da | Davis, CA; Muir Woods; air travel

Davis California is much like Ithaca, but flat and sunny and cheerful. In fact, it's a comfortable 68 degrees outside and cloudless. Of course, the teensy tiny house/cottage Dan has rented (about 600 sq. feet in all, he estimates) probably would cost half again as much as our house back in Canada. The other problem with California, as we discovered yesterday: rush-hour around San Francisco is absolutely awful.

Yesterda's agenda: we drove down to Muir Beach for a picnic. The waves were pretty, the hills were gorgeous, and it was great to get the exercise. Then, we went to Muir Woods, to see the old-growth redwods. Of national parks I've been to, this one rated in my top three- Shenandoah had awesome old trees and vistas from the car and great hiking; The Everglades had pretty marshes and alligators and odd biomes; but Muir Woods has some of all of the above- great big old trees, pretty mosses, some good hiking, and a wonderful smell to everything. Woodsy, and slightly tropical. One surprise was a placard from 1955 or so, when the inaugural United Nations representatives came to Muir woods to "Cathedral Grove" to commemorate Teddy Rosevelt's death (who had been behind a lot of the National Parks) and, I suppose, pay their respects to some of the trees that were living in the early 1700s.

Then, we drove south down Rt. 1 to the Golden Gate Bridge, which seemed to be stage-lit by the setting sun (not actually setting yet, just low on the horizon). We drove up to the top of the island which houses the Golden Gate Park, and took touristy photos, and then took a one-way road leading down from the top of the island down the back. The first half-mile of that road was out of one of my recurring nightmares, that is to say driving on a road which tilts downward until it seems the car shouldn't be able to stick to the road. It was pretty amazing. Lots of cliffs and rolling hills and crashing waves and orange sun on ocean.

I'll skip the details of the drive back, nearly-three hour drive in stop-and-go traffic. d. did a heroic job of it.

We went to dinner at a Taquarria near d.'s place, and there we met two guys who had been sitting at the table next to ours the prior night. As d. says, this happens in a small town. They recognized us because when they had joked with the waitress, we had laughed and kept the joke going. So we had dinner with them, and they recommended places for us to visit today and possibly on future visits- a few wineries and such.

Working my way back to Wednesday: an incongruous sight from Buffalo Airport was a Southwest jet on the snow-covered runway. They are blue, with earth-tones like rust and red. It did evoke the desert, as I'm sure they intended, but on the frozen (entirely white) background, it just looked cold and out of place.

At O'Hare, I switched from a United plane to a "Ted" plane (slogan, "Part of United"). Along with dropping three letters, they also dropped meals on cross-continent flights and a bit of cabin maintenance. Oh well. But my layover in Chicago was perfectly timed for lunch, at a "Wolfgang Puck Express", which had yummy pizza and a portion big enough to tide me over till 9pm EST when I landed in California.

My plane-reading was my copy of "The Diamnod Age" by Neil Stephenson. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his brand of Neo-Victorian science fiction. I may do some browsing to find something similar- I wish he would've continued in that world instead of switching to his latest overdone trilogy. Sniff.

And dan's home from a meeting, so we're gonna go out now.