NorCal Revisited Part 2: Breakfast, Homework, and San Rafael

Day 2 was a "homework and chill" kind of day. Since I'm currently in grad school and taking an online class during the summer, I had to complete the weekly readings and assignments while I was up here. Thanks to my laptop, wi-fi, and remote access back to my desktop PC at home, I was able to finish most of that within the course of five hours and a bunch of social media time killing in between.

Eleanor took a break today. Considering that Petaluma is significantly cooler than the inland route of I-5, I think she enjoyed the change of pace as well.

But before that drone, I joined my friend for an early morning breakfast at Hallie's Diner in Downtown Petaluma (125 Keller St, Petaluma, CA 94952). I had cornbread pancakes, chicken sausage, and eggs for breakfast. Those pancakes were so tasty and filling. I had never enjoyed cornbread pancakes before and now I want to make them. After this and a load of coffee, it was off to work on that. I won't bore you with the details of that, but let's just say that creating databases with minimal instruction would've been difficult if this process and related software weren't part of one of my jobs.

Once my friend came back from work, we jumped in her car and drove down US-101 to San Rafael to meet up with another old friend for dinner at Sol Food Restaurant in its downtown district.

How far is it to...? Never mind.

Reunited and it feels so good!

For dinner, I ordered the pork chops with black beans and a split of garlic plantain and regular plantain with a side of salad and pickled onions on top. This was very flavorful and a lot of food for the price. Not pictured was the mango tea that topped off this very large and delectable plate.

After dinner, we headed over to Double Rainbow Cafe to have some post-dinner coffee and catching up on life. I learned about several short-term car rental services that were available in the Bay Area because of the shortage of space and the fact that many people up there don't have cars because it's just too damn expensive. This is a beautiful place but man, the property values here are through the roof.

Speaking of inexplicably high property values, my next stop in this vacation journey will take me to San Francisco and visit particular parts of the city to revisit old haunts and create new memories. I did enjoy my time here in San Rafael and would definitely like to revisit the place again someday.

Next stop...San Francisco.

Transcending Spanish: On lessons learned beyond foreign language.

In 1999, I embarked on an academic journey through the levels of Spanish offered at my high school. For all but one year of that journey, I had the same teacher. This particular person had a passion for the power of language, and his uncanny way of teaching this mandatory academic requirement still has me reminiscing about some of those moments in time, even 15 years later. I've written about many of those tales and they lie in the old archives of my written journals. However, beyond learning the ins and outs of Spanish grammar and sentence structures, what I really learned and still value are life lessons that transcend any language. So, I figure with the end of my 20s peeking around the corner, I'd share a few of these lessons as my thank you to him for being one of my most influential mentors.

Gateway Arch Observation Deck at Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park (East St. Louis, MO)

One of my last [casual] stops in my drive back to Southern California was East St. Louis, IL, the bordering city to St. Louis, MO. In particular, I was there to visit the observation deck of the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park, one of the best places to see the Gateway Arch in its entirety.

And here's a cameo of my 1999 BMW 528i wagon stuffed to the gills with some of my worldly possessions.

Day 11: Beartooth Pass, Chief Joseph Highway, and (Re)Conquering US-16

**This series of posts recap my two-week trip to Billings, MT and back from July 1-16, 2013. For the entire list of my featured rides, click here.**

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Pretty much wiped after the last few days of running with my hair on fire (for a good cause, might I add) I slept in a bit and took my time leaving the hotel, saying goodbye to the friends and fellow riders who didn't leave at the crack of dawn to return home. That actually worked out quite well because, frankly, I didn't have much of a plan in place on my return route back. My strategy was more of the "keep heading east until Ohio shows up." Not a bad plan, but it wouldn't have been as fun as tagging along with my friend Rebecca for a few miles. Okay, fine...more like 1200 miles.

It turns out that she needed to return home to Massachusetts by Tuesday for work and was heading in the same direction as me. She also likes scenic roads and was cool with splitting costs on a hotel room for the night, so it was very much a win-win situation for both of us.

We headed out of Billings around 11AM and headed to the Beartooth Highway with the plan to connect to the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. As soon as we made it out of civilization, that's when the fun really started.

That's a different Columbus, but eastbound is the general direction I'm heading.