Christmas, 2010

It has been a very long time since I have written anything here. Finding any time to sit down and spend any uninterrupted time at my desk or the kitchen table has become more and more difficult as my daughter Rachel had become increasingly mobile. About the time she turned a year old Rachel decided that walking was really the best way to locomote. Since then, all bets have been off. In fact, as I sit in the kitchen of my new house right now, Rachel has just pulled a chair out from the table and climbed into it where she is reclining comfortably with a bottle of water. Food and drink will keep her occupied, and stationary, but only for a short time. The rest of the time she spends on the go. She occasionally plays with her many toys. More than likely, however, she'll be pulling a dog tail, unpacking cabinets and drawers, throwing random objects or getting into some other mischief. As far as Rachel is concerned, everything is fair game.

I'm not complaining, though. I find Rachel endlessly entertaining. She is very funny. In fact I think she has the best sense of humor of anybody I know. Not bad for somebody with vocabulary of a dozen or so words. She is to the point where she seems to be regularly learning new words and generally seems to understand their meaning. For months she has been saying "uh-oh" whenever she drops something. The other day she pulled over a floor lamp in the living room. The glass globe shattered on the floor with a huge crash. Bree, my dad and I all instantly rushed to see that she was alright. Rachel just stood there with a puzzled look and said "uh-oh". A tad understated, but really quite appropriate.

But it is Christmastime. My mom and dad flew to Denver from Milwaukee on December 17th and left to go back this afternoon. It was a special treat to be able to have them here at Christmas as well as for my 40th birthday. That sounds awful, doesn't it? 40! The best thing about turning 40 is that it means that I didn't die while in my thirties. Time is going so fast. I wish I could slow it down sometimes. I know that won't happen, so I guess the best I can do is to try not to have too many regrets going forward.

On the 23rd Bree, Rachel, Dad and I drove to Carbondale (between Glenwood Springs and Aspen) where we spent two nights with my uncle Al, aunt Peg, cousin Jennie and her fiance Allen. Justin and my mom joined us later in the day. My uncle and aunt have a great new house in a golf course community which is where they have chosen to spend their retirement. On Chistmas Eve Bree and I were able to get away for the afternoon to spend some time in Aspen, which is about 30 miles down the Roaring Fork Valley from their house. It's not too often that we have the chance to get away without Rach these days so we enjoyed the few hours of freedom to hobnob with all of the high-falutin snobs. We didn't realize Charlie Sheen was in town, otherwise would have gotten together for a few drinks, I'm sure.

My cousin Jennie has spent many years in the Airforce flying around the world in C130s but next summer she will be getting married. As far as I can tell, she seems to be marrying a pretty good guy. Allen is from Cork, Ireland and now works at Microsoft. He was good enough to have a bottle of Bushmills waiting for us when we got there.

Christmas day, we all drove over Tennesee Pass to Debbie and Jerry's place on a windy mountainside just north of Buena Vista. Snow had been drifting over the winding dirt road leading to their house for the past couple of days, so we weren't sure if we'd make it. Jerry runs the music program at the Catholic church in BV and they all perform but this year they were unable to make it to mass on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning because of all the snow that had drifted over the road on the way in. The stretch where most of the snow collects is called The Hackendorf. I'm not sure how it got that name, but by the end of the weekend Bree, my Dad and I all thought it quite funny to constantly hear about the horrors of navigating the dreaded Hackendorf. It got to be a bit of a joke. The wind was no joke though. It was blowing off of Mt Columbia to the west at a murderous rate. They had hired a plow to come through just before we arrived so we didn't have any problem making it in. The next morning a man had to come in with a front end loader because the plow couldn't make it through, so much snow had drifted in.

I had been looking forward to walking around their land and up into the forest on the mountainside butthe cold and the gale force winds made that idea seem much less agreeable. So we all stayed inside for the rest of the day. Jerry had set out a wide variety of booze, and after the snowy drive in, I was happy to help myself. They had picked up a bottle of Jamison the day before when they thought that they might have to spend the night in town. Over the course of the evening I made a big dent in the bottle.

The Hogans are a musical family so later in the evening they performed some Christmas carols for us. Debbie singing and on the piano, James playing the flute. Debbie made a ham recipe out of the Julia Child cookbook that was phenomenal. Everybody there seemed to have a pleasant night. It's not too often that I get my whole family together like this anymore. I try to enjoy it while it lasts.

I got a bit of a walk in the next morning as I scoped out the road out. The wind was still raging but I thought we'd have smooth sailing. Until I reached the dreaded Hackendorf, that is. It became clear that we'd have a tough time getting through this quarter mile stretch, even with our four wheel drive vehicles. That's when they called in the front end loader.

Thanks everybody for a great Christmas.

RockyGrass Music Festival

"Give me some of that bread" the big man with the beard shouted across the campsite."There's only one piece left and I ain't giving to you" was the angry reply.

