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September 16, 2005
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
California, here we come!! After the wonderful time we had in Ashland at the Shakespeare Festival, we packed our bags and headed south on I-5 for a six-hour drive to San Francisco. We passed majestic Mt. Shasta (at over 14,000 feet it's one of the tallest mountains in the Cascades) and by massive Lake Shasta. Those landmarks brought back memories of all the trips back and forth that Dave and I made when we were first married and lived in the Bay area while he was in the Navy. We would leave on a Friday afternoon and head for Portland to visit family, then return late Sunday night to get up and go to work on Monday. We knew this route like the back of our hands as we traveled it at least once a month, and usually more often than that. In the winter it would be snowing a blizzard over the Siskiyou Mountains, and in the summer it would be 100 degrees in the Sacramento Valley! And we did it in a Volkswagen Bug! We were young back then!
Since we lived on the East Bay side in Oakland in those days, we decided to stay there on this trip too. After we checked in to our hotel, we walked around the city for a while trying the find old landmarks but since they have put BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in, the whole downtown area of Oakland has been remodeled. We ended up down at Jack London Square. Jack London was a well-known writer (Call of the Wild, etc.) who spent a lot of time in Oakland before he went to the Yukon. He's as famous in these parts as Ernest Hemingway is to the Key West area of Florida. We had many good times at Jack London Square when we first lived here but it has changed a lot too. Instead of the Showboat and the Fish Market and some nightspots that we used to frequent, they have been replaced. It is now all commercialized with shops and other tourist attractions. We did have dinner at a very nice (and expensive) Italian place called Il Pescatore, which was right on the water. All the signs and the entire menu were in Italian. Even the waiter was Italian. When he suggested a $40 bottle of wine with dinner, Dave told him we'd just have a glass of the house white wine instead. He did a classic double take, looked down his nose and drew out the word "h-o-u-s-e?????" as though we had just ordered a Dr. Pepper or something. When he brought the two glasses of wine, he just slammed them down on the table without another word. I think we really hurt his feelings! I guess those guys take their wine a lot more seriously than we do.
After a good night's sleep, we got up and drove a few blocks to Lake Merritt and found the small basement apartment where we first lived on Harrison Street right after we got married. It looked just like it used to, except it had a lot more bushes around the front when we lived there. With all the changes to the neighborhood, we were very surprised to see that it was still there.
After that, we drove to where we had moved a year later. It was way out in South Oakland, which was quite a bit further out on MacArthur Blvd. What a shock!! When we found it, the place had graffiti on the walls and the upstairs windows on our old second floor apartment were all boarded up. It looked like a drug deal was going on in the parking lot outside when we drove by. We got a picture of that place too, but had to be real careful when we took that one. We didn't want the locals to think we were the police documenting drug activity or something. Dave snapped the picture and we left in a hurry. The area wasn't all that great when we lived there, but it had definitely taken a turn for the worse. After we got out of the neighborhood, we were asking ourselves; "What were we thinking?" when we moved. The first place was tiny, but it was very close to the Navy Base, it was right by Lake Merritt and it was cheap. We got mad when the landlord raised the rent from $70 to $90 dollars a month, so we moved out and moved miles away to the MacArthur Boulevard apartment...and paid $100 there!! We'd have been a lot better off just staying where we were in the first place the whole time we were stationed down there.
Our last stop for the day was a trip to the Alameda Naval Air Station where Dave's ship docked while he was in the Navy. It took us a while to find it, as the government has closed the base and we were coming in from another direction. We finally found it and that sure brought back a lot of memories, especially for me as I remembered those sad days when I had to drop Dave off on that dock so he could leave for a 8-month cruise and then the joyous days when he returned after those cruises! Being a Navy wife had its ups and downs. Mostly "downs" as I recall.
