Christmas in California

Oh, the weather is truly delightful! Sure beats the weather in Pennsylvania, that's for sure. Unless you'd actually rather have snow, ice and cold. Which I don't. Prefer that is. I got awfully lucky on plane tickets. It was actually cheaper to fly into my small hometown airport (after changing planes in San Francisco), than to fly into San Francisco and get off the plane there. Unbelievable, but true. And while late leaving every airport, we still managed to catch an earlier flight into Modesto and arrived there several hours earlier than scheduled! While descending into SF, the flight attendant announced the gates for those trying to catch a connecting flight. And mentioned a flight into Modesto. We found the gate and asked if we could go stand by on this flight instead of catching the flight in three hours. They had just finished boarding and had several empty seats, so we were able to hop right on.

I think we've had Mexican food almost daily. There is not any decent Mexican food that I have found in PA, so we're tried to get ou fill while we could.

After arriving on Thursday, my son Pete let me know that he didn't have to work Friday if we wanted to come to SF for the day. So off we went again. Caught BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from the Dublin/Pleasanton station. BART sure makes to drive into the bay area nice. Bob hadn't ever been to SF. So we rode the cable cars down to the wharf and strolled along there. Went to Pier 39 and watched the sea lions. Gazed upon the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Walked through Ghiradelli square, took in an art gallery and tried going to MOMA. But since we got there 45 minutes before they close, we chose not to go. And then at sandwiches on fantastic sour dough bread.

Now, all this time, Bob has seen me try sour dough bread. Take a bite, and then throw it down in disgust saying that it's just not any good. After eating SF sour dough bread, he now has to agree with me. Just nothing compares, that's for sure.

Christmas was quiet and filled with family. The perfect day for a holiday that can be filled with such stress and tension. Because that was at someone else's house, not ours.

Oh! And I got to see my two best friends from when we were growing up. The three of us lived within 5 houses along our street. So I popped into one of the mom's houses on Christmas eve. She said she'd try not to tell them I was in town and to come over Christmas morning once I saw all the cars. What fun! We cried and hugged and chattered away like it had been yesterday since we were last together. One of them has a picture, so I can't wait to get a copy.

In fact, I think I'll be sure to drop off my phone number and email just in case. It would be good for someone else to have that info in case it gets lost.

Christmas with family and best friends from childhood. Truly doesn't get any better.