"God Damn it! I'm your father, give me the bread. Do you expect me to pick this greasy piece of sausage up out of the grass and eat it without any bread?"
"Fuck you, I don't care what you do. Eat your sausage, don't eat your sausage, I don't care but I'm not giving you the fuckin bread."
"I can't believe that you expect your father to pick this greasy piece of sausage out of the grass and eat it without any bread."
There was a pause and then the sound of a plastic bag hitting the ground after being thrown from some distance.
"There's the bread, now eat your fuckin sausage"

The sky had only just started getting light on Saturday morning of RockyGrass when this exchange took place. The father and son, who were our neighbors at the Meadow's Park Campground in Lyons had been up all night partying and playing their instruments and carrying on. Bree crawled out of our tent to see the father, Randy, slouched over on the cot we had set up as a bench outside of our tent. His still lit joint smoldered in the grass beside our tent and his beer had been tipped over. Bree, being a helpful and considerate neighbor, extinguished the doobie and placed it and the beer on one of the tables our neighbors had set up under a canopy.

I got up somewhat later and Randy was still on the cot beside our tent. I had been somewhat oblivious to what all had been going on so it was Bree who filled me in on all the details later. I had no idea that we would have a guest in our camp that morning, but considering the atmosphere of the festival and our campground, I wasn't at all surprised. 900 campers were packed into the relatively small park beside the St. Vrain River, but despite the cramped quarters and occasionally smelly portable toilets, everyone seemed to be getting along. Every one I met seemed happy to strike up a conversation and share stories. Only briefly during our second night at the camp did I get slightly irritated. And that was when I was awakened to some drunken shouting at about five in the morning which was followed up by the sounds of a jam circle with some scorching mandolin riffs at about five o'clock in the morning. Don't get me wrong, I like the mandolin as much as the next swingin' bluegrass aficionados, but I had gotten to bed late and was having a hard time sleeping the way it was. Dawn finally put a damper on the festivities.

We arrived Friday morning to find that the campground was practically full already. Apparently people had been arriving since Monday and setting up their compounds, some of which were very extensive. Although there were no vehicle campers around where we were, some people had generators while other camps were equipped with solar panels. We dropped off our modest stock of gear, and I went to park the car in a remote lot about a mile away.

We finally walked through the gates of the festival in the late morning in time to catch The Wilders. Since it was our first time at the festival, we found that most of the ground had already been staked out by people laying down tarps to reserve space for themselves. It seemed very first come first serve and it struck me that a lot of people were going to wind up with terrible seats for the performances, but the festival rules state basically that even though you can put a tarp down to reserve a spot for yourself, if you aren't there anybody else has the right to use it also. And according to the rules, also, if you come back and find somebody on your tarp, you have the "right to become lifelong friends." So basically it wasn't much of an issue. I figure, I'll let other people get in line at 7 in the morning to be the first one through the gate in the morning to throw down a blanket somewhere and then when I get up later and after some coffee and playing with Rachel, I can go over and find a perfectly good spot. In this case it wasn't even an issue at all. We wound up sharing a tarp with a group of guys from Tupolo, Mississippi, one of whom was sipping from a large flask full of Grand Marnais. He said he comes to the festival every year.

For Bree and I, having Rachel there posed some new challenges for us. We rarely made it through an entire performance without having to take Rach somewhere to go play or to go and change a diaper, but for the most part, she was quite good. She even seemed to enjoy herself. This is a very family friendly festival and parts of the grounds are simply grassy areas under massive cottonwood trees where children and families could go and escape from the crowds near the stage. For older kids, there is even a small beach area along the St Vrain River which was always packed during the day. Many people from the Meadow's campground where we stayed would bring their big inner tubes into the festival, and then hop in the river and float the three blocks or so back to the campground. No glass containers were allowed inside the festival grounds, but these huge rubber inner tubes were apparently no problem. Smoking weed apparently wasn't much of a problem for the people who run the festival either. Anyone who smoked cigarettes was restricted to a small tent far to the rear of the grounds, but pot was consumed openly just about everywhere with the possible exception of the Family Arts and Crafts Tent.

We saw a number of acts the first day, including Del McCoury, Sam Bush and Peter Rowan. I'd seen Del McCoury before but never Sam Bush. Even though he's been in the business since the late 60's, which is not quite as long as Del McCoury, he put on a fantastic, energetic show.

