OCTOBER 1999
We spent 2 months in San Francisco. Two of the weeks were spent back in Seattle finishing up some unfinished business and driving down highway 101 in our cars to San Francisco. Two of the weeks were spent in Iowa visiting my family. While I was home my Brother Brad drove me to Madison Wisconsin to visit an old friend. Then we stopped at Taliesan in Spring Green on the way home. This was the summer home and estate of Frank Lloyd Wright. It consisted of 600 acres and several buildings that we were allowed to tour. Once back in the San Francisco area we did a lot of exploring of the area. We took a two-day trip to Yosemite National Park. What a spectacular place. We took many days trips to places around the area such as Sasulito, Burlingame and Berkley. We found some great parks for hiking, which had big ucliptous trees. We went to Napa Valley to visit some wineries. We were prepared to taste all kinds of wines, but when we got there it was sad to find out that each taste was 3 to 8 dollars a taste. I guess that cuts down on drunk driving and tasting. In all we had a pretty good time in the San Francisco area but the weather is turning and we have other places to explore. We got a lot of boat chores done and got the all-important single side band radio installed. This is what we will get our email service through. We finally planned for a day to leave, but alas the weather turned nasty. Huge swells (WAVES) were reported off the cost. Some 60 feet high. Surfers from all over were converging on the area to ride the giant waves. One was killed and another women was swept off the beach in Monoray. We also hear a coast guard report of a missing sail boater that had called for help. He had been demasted and was lost. Apparently was never found. They searched for several weeks before they gave up the search. We decided to wait until the giant swells from this storm subsided. Our departure was delayed about a week, but that was ok. I was able to go check out a few more places. I drove up to Gurneville California to a state park. This is where Marguerite Wildenhain lived and had her pottery school Pond Farm. This is where Dean Schwarz my teacher went to school. Marguerite was trained at the Bauhaus in Germany. They had a nice memorial up in her honor about the school. Then I spent another day going over to Marin County to see the Marin Civic Center. This was another famous Frank Lloyd Wright building that he designed when he was 88! It was really an interesting building. It was open when I got there so I was able to go in and walk around. Then I went to Mount Tam, the birthplace of mountain biking and my Marin Mountain bike. Boy was I wishing I had mine as I drove around this beautiful park. There were some very challenging trails to ride around here!