Our 40th anniversary was Sunday, so we decided to take the BART over to San Francisco. The transit system had been built since we lived here, so it was new to us. To get to San Francisco, we had to go through a tunnel under the bay. It was really a neat way to go, as it only took about 20 minutes and it dropped us off right in the heart of the city. After waiting in line for about a half an hour, we hopped on a cable car and made our way to Fisherman's Wharf. On the way we had a slight delay as some idiot had parked his car sideways on the sidewalk and street and had blocked the tracks for the cable car. We waited for about 10 minutes before he finally showed up to move his car! He wasn't too concerned that he had paralyzed the whole cable car system! Anyway, we arrived at our destination and spent quite a bit of time walking around on the wharf looking at the ships on display, going to Ghirardelli Square for their world-famous chocolates and just enjoying the beautiful day in this wonderful city. Wouldn't you know, the only picture we have of the Golden Gate Bridge has a steamboat in the foreground! We headed back downtown on the cable car again and made one more stop at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Des and Donna had given us some money to buy a drink at the Top of the Mark, but the bar was closed when we were there. We ended up back at Union Square and had dinner at an Irish Pub. We both were very tired from all the walking and took BART back to Oakland to our hotel.
On Monday, we got up early because we wanted to get a jump on commuter traffic. We headed back north on Highway 101 so we could be in Eureka that night. We didn't have any problems with traffic because most everyone was headed the other way and boy was there a gridlock for miles! I complained about the traffic in the Portland area when I was commuting to work, but that was nothing compared to this. We were 15 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge and it was still 4 lanes backed up on the southbound side. We were glad we were headed out of town instead of the other way around! It took us 5-1/2 hours to reach Eureka where my cousin lives. After checking in to our hotel, we drove over to her place had a nice visit. It took us a while to catch up, as I hadn't seen her for quite a few years. She and her husband took us to dinner that night at an Indian Casino where their son had done all the finish woodwork in the restaurant. It was beautiful woodwork. The ocean view from the restaurant was supposed to be fabulous, but it was foggy so we didn't get to see that. My cousin's husband owns a butcher shop, so he loaded us up with beef jerky and meat seasonings before we left the next morning.
Our destination for the next day was Leslie and Jay's in Salem, which meant another 6-hour drive. We drove along Highway 101 through the Redwood Forest, stopping to see a herd of elk and to take a few pictures of those magnificent trees. We also stopped at a familiar site that I had remembered as a kid when I traveled down to visit my cousin. There is this bridge with these two bears on each side. I was told by my uncle that I wasn't allowed to come to California unless I kissed the bear's behind. Being the gullible child that I was, I believed him. So every time I would pass this bridge with the bears, I would remember what my uncle had told me. Dave wanted to get me to pose for a picture doing what my uncle told me to do, but we settled on this one instead.
We headed inland after that and connected to I-5 so we could make better time and arrived at the kid's house around 4:00 that afternoon. Since it was their 8th anniversary, we babysat while the two of them went out to dinner to celebrate. We enjoyed being with the grandchildren. Ashtin just started first grade so she had a lot to tell us about school. I even helped her with her homework. I had heard that Paige had gotten her hair cut short and I was excited to see how she looked and boy does she look cute!
The next morning, we started to go to Portland, but not until we discovered that Dave had left his laptop in Leslie and Jason's house after we locked ourselves out! So Dave had to crawl through the dog door to retrieve his computer! He was lucky that they have big dogs so he could fit through the door! Of course both dogs were there to greet him as he wiggled through the opening. I wished I had taken a picture of that!
On our way home, we had to detour through Portland, so we went to West Linn to see our other daughter, Lara and the two grandchildren. Jadyn was excited to see us, especially when we had gotten her some new books on our trip and wanted them all read to her. Little Jaysa wasn't feeling very good, as she had gone into see the doctor the day before for her 4-month old check-up and an immunization shot. She is also teething, so between that and the reaction to the shot, it didn't make for a very happy camper. Anyway, she weighs in at 15 pounds and is in the 90 percentile in weight for her age. We also stopped by to visit with my Mom and then went to the Trail Blazers' office to pick up some sound equipment for the wedding we are attending this weekend.
After stopping at the post office for a week and half's worth of mail, we finally got home. I don't care how long I am gone; it is always a good feeling to be back here. I got busy and washed about four loads of dirty clothes and made us a "homemade" dinner. Both of us were getting a little tired of restaurant food.
The rest of this week we spent getting caught up on everything around here. I spent Thursday morning making a ton of macaroni salad for the wedding this weekend and spent the rest of the day cleaning house. Today, I'm down at Donna's helping her get ready for the weekend's festivities. Tonight's the rehearsal dinner and tomorrow's the big wedding. More on that next week.
