Central California

After leaving Las Vegas on Monday morning, March 13^th, we overnighted in Bakersfield, and made our way to Morgan Hill where we spent a couple of nights. On Wednesday we drove to Monterey for lunch and to see Monterey Bay. We walked along Cannery Row, with its many shops and restaurants, but the best was seeing a sea otter floating in the bay.

We drove up the coast to Santa Cruz and then to Felton, a small town in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We enjoyed dinner and visiting with Julie’s cousin Jayne and husband Rich. Julie hadn’t seen her cousin in 40 years so it was a really nice visit.

Thursday we drove to Fairfield and checked into the FamCamp at Travis Air Force Base for 12 nights. We went to Sacramento the following Monday to see my sister Janet and her wife Nancy and enjoy dinner and a Netflix movie. We drove over again last Friday and enjoyed pizza at an old style Italian restaurant called Zelda’s near downtown Sacramento.

On Saturday, we headed to San Francisco for the day. We enjoyed seeing some things we had never seen before on many previous visits to “The City.” We had lunch at The Cliff House with its great view of the Pacific. We learned that years ago there had been a bath house / swimming pool called “Sutro Baths” next door.

We drove through Golden Gate Park and towards the Haight area of the city. It was an interesting area known for the 1967 Summer of Love. Many bands lived in the area including Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe & The Fish, and Country Joe McDonald.

 

Next, we drove up to Twin Peaks, two hills at 925-feet elevation with stunning views of the city, Golden Gate Bridge, and East Bay.

Then we headed to the North Beach District to go to the Club Fugazi theater to see “Beach Blanket Babylon.” The show, first started in 1974, has been showing for over 40 years. It is a zany, musical spoof of our pop culture and various celebrities. Julie and I didn’t quite know what to expect, but it was fun-filled and very good. We’d definitely recommend it if you ever visit San Francisco.

After the show we enjoyed dinner at The Stinking Rose, an Italian restaurant that specializes in garlic. The roasted garlic, spread on fresh sour dough bread was especially yummy. We last visited The Stinking Rose in 2002 and the food was as good as we’d remembered.

We moved back to Cal Expo RV Park today where we’ll park our house for two weeks. We fly to Taiwan this Thursday on a 9-day trip to see our son, daughter-in-law, and our new grandson. My sister Janet is going to look after our cat for us while we’re gone.      

Steve & Julie Cornelius