Food, Posters and Cats in Nashville

After a cheap night of camping at a state park in Kansas, we drove for what seemed like ages until we reached Nashville, eager to get out of the car. We pulled up to our friends’ house in the Germantown neighborhood just as the sun was making its descent, painting the sky in oranges, yellows and reds. We were excited to visit, especially after hearing from another friend that it is “the best city in America!” - this coming from a guy who rarely uses superlatives. We decompressed a bit at Andrew and Emily's house and met their two cats before heading out to dinner.

By the time we sat down at our table, we’d memorized our order: bone marrow, beet salad, and the pork loin entree. So tasty! Especially the (vegetarian) beet salad.

Jeni's ice cream

The next morning, we went to the huge, year-round Nashville Farmer’s Market, featuring tons of local (and not-so-local) fresh fruit and vegetables, pickled and jarred products, and pretty much anything else one could want. Our attention was railroaded by the peaches everywhere, which seemed to be calling our name, so even though they hailed from Idaho, we loaded up with about two pounds and started brainstorming recipes.

Next, we hit up the historical strip downtown, intent on visiting the world-famous Hatch Show Prints shop. This group has been typesetting and printing local concert posters for decades, with a recognizable style all their own. Inside, it was dark and smelled like oil-based ink, the walls covered floor to ceiling with a mix of awesome vintage and contemporary prints. We were both instantly overwhelmed and inspired, captivated by the subdued grandiosity of the operation. Walking around in awed silence, we took it all in while our creative urges came to a rolling boil. This Nashville institution is an inspiration, to say the least.

There were also two super-happy if somewhat overweight cats lounging in the sunny windows behind some prints for sale. In fact, the cats were the centerpiece on a recent Hatch print, and boast their own hashtag: #hatchcats. Adorable and hip. We didn’t end up buying any original prints since we're technically homeless, but we did pick up a t-shirt and a postcard.

Back on the east side, we met Emily for lunch at Five Points Pizza. We each got a slice, split a salad, and splurged big-time on some garlic knots - garlicky dough twisted up into fist-sized knots - served with a tomato sauce dip. Apparently this place is fairly new but is already getting raving reviews. We agree with the praise!

Across the street, we browsed a row of cool shops, including a tiny, well-curated menswear store called Hello Boys, where Kristen bought Loren a belated birthday present: a pair of tie clips, which she’d been on the hunt for.

Before leaving the area, we popped into Bongo Java Roasting Company, a Nashville staple that takes pride in roasting coffee beans in-house and serving delicious caffeinated concoctions. The chalkboard specials, we came to find out, are invented and voted on by their own staff members. Loren got a special pumpkin-spice iced espresso, and Kristen got the regs (black iced coffee).

It was a quick yet fabulous visit to Music City, and we can’t wait to come back (and hopefully see Andrew next time too!) Thanks for the southern hospitality, Emily!

Lunch in Denver

With barely two hours to spare in Denver, we beelined for the hip LoHi neighborhood, another stop on our could-we-live-here tour. LoHi, so-called because it encompasses the lower stretches of Highland, was beckoning us with its foodie haven small restaurants and bungalow houses. We’d been through here once before during Kristen’s business trip back in February, but this time we couldn't wait to sample some of the local fare.

So we got straight to business, settling down at Linger restaurant just in time before the kitchen closed during the lull between lunch and dinner. After noticing sweet potato waffle fries on the menu, we knew we’d arrived at the right place. In addition to the dream-come-true sweet potato goodness, our lunch consisted of braised goat tacos, and a delicious and beautiful salad.

Sweet potato waffle fries at Linger

Goat tacos with feta, cucumber-red onion slaw, dill, mint & chimichurri

Crispy lentil salad with goat cheese, gala apples, and pistachio paste!

We stopped in a coffeshop around the corner where we ordered some energy to go before winding through the neighborhood, checking out potential properties. While Denver isn’t quite Boulder, it still seems like a great place to live.

And from there, we turned east with our sights set on Kansas, where we’d hope to camp. Colorado, we hope to see you (and your prairie dogs) again soon!

Boulder, We Love You

During our stay in Colorado, we made Broomfield our home-base due to its central location between Boulder and Denver. Plus, it's where Loren’s friend from middle school, Jordan, lives in a spacious apartment. A few hours after we arrived, the air mattress was beckoning to us, partially owing to our climbing extravaganza a few hours earlier. And once we started sleeping it was hard to stop! We woke around 11am, still feeling like it had to be 8ish, and quickly got movin’.

