This afternoon I headed out to a local coffee shop with my laptop, hoping to get some caffeine and start working on the Commuter Challenge web site for this year. Four coffee shops later I ended up back at home. Each one was overflowing. It looks like Kansas Citians were ready for a collective break from the cold and were swarming Westport and the Plaza.
Michelle I and just got home from and awesome vacation in California. First we flew into LA to hang out with Adina for a few days. This was Michelle’s first time in California, so we made sure to do some of the tourist highlights like Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the wax museum, etc. We also put in some beach time in Santa Monica and Venice. One of our best excursions was stalking the Playboy Mansion, even though we saw no Playmates coming or going. We had two awesome meals in El Segundo - breakfast at Mandy’s on Main Street and dinner at a great Mexican place across the street.
After LA we headed north to San Francisco via Amtrak’s Coast Starlight train, which has amazing views of the California coast and mountains. I highly recommend you take this train trip at some point in your life, and if you can, go back again to drive the coast highway through Big Sur. The train trip takes about 10 hours, which is faster than driving up the coast.
San Francisco is of course awesome. It’s full of hippies and yuppies and geeks and homeless and Asians and is a real city yet very humanly scaled. Again, we had some awesome food. Matt gave us an excellent recommendation for Pizza Orgasmica, a brewery/pizza joint in the Richmond district. It was hard to come home to one of the snowiest Decembers in the history of Missouri.
Anyway, here are some vacation photos.
Once again taking a cue from Kottke, here are the places I went in 2007. Where did you go? The only rule is to list cities where you spent at least one night.
Chicago, IL - recap
Denver, CO
Boulder, CO
Estes Park, CO Colorado repcap/photos
Omaha, NE - recap/photos
St. Louis, MO (twice)
Columbia, MO
Jefferson City, MO (twice)
Springfield, MO
Holt’s Summit, MO
Dear Interweb Tubes,
Next week Michelle and I are heading to California for a week, and we are looking for things to put on our agenda, especially in California. We’re starting out in LA by staying with Adina in El Segundo, near LAX. Then we are taking the Coast Starlight train up to San Francisco for the second half of the trip, where we will be staying on Van Ness between Pacific Heights and Nob Hill. It’s Michelle’s first trip to either city, and only my second.
Thanks in advance.
Your Pal,
Eric
