San Francisco! 4 Parks in 1 Day! April 15-16

  We drove about 5 and a half hours north from L.A. though the amazing mountains and into the central valley. It was a beautiful, but gusty, day.
   We are staying in Emeryville, near Oakland at a Hilton Garden Inn that Mark got for a good price and...when we got here, they upgraded our room.

We are staying where the green dot is

   We are on a peninsula on Powell Street that goes into the bay. So, we walked down to see the sunset on our first night here. (About 2 miles round trip.)

Sunset from Powell Street, Emeryville over San Francisco Bay

    On our only full day (Saturday) we drove across the Bay Bridge. We drove to Dubose Park near Haight Street in order to surprise former student and Peer Support member, Keri Fishman. She had posted that she'd be volunteering for "Dogfest" for her sons' school. We got there early and she was not there yet, so we wandered down Haight Street and ate at  funky International Cafe where Barbara had a smoothie and Mark had eggs and a bagel.

Cafe International

     Then, we walked back and strolled up to Keri who was staffing the raffle table. Shockingly, she recognized us right away. We hugged and chatted for a few minutes. Keri does voice overs and has been the voice of Walmart and is still one of the voices of Pandora.

Squinting into the sun with Keri

       After that, we drove around Golden Gate Park, but everyone in San Francisco was out today having fun in the sun and we did not get a parking spot near the Botanical Garden. So, we decided to go toward Ocean Beach where we went to Lands End and walked a bit and looked out at the water. There were hundreds of volunteers sprucing up the park - mostly attacking invasive plants, but also painting curbing etc.
      

Panorama Shot from Lands End

Lands End

White-Crowned Sparrow

Golden Gate Bridge from Lands End

After that we were hungry. We tried to get parking on one side of Golden Gate Park, but couldn't find any, so we crossed the park to the other side and found another area of Chinese food and stores and ate a late lunch there.

    Then, we drove back into Golden Gate Park and still couldn't find parking by the Botanical Garden, so we gave up. We then went to the Presidio Park. The Presidio was the longest continually-run military base in the U.S. until it was decommissioned and it is now a park. We parked at the top and then drove down the hill and parked by a huge marina and watched a huge flotilla of sail boats coming back from a day of sailing. It was beautiful.

The flotilla under the bridge and coming back to port

Sailboats assault on Alcatraz!

Looking at San Francisco from the Marina

Both evenings we ate at the Hilton's Garden Restaurant and...surprisingly, it was very good and reasonable. Mark had wings each night and Barbara had a very good garden salad for just $6.00, full of interesting ingredients. We would love to have a few more days here, but...we don't.

Catching up with friends, April 14

   Today we started off the day with another fabulous breakfast.
   Sarah Poor came over to visit us at our bed and breakfast. We sat by the pool in the sun and talked for hours. We also walked up the street to get some take out food. It was so nice to catch up with her. She will be working backstage during the summer at a theater in Topango Canyon as well as doing her day job with Cheryl Fudge.

    After seeing Sarah we took off for Venice where we met with Mark Carapezza who lives in a studio apartment less than a block from the beach. Mark is busy doing many things, much focused around Magic Mark and his magic shows which he does for parties, but he also works with schools. Mark has been making himself healthy in the past few years, much of it via healthy juices, one of which he made for us. Then we went for coconut cream-based ice cream. No dairy, no sugar. Delicious. We hit major traffic (I-405) on the way back to Sherman Oaks, but managed.

  

Getty Villa, April 13

   Today we spent the entire day at Getty Villa, recommended to us by Scott A. It is free, but you have to get timed tickets on line and pay $15.00 to park.

Entrance to Getty Villa

    What an amazing day. The setting for the Villa is idyllic, overlooking the Pacific just south of Malibu. Getty got his idea from the House of the Papiri, a luxurious villa uncovered at Herculaneum.
The collection focuses on Etruscan, Greek and Roman antiquities. This is a day where photos are worth more than words.

Inside the atrium. In true Roman villas, the 2nd floor would have been windowless and used storage and/or where the servants lived.