Our mission for the day was to see as much of Boulder as possible and to scope out potential areas where we might want to live. Checking out Trulia searches (for rentals) in every neighborhood we drove through, we quickly realized that Boulder is a pricy place to live. Makes sense, because it seems like one of the best places in the country.

We also wanted to check out a nearby town called Longmont, which is about 15 minutes northeast of Boulder. While in our opinion Longmont is a tad in the wrong direction (um, hello? the mountains and outdoor Meccas are to the west!), we totally fell in love with the quaint and historic-looking neighborhoods that are WAY more affordable than their Boulder equivalents. Paying a visit to a bulk foods store on the main strip in Longmont, we again stocked up with some roadtrip-friendly noshing foods, and then made our way back to Boulder.

Bulk food store in Longmont, Colorado

Any visit to Boulder is not complete without a stroll down Pearl Street, which is dotted with hip restaurants, bars, outdoor outfitters, knick knack stores, and performing street musicians. By then, we were ready for lunch and our timing couldn’t have been more perfect - it was happy hour! Grabbing seats outside at a restaurant called Hapa Sushi, we enjoyed a few appetizers and some fruity sake in the warm afternoon sun. We normally love raw fish, but instead opted to save some dough by ordering the half-priced happy hour fare, which was nonetheless delicious.

Chicken skewers at Hapa Sushi

Grilled shrimp at Hapa Sushi

Pork wraps

Afterward, we continued down the strip and landed in a Fro-yo and mochi shop called Smooch, but ended up ordering a delicious homemade coconut lemongrass popsicle. Gotta try that recipe someday with our popsicle molds! Next, we found a European market called Bayleaf that was a wonderland of chocolates, specialty foods, and beautiful books, among other things. We instantly noticed a huge display of our favorite brand of chocolate, Chocolove, which is made just a few miles away in Boulder. For a couple years we have been buying their almond and sea salt dark chocolate. But, this shop boasted a flavor we'd never seen - we found out the chocolate bar is named after the store (the only place it's sold), and that it's almost the same as our favorite bar but with the addition of toffee. Of course we picked up a bar to try later.

Chocolove Rainbow at Bayleaf in Boulder

For dinner, we met up with our host at Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery, a microbrewery on Pearl Street. The beers are made here and only served in-house. They were fantastic, and so were the burgers we ate to soak it up!

Mountain Sun Brewery

We had a great stay in Boulder, which confirmed our previous ideas that we could (and should) live here. Awesome mountains that offer climbing by summer and snowboarding by winter, a great food scene with emphasis on local and sustainable ingredients, a small-town feel supplanted by the University... what more could one want?

Bozeman and More Family Time

Kristen is lucky enough to have family in the beautiful city of Bozeman, Montana, which is where her mom grew up and most of the family has remained. Who can blame them? It is a stunning outdoorsy town which has maintained a lot of the historic sites and neighborhoods that make it a gem. Plus, it’s perfectly located a few hours from, arguably, the best national parks in the country: Glacier, Yellowstone, and Tetons. Also, the weather started changing for the better the closer we got to Bozeman, such that when we arrived we were greeted with a warm sun. Our first stop was Grandma Ruth’s old house, which is where Kristen’s mom grew up, and is just down the road from the elementary school they attended (which now is home to artist studios and galleries, we’re told). If and when that house goes on the market, we’d consider buying it - no joke.

Grandma Ruth's house - This is where Kristen's mom grew up!

We unpacked our stuff into Kristen’s cousin’s house, set up the tent to air out and cleaned up and got ready just in time to get together with the rest of the family. Loren finally got to meet Aunt Roxie, Uncle Jack, (cousin) Jess, her husband Carl and their two adorable kids, Annie and Eric, and enjoyed dinner together on Bozeman's historic downtown strip at Bacchus Pub.

Kristen ordered her standard fish and chips, while Loren got to enjoy a burger with avocado and bacon. We also splurged and ordered moscow mules, delicious cocktails with vodka, ginger beer, and lime. It was great catching up with the family, and they gave us some insider tips on other good spots to check out in the area.

Once we got home, we were all a bit sleepy. We stayed up long enough to catch the tail end of Obama’s DNC speech, and then retired to bed, happy to be inside and under a down comforter!