That night at camp Rachel didn't want to go to sleep. She thought being in the tent was just great fun and obviously didn't associate it with bed time. Our cause was not helped by all of the commotion going on around camp, but even without all the music and loud talking, I don't think Rachel would have wanted to go to sleep until very late. I took one small walk around the campground and witnessed some sort of bizarre wedding ceremony being officiated by a young guy in a bright red and ornately decorated sombrero going on under another group of canopies that had been moved together in a row. The bride was wearing a halter top and had a white feather boa wrapped around her head like a turban. The groom wore a tee shirt and boxer briefs. The best man wore a helmet that was not unlike the one Luke Skywalker wore when he piloted the X-Wing Fighter in his heroic effort against the Death Star. The line of canopies opened into a large peaked tent which had icy blue lights strung around the inside. This tent was referred to as the "Twinkle, Twinkle Tent" and was apparently where the consummation was to take place as the group of friends continued to party through the night right outside.

The next morning we saw a band called Bearfoot, who I had never heard of before. They are from Alaska and are all very young. I think they have the potential to do big things in the business. I am now officially a fan. Later in the day we saw the Claire Lynch Band. Eighty Five year old banjo pioneer, Earl Scruggs came on after she did with his band. Despite the fact that it rained off and on throughout the performance it was still a memorable experience to hear him picking on the bluegrass anthem, Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

It had been raining off and on all afternoon, which was getting to be kind of a drag. There were covered places where we could take Rachel to crawl around where she wouldn't get too soaked, but my butt was soaked after a brief downpour sent a small river down the tarp I was sitting on right into my backside. Bree and I were both concerned about keeping Rachel dry and warm as well. Steve Earl finished up the night playing with his old band The Bluegrass Dukes. Most of the music I've heard from him in the past has not been bluegrass, but this show, despite the almost constant rain was one of the highlights for me.

We got back to camp to find it very quiet. Our old friend Randy from the morning was sitting in a camp chair under a canopy telling stories to a couple of women. Few other people were around or out of their tents. We all blamed it on the rain dampening everybodies spirits. I had a couple of beers with them and learned that Randy lives on a large piece of land that he owns in New Mexico, just south of the Colorado border near Durango. In between drags on his blunt, he mused about setting up a bluegrass festival on his land someday.

We went to bed soon afterward and actually fell asleep. Sleep was not to last long because the campground filled up soon afterward with people who had been at a surprise performance by Red Knuckles in the Wildflower Pavilion that started at 11. So now that it was around 1 in the morning, it was time for the real partying to begin around the camp. I'm ashamed to admit I was not in the least bit interested in joining in. I was more concerned about them waking Rachel and keeping Bree and I up all night.

Sunday morning was very pleasant. The rain had finally stopped and our things started drying off. I made coffee by boiling water with my little camp stove and using the French Press. This is the type of roughing it that I can get on board with. Rachel played with Isabel, the little girl from the next tent, and we sat around and talked with our neighbors. Everybody had stories to tell and it was interesting for us to listen and share our own tales. I was a little surprised to find out how many people had travelled from other states to be in attendance. We talked to people from down south and states out east who claimed that this was their favorite bluegrass event. Most folks had been to several different festivals and many knew each other from years past. There is a sub-culture built around these types of events and the music whose existence I had never really been fullly aware of.

We took some time to break down the camp and I went to get the car so that we could load it up in the morning. We figured that if it started raining again that we would be better off having everything packed away so that it could stay dry. Not to mention the fact that breaking down a camp in the rain is never fun or is unpacking everything again after you get home so it can dry out.

That afternoonwe saw the Steep Canyon Rangers and Sarah Jarosz. Later we saw the 2nd half of the Darrell Scott Bluegrass Band. I really enjoyed Darrell Scott. After a late afternoon performance by Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass, there was a slot on the schedule that was listed as TBA. A rumour that I had heard that morning was that the secret performer that the promoters were keeping secret was Steve Martin, the actor and comedian who got his start playing the banjo. The special guest turned out to be The Yonder Mountain String Band. This is a group, formed over 10 years ago in Nederland, Co, that has really hit the big time. I've wanted to see them for years so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they were on the bill. Their performance did not disappoint. I look forward to seeing them again one of these days.

It was about 8 o'clock when they finished playing and Rachel was starting to act a little impatient. So rather than stay late and see Hot Rize, the evening's headliner, we opted to call it a weekend and head back to Denver.

I look forward to having the opportunity to attend more of these festivals in the years to come. It was a very nice way to spend the weekend with my wife and daughter. We saw a lot of great music and met some interesting people. Even the food from the on-site vendors was memorable. Maybe we'll finally make it to Telluride next year for their festival.

The Cheese

Recently Bree and I decided to try our hands at the fine art of making our own cheese. People brew their own beer, make their own wine, cure their own meat and change their own oil, so we wanted to see if we could be industrious and craft some cheese in our kitchen. I found it difficult to find the necessary supplies. Even in such a big city, it seems that there isn't a very big demand for the tools of the cheese makers trade. You'd think that there would be more than one or two places in town that sell rennet. Rennet by the way is a solution derived from the stomach lining of a calf. It is essentially made up of enzymes that promote the seperation of the curd from the whey. It's one of those things that makes me wonder how this particular property was ever discovered. Thousands of years ago, maybe some poor herdsman decided to store his milk for the day in a stomach he had lying around and was no doubt terribly alarmed at its consistency when he sat down under a tree to have lunch.

