A simply great day...

I woke up this morning and drove out to Palo Alto to pick up my friend Peter at Stanford. We explored campus and marveled at how many bikers lived in Palo Alto. I must have seen at least 200.

Next stop was the San Francisco Academy of Sciences. It was very crowded, but we managed to walk through the whole place and still leave time for Happy Hour at Fisherman's Wharf.

We pulled up the Diners, Drive-ins and Dives app and it pointed us in the direction of Pier 23 where we got some oysters and drinks before heading over to North Beach.

We walked from the wharf all the way up to the top of Telegraph Hill via a garden ensconced staircase that looked like something out of the Secret Garden. We got some pics from the top of the observation tower an then we walked around North Beach a while trying to figure out where to eat.

Finally, we rolled into Park Tavern and magically sat down for dinner without reservations and without waiting for more than 15 min.

Our meal was pretty spectacular. Fried Zucchini flowers, Duck liver moose, Brussels sprouts, Pork chops, deviled eggs, etc. Everything was perfect.

After dinner, we made a little pit stop at the 21st Amendment Brewery before I dropped Peter off at the airport to fly home.

So the exciting news that I was waiting to tell everyone was that I was planning on picking up and flying to Bangkok tomorrow night. I got a call from two friends in Rome and they were thinking off flying out there for a couple days and wanted me to meet them. It sounded like a brilliant idea, but upon further investigation ended up not working. Bangkok is apparently in the middle of Monsoon season and the flight expenses were prohibitive for my friends (The flight from San Fran wasn't actually that bad at $1,400).

Nevertheless, the concept of picking up and flying somewhere is still really interesting. So I'm going to poll the audience on this one. I've planned out 3 trips that will cost me less than $1,500 and can realistically be done between Tuesday and Sunday of this upcoming week. Which one should I do?

1) Seattle, WA
Flight and Four Seasons Hotel will come in well under $1,500.

2) Maui, HI
Flight is $500 and 1 bedroom villa at 4 star resort will run me $950 for 4 nights.

3) Marbella, Spain
Flight is $1300 and my friends have lodging covered until Saturday.

Any thoughts?

P.S. For those of you that have just tuned in, I'm on a cross country road trip until Labor Day weekend. I have nowhere to be and nothing to do. I left my job on June 1st and I start my new job on September 15th. My goal is to just go where the winds take me. Another goal is to climb as many state high points as I can along the way.

P.P.S. If I take the trip to Hawaii, I'll be able to bag Mauna Kea, the HI High point.