Even with intentions of waking early, we slept in a tad and had just enough time to have coffee and some homemade molasses oatmeal bread before riding the family cruiser bikes down the street to Roxie and Jack’s house, a quaint bungalow that they’ve restored beautifully. Roxie, Jess, and the kids had to head over to MSU to meet with an entomologist to identify a spider they'd found in Roxie's basement (turned out, their fears were warranted: it was a hobo spider, which delivers some nasty venom known to cause necrosis)!

Aunt Roxie and Uncle Jack

Spider in a jar

From there, we rode to the Cafe Francais des Arts, where we enjoyed another caffeine boost and split a crepe with egg, ham and onions (sans fromage). To wrap up our Main Street tour, we made a quick stop at the Vargo’s Jazz City & Books store (no photos allowed) and then a trip to The Co-op grocery store to stock up for the road.

Breakfast Crepe

By the time we got back to Jess’s house, it was much later than we’d planned for. We had a bit of fun with the kids on the trampoline, and then hugged everyone goodbye. We hit the road, thinking what a great place Bozeman seems for raising a family. Yep, we could definitely live here!

Eric and Annie on the trampoline

Fun on the trampoline

Jess and the kids

Thanks so much for having us, Jess!

Seattle's Seafood (and Starbucks)

Well past the halfway point of our road trip (working towards a Sept 15 deadline), we knew we had to get to our next big destination as quickly as possible. That meant, unfortunately, that we could only spend a couple of hours in super cool Seattle, which probably has a lot more to offer than we could manage.

Ferry to Seattle

We took the ferry from Bainbridge Island into Seattle, and immediately hit up Pike Place Market. An incredible year-round indoor market, Pike Place has dozens of fresh farmer stands, fish vendors (including the famous fish throwers), and artisans. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived but crowds of people still filled the walkways. We’d move to Seattle just to have daily access to this amazing market.

Seattle Pike Place, Public Market

Pikes Place, Seattle, Loback Meat Co

We were itching to try some fresh seafood, so we strolled into Lowell’s, a 3-story restaurant and longtime Pike Place fixture. Kristen ordered her standard fare of Fish n chips, while Loren couldn’t resist trying Seattle’s famed dungeness crabcakes and veggies. Both dishes hit the spot.

Lowell's crab cakes

Lowell's fish and chips

Even though we aren’t great lovers of Starbucks, we had to stop in at the flagship location, just up the street from Pike Place. We were baited into trying the “clover” brew machine for one Pike Place coffee, and decided to compare it with the regular-brew. There was certainly a difference - clover was much more bold - but all Starbucks coffee seems characteristically dark and possibly over-roasted in flavor. The flagship Starbucks was a really nice space, but we couldn’t dawdle. By 7pm, we were on the road continuing east as far as we could make it.

Original Starbucks Seattle

Around midnight, we’d arrived at the Idaho state line, and made a desperate call to the Hampton Inn, where we got a government rate room and happily arrived 30 minutes or so later in Coeur D’Alene. Yes, it was a bit of a splurge compared to camping, but after 6 straight nights of tent sleep, we could use the comforts of indoor life. It gave us the chance to do a bit of laundry (that’s right, Kristen did all of the laundry by hand in the bathroom sink, not realizing that there were laundry machines that took a few quarters near the lobby) and utilize more wifi before hitting the hay around 2am.

We awoke early to scavenge the complimentary breakfast pickings multiple times, stocking up on bananas, apples, oranges, hard-boiled eggs, yogurts, and teas, before continuing Northeast to our most awaited stop: Glacier National Park.

Foodcation in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon, the city that takes great pride in its weirdness, was a must-visit city on this trip, even though we’d both been a couple of times previously. This time around, we decided that we would focus on sampling the great food Portland has to offer, thanks in part to an article we’d just seen in the latest Bon Appetit. Plus, we really only had an afternoon’s time to spare.

Our first stop was lunch at Cultured Caveman, Portland’s first paleo food cart, something Loren had read about a few times and was dying to sample. If you don’t know, paleo is a way of eating that is modeled on our ancestors’ diets, which excludes grains, legumes, dairy and excess sugar, and instead focuses on veggies, meat, poultry, fish, nuts, seeds, healthy fats and some fruit. We ordered three different menu items for some variety, including a small kale salad, bacon almond dates, and sweet potato fries with homemade ketchup. Super tasty and healthy.

