What better way to take advantage of a couple weeks of winter unemployment than head West?
ODA and I landed in the Bay Area and began our mini-adventure by visiting our familiar haunts as well as discovering some new spots...
First stop,
Ray Bandar's homespun bone palace. This gentle giant has amassed more than 6,000 skulls of marine mammals and other critters since he was a boy. His basement is a museum of carefully cataloged specimens spanning more than 65 years of collecting!
Next, we visit old pal
Subburdenite at her big kitty house-sitting gig in the Mission. These stunning
Savannah cats, Bo-Bo in particular, run this place - roaring like dwarfed leopards, leaping across furniture, pouncing on unsuspecting beagles and devouring whole chickens!
We decide to house-sit for the house-sitter and visit with one of our favorite felines: Champ. I mean, look at that face...
We take a stroll in lovely, green
Golden Gate Park and it's
Botanical Gardens (which are free, unlike the ones Stinky Town). On the trek, we discover the dormant powers of super-heroine,
Ivy Girl!
The next day, we drove up north to our favorite spot:
Point Reyes National Seashore. When we left San Francisco it was drizzly and overcast, but when reached the park the clouds cleared and the sun poked through - so we headed straight for the nearest beach on Drake's Bay! I think ODA filled an entire memory card of pix in under an hour.
(Moments before, satellite radio reported it was 21 degrees back in NYC, which made the sunset stroll all the more sweet.)
Before it got dark, we checked into our
little winter retreat in Inverness. We had this entire cottage to ourselves...
...complete with outdoor heated tub in the garden!
The next morning, we discovered the amazing view of
Tomales Bay from the bathtub perch.
(This sure beats the view we have from our Stinky Town tub, which is a windowless wall.)
At the far tip of Pt. Reyes, we visited South Beach and the
Elephant Seals near Chimney Rock to the east...
...and beautiful McClure beach further north in the park's
Tule Elk reserve.
(This vast beach had nobody else on it. We wondered if anyone would ever find us here, living in a makeshift tent, eating beach vegetation, mingling with the hoofed natives?)
After this tour of mother nature, there was only thing to do: find a gourmet dessert shop! Luckily, we had a
Yelp elite along who introduced us to
Crixa Cakes in Berkeley. I had the amazingly delicious Carmella which was made up of a spongy chocolate cake, injected with caramel and vanilla cream, topped with whipped chocolate mousse! A perfect way to end a little escape from New York.
First stop, Ray Bandar's homespun bone palace. This gentle giant has amassed more than 6,000 skulls of marine mammals and other critters since he was a boy. His basement is a museum of carefully cataloged specimens spanning more than 65 years of collecting!
Next, we visit old pal Subburdenite at her big kitty house-sitting gig in the Mission. These stunning Savannah cats, Bo-Bo in particular, run this place - roaring like dwarfed leopards, leaping across furniture, pouncing on unsuspecting beagles and devouring whole chickens!
We decide to house-sit for the house-sitter and visit with one of our favorite felines: Champ. I mean, look at that face...
We take a stroll in lovely, green Golden Gate Park and it's Botanical Gardens (which are free, unlike the ones Stinky Town). On the trek, we discover the dormant powers of super-heroine, Ivy Girl!
The next day, we drove up north to our favorite spot: Point Reyes National Seashore. When we left San Francisco it was drizzly and overcast, but when reached the park the clouds cleared and the sun poked through - so we headed straight for the nearest beach on Drake's Bay! I think ODA filled an entire memory card of pix in under an hour. (Moments before, satellite radio reported it was 21 degrees back in NYC, which made the sunset stroll all the more sweet.)
Before it got dark, we checked into our little winter retreat in Inverness. We had this entire cottage to ourselves...
...complete with outdoor heated tub in the garden!
The next morning, we discovered the amazing view of Tomales Bay from the bathtub perch. (This sure beats the view we have from our Stinky Town tub, which is a windowless wall.)
At the far tip of Pt. Reyes, we visited South Beach and the Elephant Seals near Chimney Rock to the east...
...and beautiful McClure beach further north in the park's Tule Elk reserve. (This vast beach had nobody else on it. We wondered if anyone would ever find us here, living in a makeshift tent, eating beach vegetation, mingling with the hoofed natives?)
After this tour of mother nature, there was only thing to do: find a gourmet dessert shop! Luckily, we had a Yelp elite along who introduced us to Crixa Cakes in Berkeley. I had the amazingly delicious Carmella which was made up of a spongy chocolate cake, injected with caramel and vanilla cream, topped with whipped chocolate mousse! A perfect way to end a little escape from New York.
No comments:
Post a Comment