Oct. 18-20th Palo Alto and South...

Near Half Moon Bay CA

     Isn't that a beautiful shot? It tells you all about my drive on Monday (Oct. 18) from San Francisco to Palo Alto.  Minnie the Mooch spent the next two days with Steph and Bob Wagoner, another dear friend (notice I don't use the word "old" any more) from Skidmore and her husband.  Prof. Bob is retired from teaching at Stanford.... a theoretical astrophysicist. Needless to say he and I talked into the wee hours discussing the black hole.  Steph and I did not discuss astrophysics but we covered just about everything else while hiking the "dish", a landmark  set in the Stanford foothills. Its abut 3 1/2 miles but very up and down and I'd like to brag, quite the aerobic workout. Did it once before when Betsy and Andy were in school here.  After all this driving a little exercise was a good thing. The humorist Dave Barry wrote " we eat a lot on long trips because we feel our bodies are less likely to become bored if they can pass the time converting food into fat." Amen to that.
     Bob took Steph and I to the practice range at Stanford that afternoon to hone our golf skills. Cathy and Lou, I didn't see Sam there so can only assume he was in the library. What a lovely place to live. Palo Alto and Stanford are beautiful themselves and then you have San Fran to the north and Carmel, etc. to the south. The Wagoners condo is super.  And of course earthquakes, but we didn't enjoy any of them this visit.

     We had a great dinner at the nearby "Fish Market." Delicious but  not as tasty as Stephs BLT's with avocado.
          On the road again yesterday (Oct. 20) down the INLAND highway 101 thru our nations "vegetable drawer" or is it "salad bowl?" Anyway, the valley between the mtns. is bursting with fields of green, lush veggies.  I did a U turn down a dirt road to snap pictures of the workers "picking." I was channeling John Steinbeck. I even took the exit to Salinas to check it out but it was depressing..full of credit unions, liquor stores and the John Steinbeck museum.

picking strawberries

     Now I'm in Santa Monica.  I didn't purposely map it out this way but after 26 days of traveling I am not only halfway done timewise, but also in distance. I went west as far as I could, south to Betsy and Andys. Next...eastward bound.  Songs of the week...you choose, they're kind of cheesy: California Dreamin, Ventura Highway or All I Wanna Do (is have some fun when the sun comes up over Santa Monica Blvd.!)