Cultured Caveman, paleo food cart

Bacon almond dates, kale salad

Sweet potato fries

After posting a photo of the cart on Instagram, Loren found out that it was International Bacon Day. This was fun news (for us, every day is bacon day), and we’d already had bacon in two meals by that time: we cooked our breakfast eggs in bacon fat, and we’d had delicious bacon-wrapped dates for lunch. Our excitement about the official Bacon Day was echoed when we told the paleo food cart owner, from which a quick foodie conversation ensued. On her recommendation (albeit not paleo at all), we set off down the street for a splurge at a little ice cream shop called Salt & Straw.

Salt & Straw ice cream

They have a cool handmade look and feel, along with really unique flavor combinations rooted in seasonal, local ingredients, and the whole shebang did not disappoint one bit. We got one scoop of the guest Chef’s special, a kaffir lime and lemongrass ice cream with fish sauce caramel (salty-sweet bliss for Kristen), and a scoop of the honey balsamic strawberry with cracked pepper for Loren. Sooo yummy.

Honey Balsamic Strawberry with Cracked Pepper / Kaffir Lime & Lemongrass Fish Sauce Caramel

Next we headed to the Nob Hill neighborhood (why are all cool neighborhoods called Nob Hill?) for a pick-me-up caffeine charge and a chance to blog. We sat at the little cafe called Fat Straw, which specializes in bubble tea and bahn mi. We would have loved to try the bahn mi but only had room for beverages and wifi. We each got a cup of flavored iced tea, which they make with coconut milk (dairy-free!). Kristen promptly spilled half of hers on the floor, after which fierce blogging ensued.

The Portland food tour continued at a popular Thai place called Pok Pok and which we read about in Bon Appetit. Pok Pok is nestled a few miles from downtown in a more residential area that seems to be an up and coming neighborhood. Even at 5pm, we were quoted at a 1hr 45min wait, which we weathered while sipping cocktails at the restaurant’s bar across the street, called Whiskey Soda Lounge.

Whiskey Soda Lounge

We were super intrigued at their list of tasting vinegars, and the cocktail Loren adopted as his poison had tequila with Som honey drinking vinegar, fresh-squeezed grapefruit and lime. It was super tasty. Kristen’s drink was called Khing & I, made with Mekhong (Thai whiskey), lime and ginger syrup.

Whiskey Soda Lounge - Tequila with Som honey drinking vinegar, fresh-squeezed grapefruit and lime

We were notified that our table was ready just in time to save Kristen from ordering another drink, so we went back across the street and sat down to a delicious dinner. The unique plates are not your normal Thai dishes, but deliciously different creations that are inspired by Thai street-vendor fare, Chiang Mai (Northern) cuisine, or Burmese cuisine, to name a few. The server explained most menu items are meant to be shared, so at his instruction we felt okay about ordering three plates: a duck dish, a pork belly dish, and the most popular dish: the spicy fish-sauce chicken wings. Even though we’d only just begun to scratch the surface after half an hour, we were both stuffed, so we packaged up the wings and felt good about leaving Portland before overdoing it.

Pok Pok

Pok Pok - duck, pork and chicken

But... We caved, and couldn’t pass up one last stop along our Portland culinary extravaganza, this time for dessert. Voodoo Doughnuts is a super-hipster Portland mainstay (its tagline is “good things come in pink boxes”), which has become a tourist destination; when we drove by their flagship location near Burnside Bridge downtown, there were at least a hundred excited patrons lined up down the sidewalk (similar to Georgetown Cupcake in DC).

Voodoo Doughnuts

Luckily Kristen remembered that they have a second location. We ended up waiting in line for a shorter amount of time than it took for us to decide from the dozens of doughnut kinds. We eventually settled on two: one chocolate cake doughnut with pink frosting, topped with coconut and peanut butter; the other a large rectangular doughnut topped with maple frosting and bacon. (Yes, bacon! Remember, it was International Bacon Day! We were just doing our part.) Mmmm, sugary fried gluten, so unhealthy but so delicious! We could only handle a few nibbles each, and then re-wrapped them, adding the package to our cache of leftovers for later consumption. It’s kind of ironic how healthy the day started off, but how easily we slipped off the bandwagon into progressively more unhealthy splurges. Well, you only live once.

Coconut peanut butter and maple bacon

We had our eyes on our next big destination, Olympic National Park, so we drove into the night, crossing into Washington state, and eventually found ourselves a campsite at Lewis & Clark State Park for the night. It was pretty standard, though we swear a nearby campground neighbor may have been the lead singer of the Kings of Leon - some guy was belting songs out so confidently and perfectly, we sat back and wondered if it could be him. Though, our next-door neighbor wasn’t quite so happy: their 10-ish-year old son comically said, “Quiet down now” in a southern accent just loud enough for us to hear.

