With Roni's base assignment in Sacramento, the ladies of the Yadlin
family (minus Colorado-captive Youval) headed up north for a week. Our
mission: find Roni a place to live, furnish her new place, see some of
the sights and enjoy the city by the bay. And that's what we did.
The
drive up was loooooooong. And I get to do it again in a few weeks....
But we had a book to listen to, which was somewhat odd but helped pass
the time, and good snacks to keep us going. Beale Air Force Base is in
the middle of nowhere, but at least the surrounding area is pretty.
Reminds me of spring in Idaho. The person who showed us around was very
nice and we got checked into our base accommodations without any issue. I
can't speak for the other food but the sandwiches we had from Charley's
that night were absolutely delicious. Shiri and I spent the evening
watching a lot of random hotel TV while Mom and Roni did some
apartment/condo investigations.
I will say one thing
for my sister. She wants things to get done as quickly as she possible
can. So, once we determined that it would make more sense to go to an
apartment complex, she got on finding a place pretty darn quickly. Shiri
and I sat in the lobby for quite some time while she and mom did all
the paperwork and setting up of utilities, etc., but by mid-Tuesday, she
had a place to her name. It's really nice (nicer than she can take care
of....) and very close to grocery stores and restaurants and such.
Because
we had gotten the big thing taken care of, we headed into downtown
Sacramento to wander around. We were right in the area where I was for
History Day more than ten years ago. Lots of things were recognizable
and familiar. The Capitol Building is beautiful (but I of course love
the Boise one more) and the old downtown area, with buildings over 100
years old, was quaint and somewhat disconcerting, especially when an old
building housed an Applebees.
The next day was a bit hellish. Honestly, my new definition of hell is 4
hours at Ikea. My saving grace was the hot dog and ice cream. Oh, and I
did get a bed, so that was cool. But otherwise, it was just miserable.
Shiri and I were defeated by 1 pm. Shiri and I did rock some pretty
great moves though when we moved all of the boxes from the car into the
house in less than 7 minutes. That gave us enough time to go buy Henry
the Snail as a housewarming present. Hell is also putting together Ikea
furniture. Roni and I stayed to get the job done while Shiri and Mom
went out to have dinner with Debs. Luckily they brought us some pizza.
Thursday morning was spent
putting together the rest of the furniture and setting up what we could
of the house while Roni went to go get a tour of the base. We then said
our temporary goodbyes and drove to Oakland to check into residence #2
for the next few days. Since it was on the later side, we didn't want to
drive into SF so headed into the still familiar Berkeley. This time I
wasn't sitting in on Judicial Board hearings and packing up the car with
Sonya's stuff. Instead, we went to the Rose Gardens, which afforded us a
beautiful view of SF and some great flowers (including Sexy Rexy!).
Dinner that night was at Jupiter's, another pizza place. The outdoor
seating area was pretty much a Hunger Games situation. If a table opened
up, it was first come, first served. There were some people there just
taking their sweet time (which seemed a little ridiculous in that kind
of a situation) but luckily, with the three of us spread out (Secret
Service style), we got a table after about 15 minutes. Wine was much
needed and the pizza was delicious.
After four days of pretty much doing manual labour or sitting around, it
was so nice to get outside and we could not have picked a more
beautiful day. We spent most of it hiking around Mount Tamalpais and the
Marin Headlands. The views were breathtaking. I'll let them speak for
themselves. We also met up with Roni at Muir Woods (old-fashioned style,
since there was NO cell phone service) and wandered through that beauty
for awhile. I really wanted to go see the batteries on the headlands
because of Laurie R King's "Art of Detection" and we had the most
beautiful views of SF and the Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Spencer.
We also got to stop at Battery Wallace, where Phillip Gilbert's body had
been dumped. I love being able to see things that i read about in my
favorite books. Dinner that night was a bit of an adventure, and not in a
good way. We attempted to eat in Sausalito but couldn't even find
parking because of some jazz festival so we bailed on that and decided
to find a Chili's. By the time we got there, it was nearly 8:30. We
didn't get to our seats until 9:00. We absolutely DEVOURED the chips and
salsa, even before the waitress could come back with our guacamole. I
don't know if I have ever been so hungry (or tired) before. Chili's has
never tasted so good.
Saturday stands for San
Francisco! Because Shiri had never been there, we hit up the big spots:
Ghiradelli Square (for free chocolate samples), Fisherman's Wharf and
the coastline, the huge farmer's market on the Embarcadero, Golden Gate
Park, Alamo Square with the Full House houses, Coit Tower, Lombard
Street and China town. Dinner that night was at a great little Chinese
place that came highly recommended. Their system for getting people into
the restaurant was a little fishy but the food made up for it. And our
car didn't get towed while we ate. The only downside of the night was
attempt to drive up Market Street while trying to figure out where each
lane was and avoiding celebrating LGBT and friends. Other than that,
though, the day was wonderful!
We had contemplated driving home along the coast but fearing
Sunday traffic, we opted for a straight shot home. And it was well worth
it. I was exhausted by the time we got there. But so happy it was such
an enjoyable trip!
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