Drivecation 0-11: Day 13 - Home again

Our last day was a blur of excitement.  We stayed one night in San Fran at an extended stay hotel.  The room was nice enough and we had an early breakfast with Josh.  The cracks began to show as our culinary gorge-fest was winding down.  Who serves a crepe filled with strawberry and pineapple?  It didn't work.  It doesn't work.  Don't do it again.  I stuck the entire plate on a stake and lit it on fire as a warning to future diners.

But we were there for the company.  It was really nice to visit with Josh again, and hopefully we can make another trip so we can spend more time.  After we left, I was sucked by a violent wind into the Halloween shop, which was next door.  We got a lot of good ideas for this year (Invitations will go out soon!).

We left for the Disney Family Museum, which is operated by the Disney Family, and the exhibit is of the entire life of Walt, the man.  From his early childhood all the way through his death.  There are two or three huge rooms before you even get to the creation of Oswald.  It's one of the coolest museums I have been to.  All the information was presented in such unique and interesting ways, and as technology progressed throughout the century, so did the technology with how they presented the information.  From simple audio broadcasts to eventually touch screen, and other interactive technology.  I don't know how little kids would like this, but pre-teens on up would enjoy it.  It was like walking through a biography special.  Highly recommended.

Time for lunch!  Our final recommendation from the couple we met in Eureka: Sushi Ran in Sausilito.  It was a very nice restaurant located around a bunch of other nice shops near the water.  The menu was pretty traditional, but he combined--I hesitate to "ordinary," but I already used the word "traditional," and the quality of the fish was anything but "ordinary," seriously some of the best sushi I have ever had!--ordinary ingredients in new and fun ways.  There was eel, with cucumber and tamago, which is the sweet egg (think scrambled egg omlette in a rectangle shape), so you have this warm delicious eel and rice and seaweed, and then a crunchy cucumber and suddenly the sweet egg, which works so well, since eel sauce is itself sweet--I believe it's made with sugar and soy.  It was really yummy.  Then we had a creamy scallop roll, which was made with scallops and crack.  We debated if we should order a palette of those.  Sooo good.

And the tea!  It was nice to go to a Japanese restaurant that actually has a modest assortment of tea.  Nothing crazy, but there were a couple of different herbal infusions, as well as green, white, and black flavors to choose from.  I'm so sick of the cheap-ass brown-rice green tea being the only option in LA.  Can't you at least offer some cheap-ass jasmine tea?  We all know you can buy that shit cheap.  Why the hold-out?

We had never been to Sausilito before and it was nice, except for all the cyclists we ran over.  God, the screaming!  So annoying.

By this time, it was getting late, and it was going to be tight if we were going to make it to Cupertino to buy some Apple merch.  You seriously think we're going to pass up that opportunity?  Why do you think we came this way?  We made it there just before closing, praise Jesus.  But last minute shopping cram wasn't over, because there are Outlets in Gilroy.  No, no, my friends, not just garlic, but also savings opportunities, and lord knows we didn't spend enough money on crap already.

By this point, like my writing aptitude in this essay, I was done.  Put me in the teleport machine and get me home.  Unfortunately that teleport machine was going to take five hours, and one of us would have to operate it continuously.  By this point, there was no way we were going to make it before midnight.  Work tomorrow was going to suck.  For our official final meal of our vacation, it was a double-double at In N Out.  It was delicious.

The trip back was uneventful.  We listened to an audio book for a while, and when Gregory was starting to get a little sleepy, I took over driving and we talked the rest of the drive home.  We arrived home around 1AM, and dropped all of our bags in the front room, to the combined delight and terror of the cats (aah! who are these people?, and yay! a jungle gym!).  We collapsed, ready to let the post vacation sugar plums, dance in our heads.  Portland was nice.  I'm intrigued enough to visit again in a serious way--not just a casual date, but a date-date.  There are many things still to do, most notably the seven-million-picture flip-book that needs photoshopped.  We look forward to seeing our friends again, too, of course.  But I have a feeling the next time we visit, we're going to fly.