Last Day on the Road

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  San Francisco, California
Thursday, August 26, 2010

No pics for this blog entry, since our agenda yesterday consisted of letting the kids sleep in, re-organizing and re-packing to get ready for the flight home, and making our way to San Francisco. We had planned to ship home the cooler and some of the other supplies we bought along the way, but the Fed Ex price tag on that was a whopping $53, so we'll be donating some things along the streets of San Fran. We also managed to make it through almost the whole trip without leaving any of our many electronic gadget chargers, but broke that string on the last day. Luckily, one of the country's biggest Apple Stores is just a few blocks from our hotel, so we were able to pick up another iPad charger to replace the one left at the Days Inn in Oakhurst, and so we are still up and running.

I wish we did have a picture of the San Francisco skyline as it appeared in the horizon on our drive in .... The famous fog hung like a blanket over it. It was blazing hot and blindingly sunny 30 minutes outside the city, and here it was low 60's with dreary fog obscuring the tops of the buildings. The fog is frequent here, as the heat of the CA mainland collides with the cool Pacific breezes.

We do have a couple of food notes. We had an awesome Mexican lunch at J&R Tacos in Merced; John's El Pastor style beef was the best thing on the table. For dinner, we walked the few blocks from our hotel on Nob Hill down to Chinatown and had a great Malaysian/Thai meal at Penang Garden.

Talked to my (Sharon's) mom yesterday and she asked if we were exhausted and ready to come home, and we said not really. This trip has exceeded our ridiculously high expectations. The kids have been amazing travellers, they are at a perfect age for this type of trip. Jess, at 9, is old enough and strong enough for all the adventures, while retaining her child-like wonder at everything. Blake, 12, is still sweet and full of zestful energy, and not yet an angst-ridden teen. We are lucky that they both have happy and optimistic personalities, which has made traveling with them a pleasure. They have hardly ever complained and rarely squabbled with each other, although they have shared the backseat of Big Red for 3200 miles and hotel beds for 16 nights.

We miss Mali, our own beds, home-cooked meals in our own kitchen, and our friends. We don't miss the daily grind. We have loved the joy of discovering something new everyday. We are grateful to our bosses, Teresa and Jim, and all our co-workers for covering for us at work while we took this extended time away. We appreciate all the friends who offered ideas and hints based on their own travel experiences, and many thanks to my sister Suzanne and her family for dog-sitting. We can't wait to see our new floors, but dread having to put our entire house back together.

We will spend today taking in some of the sights of San Fran, and will take the red-eye home tonight, arriving back in Richmond tomorrow morning. A shout-out to our friend Craig who is going to pick us up at the airport. We will be away 17 nights in all, with the last night spent on the plane. We have loved all the comments on our blog, and we will post one last entry once we get back home.

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