We have made four batches now, none of which were disasters. However, I can't say that any turned out exactly as we had hoped either. One of the easiest cheeses to practice with is mozzarella. It doesn't require pressing, aging or any exotic cultures. We also made a ziegerkase, which is a whey cheese that is pressed and aged in a wine and herb solution.

Since we find making cheese to be exciting and enjoyable we have included it as one of our many possible dreams to choose from on how we will make a living. So when we were in Wisconsin, we decided to visit a working cheese factory and see what we could learn. Widmer's, in the small town of Theresa, offers daily tours and is not too far from Milwaukee. So we made the drive up through the pleasant countryside of southeastern Wisconsin in time to make the 9:30 tour.

Like many old time Wisconsin Cheese factories, it is in a very small building with an attached living quarters upstairs. This wasn't set up to supply Wal-Marts all over the country. But they have been making Brick, Chedder and a couple of other cheeses for generations now and seem to do a great job of it. The bricks they use to press the cheese are still the original bricks they used when the factory was founded several decades ago. They had three large tubs (maybe 15 feet by 5 feet) going with a couple of workers occasionally stiring the contents with rakes.

I can't say we learned a great deal from the presentation. It was pretty elementary. A lot of people take their kids there for a morning activity. And the tour was free along with the samples, so it worked fine for us.

Afterwards we spent a couple hours walking around Theresa. We took took Rachel to the small park down by the river and pushed her in the swing. It was one of the more lonely feeling parks that I've ever been in, but it was very pleasant nevertheless. We later stopped for snacks at the confectioners shop in town. We had deep fried beer battered bratwurst and some deep fried brocally and cheese nuggets along with some mini potato pancakes. All good stuff, but stuff we would not eat every day. Besides, I have yet to see beer battered deep fried brats on any menu here in Denver.

We later met my mom and aunt Myra in Cedarburg for a real lunch at The Anvil Pub and Grill. Our table was on a lovely patio overlooking the river. I hadn't seen Myra in years so it was a great pleasure for me to visit with her. She is my deceased grandmother's older sister and she is a wealth of stories about the old days when they grew up in Clayton, Wisconsin which was very poor and rural at the time. I hope to have the opportunity to get together with her again soon.

Rachel Goes Up the Country

Rachel went over to Jeff and Michelle's house out in the country last weekend. As usual, Jeff and Michelle were fine hosts and had a great big vat of beverages out for their guests. Rachel, never the shy one, decided to crawl on over and help herself. Not unlike Goldilocks from the tale of the three bears, she sampled a couple different ones before finding one that was just right.

Here Rachel is surveying the various selections. "So many to choose from" she says. "How can I ever possibly decide?"

At first she sampled the Leinie's, but she didn't like it very much. "Too bitter" she said.

Then she tried the Busch. "Tastes too much like urine!" she exclaimed.

Finally, our young hero finds a can of Coca Cola, takes a slug, and decides that it's just right

Tomorrow Rachel will be ONE! July 10th, 2009.
Happy Birthday
We love you even if you do have a dirty schnoz.

Accidents Will Happen

On the night of July 5th, 2009 while performing at Milwaukee's Summerfest, Elvis Costello dedicated a rousing rendition of his hit tune Accidents Will Happen to his long time fan and occasional lyrical advisor, Brian Hinshaw. That morning, Hinshaw had shattered his femur during a run in with a bull moose in the wilds of Northern Minnesota. He avoided further injury by taking shelter in the hollow of a massive white pine and fending off the aggresive beast with his new Shakespere fishing pole oufitted with 12 pound test line.



Brian was lucky to escape with his life and is now resting comfortably back at his comfortable Victorian mansion on Milwaukee's hip and happening East Side. He noted that the injury may actually be a blessing in disguise as it will give him more time to concentrate on beer.

Bombs Bursting in Air

I arrived in Milwaukee late last night. My plane had been delayed by about 2 hours. So eve though the United Airlines website and even the sign at the gate indicated that the flight was on time, I was informed by the gate attendant at the time we were supposed to start boarding that the plane I was supposed to get on was in Rapid City, South Dakota. I felt bad enough that I was having my dad pick me up at the airport at 11:30, and now felt even worse that it was going to be 1:30 instead.

Rachel has once again proven to be a wonderful travel companion. Next week she will be one year old and this is already her fourth trip somewhere on an airplane. I got lucky that I was seated next to a girl who must have been about twelve and loved babies. This girl ended up being a big help and was nice to talk to as well. She explained that this was only the first time in her life that she had been on a plane. Her family had gone out to Colorado for a week where she got to do some hiking and spending time in the Glenwood Hotsprings. I finally got to bed at my mom's house about three o'clock in the morning.

