City Living

It was more Google today for Tim and BJ. We got up early again and drove Ron Burgandy into the City. Lisa was spending the day with her sister and then she and BJ were going to Sonoma to see her dad so it made sense for the van to be in town. Tim and I were going the opposite direction so we left Frank south of town.

Tim and BJ walked back to the Moscone Center and I found a great little organic coffee shop with big sunny windows to spend the morning working. I got a lot done, but it was also a people watcher’s paradise. It was a rare sunny day for San Francisco and people were out in droves. In between emails and remote computer sessions, it was good to just watch the world walk by.

The conference let out at about 4 and we debated what to do. Tomorrow we have an appointment at Sportsmobile in Fresno at 8 am for some minor repairs on Frank. Fresno is a long, long 3 hours away and not a drive we wanted to do in rush hour. So we decided to stick around in town for a few hours. Tim hadn’t been in the City since he was 12 and this trip had been spent entirely in the Moscone Center, so we decided to explore. Weis sent us info about an incredible sounding bike ride up the Marin Headlands, but unfortunately our bikes were south of town with Frank, so we settled on an early dinner at a restaurant Dan Staebler recommended.

Every once in a while you hit something just right, and this was one of those times. We walked 2 miles across town to Hyde Street Seafood House and had an inexpensive, absolutely dynamite dinner. Even at 5 pm the small restaurant was busy. We started with 12 oysters on the half shell, moved to blue nose seabass en papillote and dungeness crab en croute and finished with the freshest strawberries and blackberries with whipped cream. Though one of my favorite subjects, I try not to spend too much time blogging about food, but this meal was too incredible not to share. Every morsel was delicious. You don’t get seafood like that many places and it cost a third of a Jackson meal. Wow.

After dinner we rolled out of the restaurant in a happy food coma and climbed aboard a San Francisco Trolley for the ride back to the BART station. As we drive down highway 99 towards Fresno, I am a little sad to be leaving San Francisco. It was a wonderful taste of city living.