Pink House

Scenes of San Francisco Part 2

We took another City Guides Walking Tour while we were in San Francisco. Love these history/art/architecture-based tours of different neighborhoods in San Francisco, organized by the SF Public Library and the Historical Society. This tour was of Architecture of SOMA district. Love the juxtaposition of sleek modern buildings against the aged historic ones.

So much public art in SF! Then we hopped in a cab and headed up to Filmore District to check out a newly opened Bahn Mi place that I had read about in Eater SF. On my bucket list was to have an authentic Bahn Mi sandwich (because we don't have any of the deletable Vietnamese goodies in our town) and so we headed to this tiny but BUSY place for lunch called "Bun Mee". It did not disappoint!

The Caramalized Chicken Bahn Mi sandwich and mango salad at "Bun Mee". Very yummy! Cross it off the list!

The tiny shop where you order at the counter and they bring the food to you if you're lucky enough to find a table to sit at. We counted only 18 seats in the restaurant but they were hopping busy the entire time and lots of the orders were take-out.

That's how tiny the storefront is. Maybe 12 feet across, tops. But they say good things come in small packages. And it was a good thing. Packed into a fun neighborhood with lots of locally-owned small businesses. Filmore District. Loved it.

That evening we met Sean and Steve for drinks after work at Prospect in SoMa and then went on to Town Hall for dinner. Loved both places and I finally got to have my fried oysters at Town Hall. Divine! Later that night we met up with friends from Billings at the Top of the Mark for live jazz and dancing. Celebrate good times, yes sir!

Saturday we tooled all around the city, met for brunch at Absinthe (loved it) then shopped around Hayes Valley again. Later that evening we went back to the Davies for a Buddy Guy concert with a group. We then met up for late-night dessert with a group of Sean's friends. I love how all the restaurants stay open so late in San Francisco. You can actually go out after a concert. The nice places don't lock their doors at nine.

One thing I love about visiting San Francisco is how much we pack into a single day. From morning until late-night we go, see, do, experience, and cover so much ground. It's really fun for me. Good-bye San Francisco - until next time!

Scenes from San Francisco - Part 1

We had such a fun, event-filled visit. It began with an open house where Sean works. Amazing view from this top floor office space. And..as the room filled up, I couldn't help but noticing that we were the oldest ones there.

It was fun to visit with the Olin West group and a bunch of their friends at the open house too.

The next morning we took a walking tour of Alamo Square (park) and the Victorian homes around that neighborhood. Very fun. I love to get out in the neighborhoods of San Francisco and away from downtown.

We even got to take an inside tour of this beautiful home below. So many great historic details.

After the tour, we took off walking all around the neighborhood and down into Hayes Valley. LOVE the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

We stopped for lunch at Bar Jules which has been written about in just about every major food magazine. A small french bistro with a new and fresh menu everyday. And there was the chef and her assistant right there working in the open kitchen.

Next we continued to walk down Hayes Street and stop at a number of little interesting shops and boutiques. Then we happened upon a wine shop that also had a patio out back for its patrons. A wine garden? Yes, please. The weather was warm and we sat for a while and enjoyed the venue.

We also came across a very cool optical shop in this neighborhood, names Through the Hayes. So clever and lots of trendy, cool eyeglass frames.

Next up, we saw some people working in an open, fenced city block and asked, "What's that?" It was a community garden - open to the public, funded by neighborhood association, and worked by volunteers. So cool! We talked to some volunteers who were shoveling some fertilizer (cow manure) into the planting ground and seemed quite happy to be doing it too! A cheerful place.

After heading on down Hayes Street sfurther, we caught a trolley on back to the hotel. This was one of those perfect kind of days and the highlight was still to come. We changed and headed out to Davies Symphony Hall downtown for the main purpose of our trip: The spring concert of the SFGMC.

A beautiful performing arts center filled with a sold out crowd. There were many dignitaries in the crowd who were asked to stand and be introduced to the audience at times during the concert. It was the inagural concert for the new director and an excited buzz in the air because of it.

Proud parents! See the city hall through the window behind us?

Part 2 coming soon!

 

 

Whale Watching in Maui

My last Hawaii post.....couldn't finish without mentioning the GREAT whale-watching cruise we took during our visit.

We selected Triology Tours for our whale-watching adventure and got on the boat right off of the beach in Kaanapali. It was perfect weather for the 2-hour cruise and we saw LOTS of whale activity.

The water was so choppy that it was tricky to take photos that weren't totally blurry, but I managed to get a few.

We came upon a "mating pod" where several male whales are basically chasing one female, and there was a LOT of activity. The male whales were repeatedly jumping up out of the water, sparring with each other to win over the female. Apparently this can go on for hours before one of the males "win". :) The captain of the ship estimated there were about 15 males in this pod. We watched for about 1/2 hour before moving on to another area.

In the photo above you can see several whale backs just on the water ahead of us. One is blowing from his blow hole, the others are swimming behind. I think that I just missed catching one in midair in this shot.

There were also great views of the shoreline from the boat. I loved the shots of Maui itself.

And to close, this beautiful shot below of a double rainbow that we spotted over Maui. Perfect ending!

Honua Kai - A bit of paradise on Maui

The couples stayed at a new resort on the north end of Kaanapali, called Honua Kai. There are two main buildings,with 1 to 3 bedrooms in each building. Probably about 200 condo units in all. They sit right on the beach - away from the crowds of Kaanapali area. Beautiful.

The resort has their own ocean-front restaurant, called Duke's, right in the middle of the resort. It's so convenient and the food is pretty good too. We ended up eating most of our lunches here - just walked over from the poolside for a little fresh mahi mahi sandwich and iced tea, then headed back to the pool. Rough schedule.

