Driving I-5

So yesterday I bid farewell to the city and hopped a late afternoon BART train to the East Bay to meet up with one of my oldest friends, Marianne. We beelined for a longtime favorite Mexican place called New Mecca (if you ever, God forbid, find yourself in Pittsburg, CA, it will all be made well by a meal here), wandering over to my old stomping grounds (Antioch) to see how much has changed since my last whirlwind visit in 2003 when lots had already changed. While it felt like a completely different place, much was the same and it gave me an odd sensation to feel all the familiar turns of streets…very surreal. My memories of childhood are slim enough, but bring me back to the “hometown” and they flood into my brain.

Not enough time was spent with my dear friend who I’ve known since 4th grade, alas I had to hop back on BART, retrace my route a tiny bit to meet up with another longtime friend, Kyle. He and his wife kindly let me crash on their couch seeing as the three of us were driving to Orange County today. We stayed up late talking, catching up, laughing and eating freshly baked oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies. Mmmmm!!  And in the morning, we piled into a car and aimed south.

For all my Milwaukee friends who have never been to California and think it’s all paradise, I offer you a view from the car driving from the East Bay to Los Angeles. It goes a little something like this:

You can’t even enjoy the brown hills and dry highway with all the trucks because the sun is beating straight on your right side so much that you have to rig up whatever you can to block its brutal heat.  Yeah.  Lucky for me, the company was superb!  It’s the only way to get through 7+ hours of ^that^ plus hitting the outskirts of Los Angeles with perfect timing for rush hour traffic on  Friday.  We clearly planned well…  Lucky for us, we’re all going to Disneyland tomorrow!  YAY for Disneyland!!

Day One

The flight from Milwaukee to O’hare was turbulent but brief. The skies were nearly cloudless and crystal clear but the air was rough to ride, especially in the little commuter plane. Instead of flinching at every bump and roll, I tried to see it as a fun roller coaster ride. Lake Michigan’s coloring was vaguely Caribbean-esque with an aqua-teal coloring. The few clouds drifting left shadows on the surface of the water looking like reefs underneath. A couple boats skimming the lake were tiny and very alone.

I’ve decided that if a plane should go down with me in it I want to go down whooping and hollering a la Dr. Strangelove riding the bomb down to the ground. Go out with a bang!

Got into SFO on time. A little chilly but it felt like coming home. I miss the city by the bay.

Brother took me out to dinner at nopa Restaurant. Halibut ceviche for an amuses bouches followed by crostini, goat cheese, beets, greens for an appetizer. Dinner was a fabulous pasta dish in a pesto based sauce with fennel sausage and pecorino cheese. Delicious!

We hit a couple of clubs, though on a Wednesday night there really isn’t anything happening that is very exciting. Vessel was a nice little place with decent bottles of beer (Stella!!) for $6 a pop. Surprisingly reasonable, I thought, for SF. Then off to a place called Slide Lounge, named as such for it’s slide entrance to the club. These are places with ropes and guest lists – exactly the sorts of places where I couldn’t get in without my brother, especially not dressed the way I was yesterday in leggings, flats and a Gap $5 clearance dress with brother’s J. Crew sweater. Total dork.

The best place though was the last one we hit. Called Bourbon and Branch, it’s a speakeasy style bar. The entrance is a heavy wood door at the corner of Jones & O’Farrell. But pick the right one – there are several to choose from on that corner. You enter by giving the password. You have to have a reservation for the immediate entrance, but with a different password (“Books”) you walk right through the main seating area and approach a wall which is opened by a hostess and you enter The Library, a beautiful little wooden room with books on shelves that run from the polished hardwood floors to gorgeous pressed tin ceiling in the shade of a deep copper.

Today will possibly be City Lights, wander around the city’s other bookstores, maybe head to the East Bay to visit an old friend from high school who I haven’t seen in ten years. Who knows what the day will bring.