The plan was to leave Monterey at 8:00 am, but as is usual with us we were up, packed and driving away at 7:00. I don’t know why we always have to get early starts. It’s just in our DNA. Today, however, the early start paid off.
With nothing to eat since yesterday’s lunch, our first priority was finding a decent spot for breakfast and Barb came up with a winner. Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the world, was kind enough to provide us with a Black Bear Diner, which is in our all-time Best Five for Breakfast. The senior menu offered just enough nourishment to last till the anticipated seafood dinner.
The first five or so hours of today’s trip were not good. First, there was numerous stop and go traffic on US 101 from San Jose to Burlingame. During this time, I did have the opportunity to note the vehicle with the greatest propensity to dart from lane to lane was the Tesla.
Then there was driving in San Francisco. US 101 turns into Van Ness and while not exactly downtown, it was something new for me to be in so much traffic, in narrow lanes and with large busses ever so close. We were both surprised by so many Boy Scouts camping out on the sidewalks. The colorful tents and other camping paraphernalia took me back to my own days of scouting.
Lastly, there was the hunt for a Starbucks. This saga began immediately after crossing the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The hunt started in the town of Sausalito and ended in Cloverdale. We searched Sausalito, San Rafael, Santa Rosa and Healdsburg without success. Mind you each of these towns had multiple Starbucks, we just couldn’t find any of them. Not with the car GPS or with the Starbucks App. We were going in circles and I have no doubt that at times we were with 30 feet of our quarry. In Cloverdale our quest came to an end when we found a Sinclair gas station in the same parking lot as a Starbucks. The rest of the drive was, thankfully, uneventful.
When in Eureka we always stay at the same motel for two reasons. First, it’s a nice place and second, they provide a stretch limousine to take us to dinner. Tonight it was The Sea Grill. I like oysters on the half shell and tonight it was Asian Kumamoto, raw, on the half shell, topped with Tobiko caviar, ponzu, lime and siracha. I would definitely do that one again. Barb had scampi and I had scallops. Both were very good. A quick call and the limousine was there to whisk us back.
403 miles today. Oh, by the way, we didn’t really didn't think they were Boy Scouts.
No comments:
Post a Comment