Welcome to Oregon

With the prospects of exploring a new state, we crossed our first state line in 15 days and were filled with excitement as we made it into Oregon. First up on our agenda was a stop at Crater Lake.

The deep, rich blue colors that emanate out of Crater Lake seem otherworldly, and it’s pretty mind-boggling that the beautiful lake was born out of a catastrophic geological turn of events. What is now calm, placid lake water was once a mountaintop that exploded in a volcanic eruption, creating a caldera that is as deep as the sheer cliffs surrounding the lake are high. It’s America’s deepest lake, and it seems as though the underwater ecosystem remains rather mysterious even to this day, with few expeditions into the deep blue lake to chart the strange creatures at the bottom.

We explored a few overlooks and hiked up to a few vistas, and it was beautiful. From one spot, there were so many grasshoppers out that it sounded like the tic-tic-tic-tic-trrrrrrrr of sprinklers. At another spot, neon chartreuse-colored moss balls clung to dead trees and rolled around on the ground, seemingly looking for another home. The tiny pinecones were also rather endearing. After a few different vantage points, we kept on trucking further into unknown territory, a city we've been planning to visit for a long time...

Bend, Oregon, is a charming little outdoorsy town that could definitely end up being a relocation destination. This part of Oregon is sheltered from the coastal rainy weather by the mountains, so it therefore enjoys better weather (which has been a drawback to a few of the places on our relocation list) than much of the state. It’s also very close to skiing (Mount Baker), and a couple of hours from Eugene and Portland. We stocked up at REI - Loren replacing some age-old khaki pants that were at least 3 sizes too big for him with some better camping pants which he may have found in the boy’s department (it’s not easy finding 28x28s or men’s XS).

While driving to the downtown area, we passed the cyclepub and kicked ourselves for not having the camera ready. It’s exactly as it sounds: a pub that’s on wheels, with patrons all facing in on each other pedaling to move the pub from one spot to the next. Drunk cyclists? not really - the contraption appeared to be commandered by a sober coxwain-type, facing forward at the back of the thing.

So we parked and mosied our way around the historic downtown parts, window shopping at a few closed stores (it was after normal business hours), before sitting down for dinner at a cute restaurant called Zydeco Cafe. True to Oregon style, this restaurant focuses on high-quality, organic, sustainable, local foods, and the food was a treat from our couple of nights in a row of campfire meals.

Bend, Oregon - Zydeco

Loren’s dish was wild boar! Absolutely delicious. Kristen’s dish was a safe steak, which was also mouth-wateringly yummy. What made both dishes even more memorable was the roasted veggies side - butternut squash, green beans, peppers, and pearl onions - we couldn’t have done it better!

We drove through a couple of sleepy neighborhoods after dinner, even though it was dark, which confirmed our suspicion that we could see ourselves living in this quaint town. Then we headed for the hills, where we found a campsite at a National Wilderness area. We set everything up in the dark and quickly retreated to our sleeping bags.

Camping outside of Bend

Farewell, San Francisco!

Tuesday, our last morning in San Fran, we found ourselves in yet another beautiful, sunny, warm day. We were itching for just one more culinary treat to satisfy our SF sampling, so we drove over to the Marina district for one lunch at Umami Burger.

Umami Burger

This preppy burger establishment is known for its use of savory flavors on its burgers, and for dressing them up a bit more than your average burger joint. They also recommend you not alter any of the burger toppings for each menu option. We split a burger and splurged a bit to split some truffled cheese skinny fries. It was a great lunch, not too much, not too little, though also not too memorable.

From there, we left San Francisco behind, stopping at the Golden Gate Bridge overlook and Marin Headlands for one last look at the city, the bay, and all of the greatness contained on that peninsula.

Ramen in San Francisco

Monday, Kristen did some much-needed laundry while Loren researched a bit for San Francisco’s best ramen houses. You see, we’ve recently become mildly obsessed with good ramen, the kind with homemade noodles and complex broth with flavor depth that keeps going and going... So, with a name in mind, we set out for Katana-ya Ramen, rumored to be representative of authentic ramen. We were totally stoked.