Achilles and those who idolized him

Roman bust of an African boy

Outside the museum looking down at the amphitheater

Small bronze of Athena

Large statue of an athlete. This was found in the Adriatic in 1965 completely encased with coral and barnacles. They were not sure they would be able to save it, but they did after months of working on it with small scalpels.

Basilica

A ceiling with little birds

Peristyle (inner courtyard)

Mark in the East Garden

Mosaic fountain in the East Garden

Huge statue of Heracles with lion skin. This was one of Getty's favorite acquisitions.

Herb Garden with Grape Arbor

Mark outside the museum

Mark with the Pacific in the background

Portion of mosaic found in Antioch

Peristyle. Water has been turned off due to the drought.

Mark sitting in the sun in the Peristyle

Roman Woman, probably Flavius's  wife

We loved this statue; it looks so modern, but is one of the oldest pieces. It was found in the Aegean Cyclades Islands. All women with folded arms. The statues cannot stand on their own.

    

A taste of Hollywood - Universal Studios Back Lot, Elaine's Birthday Party, April 12th

   We started our day with a HUGE and delicious breakfast made by Ronit. Eggs, scones, muffins, fresh fruit.....So good.
    And, what a full day we had - a real Hollywood day and night.
    We drove to Universal Studios Backlot around noon, guests of Scott A., a former NHS student. It was a delightful and memorable day. Scott took us to lunch there, took us to his office and also for a little drive around the backlot. (Scott is private so I am using his last name.) We enjoyed seeing places we have seen on film, but more interesting than that was a glimpse of a whole other world. Scott has been involved with dozens of movies and it was fascinating to listen to his fascinating stories.

Props and facades

Lamp posts, signal lights, anyone?

Streets on the backlot

Behind us: Back to the Future City Hall

       The day continued with us driving into West Hollywood to meet at Connie and Ted's fish restaurant. The ride down Laurel Canyon Road in the dark was an event in itself - twisty road! (And, of course, Mark repeated the feat afterwards.) We were invited to help celebrate Elaine Mongeon's 39th birthday. It was terrific to see Elaine and her partner, Glen.
       Glen has a documentary film being shown in two days at the Tribeca Film Festival and they are leaving tomorrow a.m. for that.
     Elaine's birthday was celebrated by a creative group of friends. Mark and I enjoyed listening to their stories.
       Plus, Chris Kinsella, a former CPS student who we both taught in the 7th grade, was also there. Chris works in reality tv.
       We enjoyed listening to Iron Mountain archives from a woman, Amy, who works with studios on their archives. She goes out there several times a year, goes underground and works on those archives, especially musical ones. Iron Mountain is a private company that offers secure places for archives and storage. They have storage locations in several spots, but the best well-known one is a high-security facility in a former limestone mine in Boyers, Pennsylvania. Bill Gates stores his Corbin photographic collection in a refrigerated cave 220 feet underground. The U.S. government also leases space in another cavern to store personnel records.
      We also sat next to a guy named Scott who is directing his first full-length film which he hopes will be out this summer. He does not yet have a name for it.
     And, Elaine is working hard on a book as she has a contract for a 2-book deal, besides her day job in film production.

Elaine, Amy, Glen

Mark and Chris

Sherman Oaks Bed and Breakfast, April 11th

  Today we moved from Redondo Beach, south of L.A. to Sherman Oaks, north of L.A.
  We are staying at the Life is Good Bed and Breakfast run by a Hungarian woman and an Israeli man. We were supposed to stay in the small room in the main house, but because they did not have anyone in the big room in the garden, they put us there for the same price. It is a 400 square foot room complete with fridge, microwave, coffee maker and washer and dryer. Our room has a slider that opens to the pool. Very nice.
   We ate at a Habit burger for lunch which we quite like. I had an ahi tuna salad and Mark had a burger.
    We sat by the pool all afternoon and went to a fast food shwarma place for dinner. A relaxing day.

Front yard of the B and B