Some notes from our recent trip to San Francisco.

This year, we decided to drive down to the bay area. Airfare was just too much for the 4 of us.

Pre-trip fun:

A week before the trip, I rotated the tires on the Honda Pilot. After rotation, I noticed a "thick wire" shooting out from the corner of my left side front tire. It was thinner than a nail, but thicker than a staple...sort of like the wire of a big paper clip. I thought long and hard about pulling it out...if I leave it, nothing may happen. If I pull it out and a leak develops, I have time to get it fixed. Finally after sleeping it over, I most feared the "broken down tire on the road scenario", so I grabbed a pair of vice-grips and slowly plucked the thing out. "Psssst" Just my luck, the tire started to deflate after I yanked the wire. I then had to unspool the "donut" spare tire and swap it out. On a Sunday, no tire shops are open, so I had to wait a day. I drove to Discount Tire and had them inspect the tire. Since the damage was on "the shoulder" of the tire, they told me it was non-patchable. Then they dropped the other shoe: since I had roughly 50,000 miles on the 4 tires, and since my vehicle was an all-wheel drive, they highly recommended getting 4 new tires to avoid the "1 of your 4 tires is larger than the others" situation, which, as a scare tactic, could damage my drivetrain. Great. Just what I needed, a huge pre-trip expense. I left Discount Tire and went to the office, looked up some prices at Tire Rack's website, called Costco for pricing, asked the fellas in the office for advice, etc. I ended up going to Costco for a full set of new Michelin Cross Terrains. $680 for all that fun.

The Pilot with the new tires did great, btw.

Oregon drivers in combination with Oregon's interstate freeway is a recipe for disaster. Oregon drivers just sit in the left lane all the time. And most of I-5 through Oregon is 2 lanes in each direction. Semi-trucks and RVs/campers pretty much ride along in the right lane, but everyone else sits in the left lane. None of the "use the right lane until you have to pass slower traffic" mentality here. Of all the car accidents we saw on the way to SF (and back home), they were all in Oregon. Just a frustrating state to drive through.

We saw no less than 3 different hand-painted signs advertising "cage Matches". Must be the small hicktown thing to do.

We stopped for lunch in Beaverton, OR, at our favorite place there: Hakatamon Japanese Restaurant, located in the Uwajimaya complex. The udon noodles are hand-made. Highly recommended.

Since driving from Seattle to San Francisco is like a 15 to 18 hour drive, we decided to break up the trip by staying overnight in Medford, OR. Actually, just north of Medford in Central Point. Trip Advisor comments were pretty accurate about the Holiday Inn Express there...clean, decently priced because it was still fairly new.

Redding, CA is the northern-most In-n-Out Burger restaurant. It was packed. I like my In-n-Out burgers "animal-style".

First night in SF, we had dinner in Japantown, at Izumiya. Nothing too exciting that first evening, just trying to unwind from the long road trip.

We chose to stay in Burlingame, at the Embassy Suites there. We've stayed at that one before, even though it's a bit run-down these days. Free made-to-order breakfast, of course. Don't forget to ask for extra towels at night to shove under the room door in order to block out the bacon smell in the morning.

We packed a bottle of Febreze. To use AFTER breakfast. Nothing worse than smelling like omelettes and sausage all day.

Traffic and parking is quite the hassle in parts of SF. But I guess that's all part of the fun.

Fenton's in Oakland isn't what it used to be. Their crab salad sandwich wasn't as large as I thought I remembered. Quite disappointing.

Ton Kiang is still ok. Love those little custard mochi things.

There were two Beard Papa locations, both near Moscone/Union Square/Market Street. The boys fell in love with their cream puffs while in Honolulu earlier this year.

On a scale of 10, the restrooms at Bloomingdales gets a 10. Best smelling men's room ever. (speaking of restrooms, avoid all rest stops on I-5 in Oregon)

More later. It's getting late.