Fried chicken ramen at Katana-ya

Katana-ya is a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, with no frills. They had slightly more options on the menu than we were expecting, including different kinds of broth bases (soy, miso, salt) which we could order Light, Regular or Rich. Loren ordered the salt broth, rich, with bbq pork; Kristen ordered the miso broth, rich, with fried chicken.

While we were happy to eat the warm, cozy soup, it didn’t quite live up to our expectations. The biggest disappointment was the broth, which didn’t have the same kind of oomph we were used to. What can we say? Chef Erik’s ramen at Toki Underground in DC has set the bar high.

Brunch Village Sunday

We were all a bit slow to rise on Sunday morning, and by noon had barely gotten our names onto the Outerlands multi-page brunch wait list before they stopped accepting names. Knowing we’d have quite a wait ahead of us but not quite sure what we’d gotten ourselves into, we paid a visit to the nearby Trouble Coffee Company. (They didn’t allow Kristen to photograph the place... boo!) Not only with delicious coffee, Trouble has delicious-looking pastries, cookies, and the mother of all, texas toast.

Cinnamon Texas Toast and Coffee from Trouble Coffee Company

We sipped our gourmet blends and nibbled on buttery cinnamon toast just outside of Trouble at one of San Francisco’s Parklets, a section of parallel parking spots that have been converted into a mini-park. We love this idea: stores/cafes/bars/etc can petition for the city to purchase parking spots outside of their storefronts to turning the spaces into public mini-park. This one had beautiful natural wood benches, and was a perfect spot to enjoy our pre-brunch snack.

Mini-park in reclaimed parallel parking spot (aka Parklet)

That is, until we stepped into the General Store, which is possibly the coolest store we’d ever seen, with handmade knick knacks, letterpress cards, ceramics, terrariums, knitted goods, books, architectural magazines... it was so easy to get lost in the store, feeling inspired by all of the amazing objects on the display shelves. Kristen ached for her knitting needles, taking mental note of some of the excellent ideas on display at the store.

The General Store

Eventually snapping out of it and leaving without actually purchasing anything, which was a feat in itself, we perched just outside of the cafe for another hour or so, until we were finally called. It was sometime in the mid-afternoon by that point, and we’d probably waited about 3 hours, which was not unlike the “brunch village” skit from Portlandia. At least it was sunny and warm outside!

We sat down with reinvigorated appetites as the menus slid before us. Rather than OD on caffeine, Kristen opted for the hot ginger cider spiked with bourbon, which tasted like fall and got her feeling ready for the seasons to change already. She ordered the fried egg an open-faced sandwich with gruyere with a nice little salad as well. For Loren, eggs in jail (aka frog in a hole). Everything was yummy, and the we marveled at the decor, which included an indulgent woodsy touch and a fabulous swirly driftwood bar. It was dreamy.

Brunch table

Outerlands interior

After brunch, we continued to revel in the good weather, and drove down the street to the shore. We’re not sure how this could be possible, but it actually seemed warmer on the San Francisco beach than it did on San Diego’s beach. Maybe this SanFran beach was special: it was, after all, the site of the original Burning Man festival... so maybe the ghosts of burning man’s past keep the sands extra warm?

Is this San Francisco?

Sean and Ellen dropped us at the DeYoung museum, with about 20 minutes to spare before the museum closed (Sunday...). We were able to ride the elevator up to see the beautiful 360 degree views of the Golden Gate Park and surrounds on the upper deck – free and open to the public. Once we were kicked out, we decided to set off on what ended up being a pretty long walk through the park and out to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

DeYoung observation deck

While museums may have been closing prematurely on that Sunday afternoon, Haight-Ashbury was coming to life. We joined the crowds of people slowly moving past the flamboyant storefronts, adding to the traffic jams here and there to snap a few photos. When we realized we were short on time, we hopped a bus to head back toward Russian Hill, where we’d again meet with our hosts for dinner.

But first, we made a mistake and hopped off the bus a bit too early and found ourselves in the exact wrong part of the SOMA neighborhood, alongside junkies and homeless people babbling nonsense. Kristen was in full blinder mode and we walked with purpose to get the heck out of there. What can we say? San Francisco is a big city, so it’s bound to have some riffraff.

We made it home in time for the dinner party, which Chef Ellen (she’s a chef) had prepared for a group which all knows each other courtesy of the Pappas Group (Loren’s former employer). After catching up, we enjoyed a veg risotto with stone fruit salad, topped off with bread pudding and washed down with some beer and wine. We are still kicking ourselves that we didn't take any photos....