After going through a fiasco renting a car this morning I picked Bree up at the airport about an hour after she landed. We got some lunch at a burger place on Brady Street and walked down to Bradford Beach. It was a nice day and the beach was crowded. Bree took Rachel wading in the very shallow water near the shore. Rachel still can't walk on her own, but she is able to walk with help and I think she was intrigued by the way the sand felt on her feet. But as with everything else, after a while she reverted to trying to eat the sand. That was our queue to move on down the beach.

Back at my mom's we got a much needed nap followed by a nice dinner prepared by my mom. After dinner my dad, Rachel, Bree and myself headed down to the lakefront to see the fireworks. This was Rachel's first trip to see the fireworks. Last year we went to see the fireworks in Golden, CO, which were good but no real comparison as far as the size of the display. Rachel was there also, in Bree's belly. The fourth of July was past Bree's due date last year and she had been hoping that the noise of the fireworks would throw her into labor. As it turned out, she didn't have Rachel for another week.

The display tonight was very impressive and Rachel seemed to enjoy it for a while. In time, however, her short attention span got the better of her. She was able to crawl around in the grass and seemed to enjoy herself for the most part anyway. I remember the first time I went to the fireworks here in Milwaukee. It was with my dad and my grandpa. We set on the grass down by the old gun club. I remember thinking how absolutely cool they were and through the years as I got older, my brother and i often went down to see the fireworks with my dad. My grandpa didn't go often, but he lived on the other side of town and it probably wasn't his thing so much. He had been in WWII and probably got more than his share of explosions at Iwo Jima and Okinowa.

I saw in the paper this morning that the Brewers are playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field this weekend. That hit home pretty hard. It was two years ago on June 27th when we lost Owen. We were all set to take him to Milwaukee in a few days for the 4th of July celebration and I had been trying to get tickets to the Brewers and Cubs at Wrigley. It was going to be the first trip to Wrigley field for both of us, and I wanted it to be for a Brewer game.

April in San Francisco

A few weeks ago Bree, Rachel and I took a long weekend and flew out to San Francisco. Neither Rachel or Bree had ever even been to California and we were all itching to get out of town for a little while so with the help of some outstanding recession-priced airfares we settled on San Francisco as a destination.

We flew out of Denver early on Wednesday morning. We had some concerns about how Rachel would react to getting up so early in the morning to be rushed off to the airport. We were pleased to see that she behaved very well. That morning she really set the precedent for the rest of our trip. On the plane it helped that the little girls sitting in the seats behind us were smiling and making funny faces at her through much of the flight. Rachel really feeds off of the interaction with other babies and small children. Unlike her father, I doubt seriously that she will wind up being a shy child.

To save money and the hassle of parking, I put off renting a car for a couple of days. We figured that we could find plenty of stuff to do around the city without needing a car. That meant that we took the train, commonly known as the BART, in to the city from the airport. It turns out that this is really the way to go. The train picks up passengers right at the airport and after about a half hour ride, drops them off in the heart of the Union Square neigborhood. When we emerged from the subway station we were surrounded by tall buildings with crowds of people pushing their way past us. With the help of a hot dog vender we quickly got our bearings and made the three block walk to our hotel.

We stayed in a hotel that I had found a special on after many hours of searching the internet. It was called the Hotel Serrano. The building probably dated from the 1920's, was about 19 stories tall, and had been built using the Moorish architecture that was common in that period. The lobby was small but ornate and they had a table full of board games which guests were welcome to play. Every evening the hotel hosted a complementary wine reception for one hour where guests could spend time in the lobby drinking wine and mingling with other travelers. The couple of times we were around the hotel when they were holding the wine reception, I made sure to take full advantage of it. After all the walking around and hard core sightseeing that we were doing it was nice to come back to the hotel for some wine. In the mornings they had free coffee in the lobby and your choice of newspapers including the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal. This was an incentive for me to get up before Bree and Rachel so that I could go downstairs and have a little quiet coffee and newspaper time before heading out for the day. The only thing to disturb it was that the sliding doors to the lobby were often open and it got very cold in there in the mornings.

Our first afternoon, after checking into the hotel, we walked over to Union Square and watched a small Passover celebraton that was taking place. A Jewish one man band of sorts was playing highly dancable songs to the small crowd of Jews that was gathered nearby. I had arranged to have lunch with my old friend Serena Huang from business school here in Denver. She is now working at an old, and very stylish department store called Gumps. www.gumps.com
The store itself is really worth a visit. Most items are well out of my price range, but they have some really unique and gorgeous merchandice. Serena seems to have a pretty responsible job there and works upstairs in one of the offices. But she was able to give us an interesting tour around the jade selectin in the jewelry department. I had never known that jade comes in as many colors as it does and that buyers will go all over the world to get the best specimins of different varieties of the stone.