There are three pools in the development. We steered away from the kiddie pool with the water slide, and sandy "beach", and instead opted for the quietest pool area we could find. Heavenly.

We shared an ocean view 2-bedroom condo with one other couple. We spent a lot of time out on the deck, watching the ocean, the passing cruise ships, the whales,the sunrise, the sunset, and just sitting and enjoying the view. We had a fifth-floor room at the front of the building, toward the ocean. So great views all around.

Above is the view from the lobby of Honua Kai, looking out to the courtyard patio and toward the ocean. Not too shabby at all.

That's our condo up there. On the left, second from the top. The gardens and grounds were kept so nice at Honua Kai. Every other morning when I took my coffee out to the terrace, I would see a crew of gardeners working on the landscaping. It was perfectly tidy!

The ocean-front beach walk (like a boardwalk between the condos and the sandy beach) went from our condo development to the north way past Kaanapali and ended on the south end. Three miles long. We began each morning (after coffee and view-watching) with this walk...it was so lovely and heavenly. Perfect temps. Perfect views. Everyone was happy. No grumps anywhere. Just like paradise. We found it. There on Maui.

The best vacation EVER!

Winery Touring & Tasting in Sonoma Coast

The Russian River Valley is so picturesque. And we managed to see the vineyards just before the frost turned these vines brown.

Rodney Strong has impressive buildings and grounds. We got to take a special tour here arranged by a friend in the industry.

We got to see how they measure the bricks in each of these little grapes to determine when they should be harvested. We got to use a little instrument to measure the bricks (sugar content) of one of these to check.

At another winery we got to go on a behind-the-scenes tour. They have an amazing building. Lots of money went into this place. It reminded me of a fancy-schmancy resort.

Where we had tours arranged we stayed a couple of hours, while other places we just popped in to sample and left after 20 minutes or so.

Quivira up in Dry Creek Valley ended up being our favorite place...really good wines. Friendly people. Lovely but simple building and patio. I'd recommend it if you're in the area.

Some places you go because of the building (like this one which had a cool tasting room in a barn behind these hop kilns), while others are for the tour, and others still just for the wine itself. My favorite aspect of wine touring and tasting is the adventure of it - just discovering what you might like or not like, checking out the cool architecture of the winery building or history of the winery,and meeting the winemaker. There's always some disappoinments as well as some serendipitous delights. A fun way to spend a weekend.

 

A House along the Russian River

Still perusing through our Thanksgiving trip to California photos. This year we chose a delightfully renovated cottage to stay at right along the shores of the Russian River near the Sonoma Coast. Built in the mid-50's this 3-bedroom cottage had been completely redone inside. A perfect example of how mid-century modern can be up-dated.

The deck overlooking the river was wonderful. I didn't take any photos of the lower level which was walkout and housed two good-sized bedrooms, a re-modeled bathroom and a laundry room. It was a steep hike down to the river. We loved this place. Very tidy and cleanly decorated. A perfect cozy base for wine-tasting adventures.

 

Best Moments of 2010

Christmas has come and gone. I went into hyper-focused zone on Dec. 15th when my first holiday guest arrived, and then more. Activities on the calendar. Christmas. Cooking. Eating. And reading tons of college applications and editing essays for too many last-minute deadlines. Then on Dec. 30th my last holiday guest left. And it's over. Too fast once again. Bummer. But now it's time to cozy up with a good book while it snows outside. In the meantime, I thought I'd offer photos of my favorite memories of my 2010.

January - Cross-country skiing to the Granary in the dark

February - Winter visit to Yellowstone National Park with friends

March - our visit to Atlanta with lots of great restaurant visits

April - our week in San Francisco visiting the guys

May - Niece's Wedding in Portland and James Taylor & Carole King concert in Seattle

June - Trip to NYC and Family Bday Party in Idaho

July - Finishing our backyard/deck/patio project & Chase's band visit to MT

August - our VSP friends visit to MT to hear Midlife Chryslers

September - Our niece's wedding in Vail

October - Visit to Portland for VSP and family

November - Family Tradition Trip for Thanksgiving to Sonoma Coast

December - Seeing the lights go up in Union Square, San Francisco

and returning to snowy Montana for the holidays.

 

A Day in San Francisco

We got to spend one day walking around San Francisco and it was sunny and warm. We laced up our comfy walking shoes and took off. Here we walked around this canopy in Mint Plaza near our hotel (Intercontinenal SoMa) downtown.

Standing in line with the other devotees for a coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee in Mint Plaza.  This place takes their coffee very seriously!

Exploring the neighborhood around Sean's office.

Lunch in the Mission where burritos were born.....

Authentic Carnitas Arsada Tacos

The steeples of Mission Delores

Shopping at the infamous Bi-Rite Market with the crowds. Shoulder-to-shoulder through the tiny store packed floor to ceiling with gourmet wonders.

There's nothing that I enjoy more than exploring the nieghborhoods of a city on foot. So fun!

Sonoma, Russian River Valley, & Dry Creek Valley

This past week we rented a vacation home on the Russian River for Thanksgiving and spent a relaxing four days just hanging out and touring some of the areas finest wineries and dining at some of the most interesting restaurants. The weather cooperated too, and I have some nice photos to show in the coming weeks. Here's a sample. Stay tuned........

Because of the late afternoon sunshine, these photos are luscious!

Heading to San Francisco!

We're heading out today for a week in California with our sons. SO looking forward to this....being in the warmer weather, relaxing with nothing on our To-Do list, cooking a turkey dinner for everyone, touring some wineries, dinners at some great restaurants, playing some card games........

Photos to come soon...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!