Getaway

Here we are at the end of a pier at Fort Mason looking out over San Francisco Bay on a brisk morning with the fog rolling out and the sun stealing through. From that particular spot you have an incredible view of the Golden Gate strandling the headlands of Marin and the Peninsula.

I could look at that sight for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.

Bob and I spent four days together in San Francisco without the kids April 11-14. We went wherever we wanted and did whatever we wanted to do. Imagine that!

The trip was something I schemed up when I realized I had to go to San Francisco on business April 14-18. One of Bob's offices is in San Francisco and he had to go out there to work April 9-11. It created a nice little window for our getaway.

Dorothy stayed at the house with the kids and made it all possible. Thanks Ducie! It was nice that she and the boys had some time together without us, which made it even better - knowing that everyone was doing what they wanted to do.

So, as I was saying, there we were at Fort Mason. Which is no surprise, since I head over there whenever I come to San Francisco. First there's the view. And above the Fort there's a wide open field of green grass, and a walkway among giant cypress trees that skirts the bay. And it's home to one of the best vegetarian restaurants on earth, Greens.

Greens will convince even die-hard meat-eaters that exquisite meals can be had with nothing but veggies. Everything is organic and they feature the sublime produce of Green Gulch, a farm and Zen Center in Marin which would have been a short hike from the house we nearly rented in Mill Valley last year.

Back in the dot.com heyday I spoke at a web conference at Fort Mason. That night there was one of the most over-the-top excessively extravagant parties I've ever been to. The inside of one of the warehouses on the pier was made over to look like an oasis in the Arabian desert. There were full size tents all over the place and potted full size palm trees. Tables overflowed with food and smaller tents housed tarot card readers and henna tattoo artists. There were wandering musicians, snake charmers and people with elaborate tattoos. Dennis Rodman rode up on his big chopper. I just found this article about it. That party is one of the things that come to mind when I think back to the bad old/good old days of the first Dot-com bubble.

Here's a gorgeous pic I found of Fort Mason at dusk.


More travelog to come...but I'll post this now because people are emailing me saying "we miss your posts!"