We had lunch in a nearby food court that was buzzing with activity. It was good to catch up with Serena whom I had not seen since I was in San Francisco several years ago for Halloween. Serena has since gotten married and from the sounds of it, she married a pretty interesting guy. They met after they and some other friends of theirs had gotten laid off after the dot.com bust. She said that there were a lot of people around with no jobs and a lot of time on their hands. The solution was to organize a large music festival. It turns out the festival was pretty successful. I was impressed by this story. A lot of people when they lose their jobs will get depressed and circle their wagons. The fact that these people got together to organize a festival with multiple musical acts as well as several vendors is pretty darn impressive.

After lunch and spending time admiring the merchandise in Gump's, we walked up through China Town. China Town in San Francisco is worth a visit but I wouldn't spend too much time there. I believe the much of the authenticity of this historic, ethnic neighborhood has given way to gift shops and other businesses geared toward the tourist trade. We took a circuitous route back to our hotel by way of Nob and Russian Hills. This way we were able to get our exercise for the day as well as get an opportunity to walk through some of San Fran's more traditional neighborhoods and admire the ornate Victorian architecture.

The first night we had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory on the top level of Macy's overlooking Union Square. I can't think of a more touristy place that we could have had our supper. That said, it was really nice. There is rooftop patio from where we were able to have a beer and look out over the city while waiting for our table. An added bonus was that the Brewers happened to be playing the Giants and the game was on the TV above the bar.

It was raining the next morning. It wasn't a hard driving rain, but it was the kind of misty rain that forms in coastal cities when the clouds roll in off of the Ocean. The clouds were low over the city giving it a very different feel from the previous afternoon. This is what I imagine San Francisco being like much of the time, cool, misty and gray.

We decided that since it was raining that we would take the train over to Golden Gate Park the, walk around, and go to one of the museums. We were misinformed about subway so after walking to station and realizing that the train was not going to go where we needed it to, we decided to walk. We had rain coats, and Rachel's stroller had a built in umbrella and she was wearing a warm coat so we figured we'd be okay.

Market Street in San Francisco as you make your way away from Union Square gets seedy fast. The grittiness of the neighborhood was accentuated by the grayness of the morning. Homeless people milled about with businessmen and women making their way to their jobs in the government buildings at the nearby civic center. Every corner seemed to have its own doughnut shop. Many of the buildings appeared to have historic value. Some were ornately detailed. But most of the buildings around here still seemed run down and in need of some serious rehab.

After walking for several blocks the neighborhood was gradually improving. Eventually we came to Haight Street and turned right and headed up a steep hill. Immediately the area we were walking through began to feel much more friendly and the general maintenance and upkeep of the real estate took a giant turn for the better. We walked up and and down several hills and for what seemed like a very long time until we finallypassed Buena Vista Park and were in the famous Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood.

It was still pretty early in the day, so many of the little shops catering to tourists were not even open yet. We decided to stop in the People's Cafe for a late breakfast and some coffee. Bree looked through some of the shops afterward while Rachel and I walked along the sidewalk looking in windows and watching the interesting mix of people that were becoming more abundant as the morning wore on.

It was still raining lightly when we walked to the end of Haight Street and entered Golden Gate Park. We walked by the antique merry go round and the playground and saw a drug deal go down nearby while making our way to the Conservatory of Flowers and then to the Japanese Tea Garden.

I thought it was a perfect day for the tea garden with the mist and fog making an ideal backdrop for the meticulously planned gardens. We also happened to be lucky enough to be there at the height of the cherry blossoms. The Conservatory of Flowers is basically an old greenhouse split up into three different rooms each hosting a slightly different environment. They keep it very hot and humid inside for the benefit of its impressive orchid collection.

As the aftenoon wore on the rain started coming down much harder so we decided to go into the DeYoung Museum of Fine Arts. They were hosting a large special exhibit of works by Andy Warhol which we decided to forego due to its significant additional fee. We also agreed that it was not especially important that we go see pictures of Cambell's Soup labels. The rest of the museum had more than enough to keep us interested and occupied. The de Young boasts a large collection of American art dating from the 17th century through the present as well as large collections of traditional and historic pieces from Africa and the Americas. San Francisco has a large and respected museum devoted soley to Asian Art which we unfortunately did not have the opportunity to visit on this trip.

After leaving the museum we went to find the bus route that would take us back to Union Square. I, however, uncharacteristicaly steered us in the wrong direction and we wound up walking deeper and deeper into the park. We were beginning to get cold and tired although Rachel was still doing great all bundeled up in her stroller. Everybody we asked for directions seemed to also be a tourist. Several of the people we came across did not even speak English. Although my inquiries did get me roped into taking pictures of what I think was some sort of French soccer team.

