "incredibly thorough" pre-delivery inspection.

The Morgan Hill preserve is a good size (66 acres) and appears to be very nice, and the weather is certainly better than what it was at Yosemite Lakes. And our cell phones, computer, and satellite dish all work. Yea! We will definitely stay here more than two days.

Sunday morning we had breakfast with Pinky and Don Eastman at the Black Bear Diner in nearby Gilroy. The Eastmans drove up from their home in Pebble Beach. We hadn't seen them in a couple of years.


It was fun, and the food was excellent. Tuesday was a short trip up to Los Gatos, an adorable city we have liked for some years. We just wandered (with the dogs, of course) through the adorable downtown area. It's a dog-friendly place, and many stores leave bowls of water outside their doors for the passing canines. Very nice.

On Wednesday, we drove to Salinas to have a delightful lunch with Barbara Penna (an old friend of Becky's from her days in Germany 35 years ago) and her husband, Michael. I had never met them before. They were delightful. Michael is involved in distributing a product that makes artificial snow---for a variety of decorative and other uses. It's quite remarkable stuff.

Wednesday evening it started raining---and continued all night. We picked up "The King's Speech" at the local Red Box and thoroughly enjoyed seeing it again. We are scheduled to leave Morgan Hill on Thursday, heading to Pacifica. I hope the rain does not make for a lousy trip.

Wednesday, April 13, and Thursday, April 14, 2011: At Yosemite Lakes:
The trip on Wednesday was about 250 miles, much of it on nice, straight roads. However, a significant part was on not-so-nice, not-so-straight roads that made the trip much longer than we expected. The upside was that on the stretch northward from Merced (70 miles away) we saw some spectacular scenery. We arrived at the Thousand Trails Yosemite Lakes preserve located on the Tuolumne River in Groveland, five miles from the west entrance to Yosemite National Park, in early afternoon. We’ve never been here before. It’s a nice place, quite large (254 RV sites, plus a number of cabins, tent sites, very livable yurts,


etc.), with extensive other facilities. There are very few people here now (maybe 20 RVs; the season starts at the end of April) and there is not much nearby. (The nearest post office is 18 miles away in “central” Groveland.) There is no cell phone service here and limited internet access. Most important to us, there is no satellite TV service. Since our satellite radio works, though, we won’t be totally isolated. Somehow, we will survive. One might wonder why we came here. The answer is that we are committed adventurers.

Another glitch in our new RV showed up Wednesday night. One of the burners on our stove was erratic, having a flame in the designated place and also nearby, and also did not fire up consistently. Another burner did not fire up with the sparker. I opened up the stove and discovered that, once again, either the rig was built incorrectly or was messed with at the dealership. Either way, the pre-delivery inspection was a farce. I spent five minutes with a screwdriver and my massive intellect and solved (I hope) all the problems.

On Thursday, we ventured to central Groveland to pick up mail and take a look at this old gold mining town. It’s definitely a throwback, but cute and friendly. We stopped by the Groveland Hotel, harking back through several incarnations to 1852. We also had a drink (I had two) at the Iron Door Saloon,


said to be the oldest drinking establishment in California. We ran into two old timers (read: barflies) there, who regaled us with stories. They were both fun and harmless. We had a good time.

We decided to cut our original stay here a bit short. We went from 8 days to 2 days. It’s a bit too isolated for our taste. We will leave on Friday and head for Morgan Hill, where we believe (and certainly hope) civilization still exists.

Monday, April 11, and Tuesday April 12, 2011: At Bakersfield:
We headed for Bakersfield for just a two-day stay on our way to the Yosemite area. The 106-mile trip was uneventful and we arrived at A Country RV Park by noon. It's a nice, smallish (120 spaces) park, the first one we've used this year that's out of the Thousand Trails system. We don't plan to do anything exciting here, since it's Bakersfield, after all.

Yesterday, we received sad news from Becky's sister Wendy to the effect that Kam Kuwata, her 57 year old brother-in-law, had been found dead that morning in his LA apartment. Kam was a wonderful man, with whom we had enjoyed many a family gathering. He had spent his entire career working as a Democratic Party strategist and campaign manager. Tuesday morning, the Los Angeles Times carried a long obituary celebrating Kam, including this quote from President Obama: "Kam's brilliance as a political strategist was matched by his passion for our country and the process by which we govern ourselves. Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to Kam's extended family of friends and to so many in California who mourn his passing."

The fancy airbag system that is part of the hitch mechanism on the new trailer seemed to be out of line. I called the customer service phone number on the hitch and had an interesting conversation with the tech who answered the phone. She gave me some advice and, in following it, I determined that the device had been either installed incorrectly at the factory or messed with at the dealer. With the information the customer service lady provided, I fixed the problem. I called her back to report the positive result, leaving a message since she was otherwise engaged. She called me back to say mine was the nicest call she had received in some time.

The rest of Tuesday was spent at Walmart and Camping World, filling our few empty spaces with more goodies. Tomorrow morning, we head for Yosemite.

Thursday, April 7, through Sunday, April 10, 2011: At Soledad Canyon:
The first order of business was to attack the leveling instructions to get the leveling system working properly. It quickly became apparent that the instructions were incorrect. I went online to the company (Lippert Components) that made the system, and found the proper instructions. The ones we had been given were for a system with a different keypad. I printed out the correct instructions and, within seconds, had the system working the way it had been advertised. I left a phone message for the dealer, suggesting that they could find the correct instructions on the Lippert website.

The second order of business was, of course, to hit the Costco in Santa Clarita to reload.

On Friday, Becky headed into Los Angeles to run some errands and to have a session with her chiropractor, Mark Adachi. She took Ramsey with her, so Daisy and I had a restful day by ourselves.

On Saturday morning, we boarded the dogs at the nearby kennel we had used previously, and headed for La Canada to have a very nice lunch (at Taylor's, of course) with my former law partner, Marshall Rutter, and his wife, Terry Knowles.


Marshall has left our former firm (in Century City) and set up shop by himself in Pasadena, where he has lived for many years. Curiously, the firm continues to us his name and that of Frank Hobbs, who left two years ago, over the objections of both of them. I think there's an ethical issue there, but it's not my problem. Their exciting news is that Terry is now the President of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, where she has been the Executive Director for several years. Marshall was one of the founders of the chorale in 1965. (To complete the family connection with music, Marshall's daughter, Deborah, is the Executive Director of the Chicago Symphony.) It had been some time since we had seen the Rutters, and it was fun catching up with them.

We then checked into the Jonathan Club in downtown LA to take a brief nap, then returned to Pasadena to pick up Becky's dad, Bill, and headed for dinner at Tamayo, a favorite Mexican Restaurant in East Los Angeles.


They make terrific guacamole there, right at your table.


We got stuck in horrible traffic on what is again called the Arroyo Seco Parkway (for many years it was called the Pasadena Freeway, but it was originally known as the Arroyo Seco Parkway in 1941, and has now been renamed as such) due to a traffic accident. Being as old as it is, the parkway has no shoulder, so any interruption causes a near-complete blockage. We got to Tamayo finally, and enjoyed a delicious meal and some wonderful margaritas.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at the Jonathan Club and headed back to Soledad Canyon to go to the Shambala wild animal preserve, run by the former actress Tippi Hedren. There are 58 "big cats" there for lifetime care. Since they are nocturnal animals, most of them paid no attention to the 81 visitors, instead sleeping the day away. Frankly, it was a bit of a disappointment but I'm glad we went.



We picked up Daisy and Ramsey at 4:00pm and settled in for the night, getting ready to leave for our next stop Monday morning.