Up early breakfasted and out at 8:15 for our trip to Muir
Woods NM. Thanks to Ben we knew about the required parking reservations and had
our parking permit ready to go, and also thanks to Ben (and Joan) we had a car.
Getting it out of the parking garage went smoothly and we were off to Muir
Woods, which allowed Josh to point out the Skywalker Ranch General Store for
the second time (he pointed it out on the way to B&J the day before as well).
Josh drove smoothly and carefully up the twisty roads so Jen and I didn’t have
any trouble. We found a nice route that was about 3.5 miles and really enjoyed
our hike.
Everyone else has been to Redwoods NP and apparently the redwoods
that we saw were on the small side, but we saw redwood burls and fairy rings or
family cicles, which they hadn’t seen in other places. Also lots of baby
redwood trees, also something that they hadn’t seen. Since this was my first
visit to redwoods, it was all new to me. I’ve put some information from the NPS
at the end of today’s blog if you want to know more.
We ate lunch at the Barrel House Tavern in Sausalito, which
had excellent views out one side and a mirror that made it look like they were
on the other side, too. The baked oyster appetizer was so delicious we had to
order a second one. Sadly the rest of the food was good but missing spice or
heat or acid, so fine but not worth going back to.
While at lunch we discussed
our plans for the rest of the day. The original plan was to meet Ben at the
Japanese Garden, but even though Josh never actually said out loud that he
wanted (really, really wanted) to go to the Skywalker Rance General Store, his excellent
wife understood what he wanted and suggested we accommodate him. It worked for
Ben to meet us there instead, so there we went. In case you don’t know, the
Skywalker Ranch General Store is at the headquarters of Lucasfilm, home of Star
Wars (among other things). Josh was beaming the whole time, and found several
things to bring home. Dave did not buy the Shakespearean versions of the Star
Wars stories, but he was tempted.
Ben arrived while we were checking out the Yoda fountain and the Lucasfilm lobby, and after getting over his horror that nobody but Dave knew who Philo Farnsworth was, he drove us back to the ship. We dropped off Dave, Josh and Jen, and then he and I drove to Swensen’s ice cream (note to self: the chocolate raspberry truffle is good, but the sticky peanut butter is better) and had some cone and sibling time. It’s never long enough.
He dropped me off at the ship just in time to join Jen for
trivia, although she might have been better off by herself – including our 3
bonus points we got only 9 out of 15 correct. She wrote 60%- D on the top in
her best teacher writing, but we had a good time anyway. I went to the cabin to
grab my computer and then joined Dave at the Tamarind Bar for a little
blogging. Then it was time for watching the cast off and going under the
bridge, which we managed to not get quite right and emerged onto the deck on 5
forward just after we’d passed under the bridge. We did have an excellent view
of Alcatraz earlier in the afternoon. I blame the Captain, who had announced
we’d be passing under the bridge 6:45 but it was closer to 6:20. We think he
might not actually be Dutch. (It turned out that he’d said 6:45 with an on-time
departure, but we ended up departing early, hence the early bridge-going-under.
He’s Dutch.)
To console ourselves we went down to the explorer lounge and
listened to Vivace, the classical duo of piano and violin. They were mostly
playing old pop favorites, but they were very good and we enjoyed ourselves.
Then it was time to go up for dinner – only our second
dinner in the dining room. Jen and I had the black bean soup, which 3 out of
the 4 of us thought was delicious. Josh is not a fan of bean soup so this
didn’t change his mind. I had eggplant cannelloni and was surprised to find
that the eggplant sheets were the cannelloni. While we were eating our dining
room section manager came over and I actually thought to ask him what kinds of
Port they serve on the ship (we’d asked many servers and gotten several answers),
and he sent over the sommelier, Jonathon,
who answered the question definitively by bringing over the bottles of
the three types they serve – all ruby, one of them an LBV style, if you’re
curious. Most of the excitement came with watching the beverage server take our
drinks to other peoples’ tables. In the spirit of exploration (we just did the
tasting on fortified wines at the winery) I ordered a glass of Harvey’s Bristol
Cream [sherry], and watched it be delivered to another table. Mine never came,
so I asked our server to cancel it, which caused the dining room section
manager to come over and encourage me to stay and drink it, which I said no to,
which probably made a black mark for the poor server, who is new. But it was
time to move on.
We moved on to the Ocean Bar where the Dam band was playing
jazzy music. Like most HAL bands they probably met a couple days before the
cruise but were tight and fun to listen to. Dave stayed until they finished
their set, but I went down to the Rolling Stone Lounge (formerly known as the
Queen’s lounge) and danced both my shoes off. There was a group of 10-15 women
and a couple reluctant spouses just boogieing our hearts out. It was super fun!
I danced until 11 and then was wide awake and sweaty until about midnight. In
case you’re wondering, my fitbit recorded 26,904 steps today.
About Redwoods:
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