Finally we found some people who were able to point us in the right direction. Instead of the bus we took a street car. Not one of the touristy street cars, but one that looks like a bus on tracks.
It was crowded when we boarded and it only got more so has the trian got closer to downtown. Bree was holding on to Rachel, but we had been pushed apart by the throngs of passengers. Abouth half way back Rachel started screaming. I wanted to go and help Bree, but there was no way I could have reached her, especially while holding the folded up stroller.

I rushed Bree back to the hotel where we fed Rachel and let her crawl around for a few minutes, not nearly long enough to work off all of the energy I'm sure she had been saving up all day stuck in the stroller. I had made plans with our neighbors, Donald and Jennifer, to meet at the Top of the Mark, at the top of the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Bree didn't know they would be in San Francisco at the same time as us so I thought I'd surprise her by meeting them out for drinks without telling her. In retrospect this was sort of a stupid idea because Bree thought I was an idiot for wanting to be at a certain lounge at the top of a certain hotel right at 7PM on the 2nd night of our trip. But Donald and Jennifer were waiting for us when we arrived and they had gotten lucky with a table that commanded about the best view in the place. It also had a bench where Rachel could lie down and take a nap. The view was phenomenal. The sky had started to clear and the sun was setting casting bluish-gray and orange hues all over the San Francisco landscape stretching out below us. Donald and Jennifer had just sold their duplex down the block and were moving out a few days later to go pursue a new life in some small town in northern Alabama. After that night I ran into Donald once, but I doubt we'll ever see them again. They were very nice people and now I wish we had made more of an effort to get to know them socially before this. Our interactions had been limited pretty much to letting our dogs play with their dog, a black lab - sharpay mix named Riley, over at the playground down the street.

On the way back to our hotel we stopped at a restaurant for some sushi and then decided to call it a day.

The next morning I took the train back out to the airport to pick up the rental car I had reserved. If I had picked up a rental car at a branch location closer to our hotel every rental company I contacted would have charged me an additional $125 or so for the privilege. That seemed so ridiculous that I instead opted to get up early and and go back out to the airport. Ever concerned about the environment, I rented a Prius Hybrid. The part of getting the car that seemed to take the longest was getting the child safety seat installed. But after some trial and error, working up a sweat, and finally asking for help, I was off to pick up Bree and Rach back at the hotel.

We spend the day heading north out of town, first making the obligatory stop at the Golden Gate Bridge. We popped Rachel in the stroller and walked about half way across the bridge. The views were great, but we had to share the sidewalk with plenty of other tourists and there was so much traffic noise on the bridge that it made it difficult to talk. From there, we headed up through Sausalito to Muir Woods, the famous preserve of Redwoods that escaped logging early in the 20th century due to a few very forward-thinking people who were able see what a national treasure these giant trees were and still are. Muir Woods was also very crowded, at least the parking area and the first quarter mile of pathways into the park. As with so many trails here in Colorado, the crowds thinned out considerably the further we got from the cars. I carried Rach in the Erbo carrier and she seemed to be enjoying getting out and having a look around also. We spent about an hour meandering through the small valley containing most of the largest specimans and then decided to take a side trail up to a place called Camp Eastwood. To our amazment this place was not named after Clint, who of course makes his home not far from here, but instead after someone named Alice Eastwood.

Alice Eastwood, as it turns out, was a reputable botanist who made her name in the early years of the 20th century by identifying and clasifying new genuses of ferns and sunflowers. Much of her time was actually spent in Colorado although her most of her most famous botanizing took place later on in California. "She was by all accounts a woman of robust stature and ample voice." according to one website dedidcated to those people who have been commemorated in plant names of the Eastern Sierra. I suppose she would have had to be a hard woman to play in the ultra-macho world of serious botany. The trail that we took that bears her name was delightful and allowed us an opportunity to see some of the surrounding landscape without the company of hundreds of other people. In fact, in the hour or so we were walking, we only came across one other person.

The plan was to leave from Muir Woods and drive up Highway 1 to Point Reyes National Seashore. We took a wrong turn upon leaving the woods that led us back to Sausalito. So after a little cussing and a quick stop at Taco Bell, we drove back up through the windy canyon and found the road that led us down to the coast. In many ways I think that this drive was the highpoint of the trip for me. The drive was slow on the the narrow, windy, two lane road and it took much longer to get up to Point Reyes than I had planned, but every bit of the trip was filled with some of the most unique and beautiful land and seascapes that I have ever seen. With few exceptions, the beaches didn't look very inviting. Most of the coast was made up of craggy cliffs and rugged, rocky shorelines. But the hills to our right were green and inviting. There were several pristine pastures where cows and sheep grazed and very few houses or buildings of any kind to mar the view.

