Hi Gram!

I’m so excited! Friday night, I went and picked up Zibby from the airport and I get to spend the next week and a half with her seeing as much of California as we can. Just as the plane was backing out of the gate to take off, they told her it was going to be a couple hours delay and shut off the engines. No sooner had she told me she was going to be late, and they immediately turned the engines back on and told everyone to buckle in for take-off. Her flight only arrived a few minutes late, and there was practically no congestion at the airport when I picked her up. On the way back to Oakland, Zibby started giggling and jumping up and down. I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, Grandma, but Zibby LOVES bridges. It turns out that she thought we were coming up on the Golden Gate bridge. I hated to let her down and tell her that there are a lot of bridges in the bay area, but she was still excited to be crossing a bridge. I promised that we’d go across the GGB on our trip, but it would have to be another day. We got back to Oakland and tip-toed into the house so as not to wake up Leah and Aiken.

In the morning, the four of us headed to breakfast at the Pelton Cafe, a breakfast joint that they like. The line was out the door with people on the wait list sitting on benches outside. We put our name on the list, but figured it was going to be a long wait so started figuring out where else we could go when the hostess came out and called everyone on the list. We went from being seventh on the list to second right away, and were seated within fifteen minutes. I had an omelette with pickled cactus and jalapeños, and the flavors just exploded in my mouth. I prefer to eat at local establishments like this one whenever I can. The passion of the staff can be tasted in the food, whether it’s a common dish you can find at every restaurant or an unusual entree that can’t be had anywhere else in the world. Everyone else enjoyed their breakfast as much as I did and we swore we’d return next time we were in town. Zibby and I headed to the BART station and caught the next train into San Francisco.

Our original plan was to rent electric bikes down by Golden Gate park, ride across the bridge, down to the ferry, cross to fisherman’s wharf, then up to Chinatown. We’d get to spend the whole day seeing some fun spots in San Francisco without needing cabs or buses. Alas, the one thing this plan relied on was nice weather and mother nature decided to literally rain on those plans. We quickly revised our plan to include museums and other indoor activities while the train sped along. We disembarked at the Embarcadero train stop, and got our bearings. The rain had let up, so we decided to walk over to Chinatown first and see all the little shops.

We worked our way up a street blocked off for pedestrians and vendors with a singer at the far end, shops on both sides, and tents down the middle with vendors hawking knick knacks of every variety. We wandered down the street, trying to share our umbrella and dash from canopy to canopy along the sidewalk. After a while, we headed over to the Exploratorium to get in out of the rain. They moved locations since the last time I was there for Tom’s wedding and added to the exhibits. It’s such a great idea for kids, adults, or anyone who’s curious. Each item is something for the visitor to interact with, and they’re broken into sections by sense and variety. There were sections showing optical illusions, color perception, motion, kinesthetics, physics, and others. We got to play instruments made out of everyday objects, see how clocks work, look into mirrors set at specific angles, watch marbles roll around a maze, and so many other interactive displays. I forgot it was even raining outside as we spent hours just playing and laughing. Eventually, hunger trumped our curiosity and we decided to go to an Indian restaurant named Urban Curry. We shared a dish and some onion naan and talked about what we most enjoyed at the museum. With the rain coming and going, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the BART station and grabbed the first train going the direction we wanted. After a few stops, we realized we were on the wrong train that took a different fork than we needed. We switched trains and ended up back in San Leandro, where we started. After a dash to the car through the rain, we found our way back to the house to meet up with Leah and Aiken. We told them all about our day, and headed to bed, ready for tomorrow’s adventure. I’ll tell you all about that next time!