Point Reyes National Seashore itself was generally a much harsher landscape. It stretches inland for several miles from the ocean on a large peninsula. The narrow road leading in toward the coast took us past several small ranches or farms, each of which had a number. I suspect that these old ranches are somehow grandfathered in and sanctioned by the Park Service. The area probably was not heavily settled because of the harsh conditions in the area. The wind was blowing throughout our drive up the coast, but at Point Reyes, the wind was at a totally new level. The famous old lighthouse, which had been our ultimate destination that day, was actually closed due to the conditions. There were only a few other cars in the parking lot at the end of the road. We got out and walked to a spot overlooking the ocean. Bree, being a little lighter than I am, had to lean into the wind to stay upright. I had Rachel in the carrier pressed to my chest covered up by my coat. We managed about 10 minutes out of the car, but that was about all we could handle. If the the wind blows like that more than occasionally out at Point Reyes, it is no wonder that more people didn't want to settle here.

We got back to our hotel fairly late in the evening, and after such a long day Bree just sent me out to find some carryout to bring back to the hotel. Several people approached me for money in the couple of blocks I ventured away looking at the menus in the various restaurant windows. I even gave a dollar to a skinny, sickly looking woman who was very grateful, and told me that since it was Friday that it was a late night at the shelter, so she was trying to scrape together enough cash to go and have a good time before curfew. Knowing that I was able to help her out gave me a nice feeling as I walked back to my nice hotel room with a load of Thai food.

Rachel had been crawling a little bit before we left on our trip, but she really seemed to make some serious improvement while we were in San Francisco. Our room seemed very clean so we didn't feel too bad about letting her crawl around on the floor. We tried to let her crawl as much as possible when we were in the room because she spend so much time cooped up in the car seat and in the stroller over the course of our trip.

The next day we had considered going up to Sonoma and touring a vineyard or two, but after having spent so much time in the car the day before, we decided to stay in town instead. It was a nice day so we decided to go down to the beach since we hadn't really been able to spend any time at the beach the day before due to the conditions. As it turned out, when we got down the the beach, we found the wind to be howling in off of the Pacific much the same way it had the day before. We parked our environmentally friendly hybrid in a public lot acroos the road from the western edge of Golden Gate Park, so when we found that the shore was not going to be hospitable to us, we walked into the park. Once we got into the trees and away from the ocean, the conditions improved dramatically and we were able to spend several hours walking around admiring the gardens, ponds and towering groves of euchalyptus trees in the park.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the Haight-Ashbury district so Bree could spend some time poking around in the eclectic shops that make up the neighborhood. She didn't even buy anything, but I think that she had a good time browsing. One of my minor goals of the trip was to find a little cafe where I had spend a couple of pleasant mornings the last time I was in San Francisco, which is going on 9 years ago or so. I was pretty sure it was up in the Cole Valley nearby, and sure enough we found the place, much as I remember it being several years ago. It is called Crepes on Cole and I still think they have a great place and a great concept for a cafe and restaurant that might do well here in the Denver area with the right location. http://www.yelp.com/biz/crepes-on-cole-san-francisco

That evening we went up to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner. I haven't been to San Francisco's Fisherman's wharf since I was a kid, so I didn't remember it much. We found it to be basically one great big tourist trap, but since we were tourists, we decided to make the most of it and ended up having a great meal of bay scallops and shrimp in a cramped little restaurant that looked like it had been serving since the 1940s. The booths were apolstered with vinyl and the walls covered with dusty and weathered looking nautical stuff, much of which looked like it could have come from a rummage sale.

We had walked over half the way back to our hotel before our bus finally showed up and after having to sit across from the psychotic gentleman mentioned in my last post, I wish we had walked the rest of the way.

Our last day in town we started off by walking back through China Town. This time we spent a little more time in the shops, although not too much. I got Bree a pair of jade earrings. We walked over to the Embarcadero and made our way all the way around until we were back at Fisherman's Wharf. We toured the USS Jeremiah O'brien, one of only two surviving WWII liberty ships. This was an inexpensive and interesting attraction that did not seem overwhelmed by other tourists. The people working here were made up of an interesting mix of people, mostly ex-navy, who all seemed absolutely into what they were doing and all seemed very knowledgable about the ships history, not just in WWII, but its subsequent missions as well. The ship is maintained in functioning order and still sails periodically for different functions.

We also went to Ghiardelli Chocolate Factory and split a sunday and had a lunch of clam chowder in a sourdough breadbowl. We walked back to Union Square over what has to be the steepest hill in town and were sadly off to the airport to catch our evening flight back to Denver.

We were able to pack quite a bit in to our long weekend, but it didn't seem nearly long enough. San Francisco is a great city to explore, especially if you don't mind doing some walking. On our next visit, I'd like to spend some more time in the countryside as well and maybe be able to take in a theater performance or two. Our next trip looks to be Milwaukee for the 4th of July.