Merry Christmas, folks! Here's a present for you- a brand new, shiny post.The photo above is of the courtyard and tower at the Marin County Civic Center, one of the last buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The wife and I gave ourselves a self-guided tour of the building while we were in California in November for a wedding.
The other day I emptied out my wallet and found a few receipts from that trip. I thought some commentary would make an interesting journal:
- 11/06/2008 9:23 PM Blue Mermaid Chowder House & Bar
$62.39 (plus tip)
After flying in and arriving at our hotel, the wife and I trekked hungrily into the wilds of San Francisco. The walk was a bit longer on our empty stomachs than we liked, and we settled in at the Blue Mermaid near Fisherman's Wharf almost out of desperation. But not disappointment. Good food, great dessert, though a bit spendy. - 11/07/2008 10:00 AM Department of Parking & Traffic Citation
$36.00
To make sightseeing easier (and a hair cheaper) we stopped in at what the Internet told me was a convenient place to buy a bus pass. I thought it would be like the Tri-met desk at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland (ie., a nice lady behind a counter), but it ended up more like a well-guarded DMV. In order to enter we passed a metal detector and an armed guard who asked us to state our business. Then we stood in one line to get a number, then we waited for our number to be called. All for a damn three-day transit pass. Sheesh. - 11/08/2008 1:30 PM San Francisco Fish Company
$19.53
We went with my parents and a handful of aunts to the Saturday farmer's market at the Ferry Terminal building. Inside the beautifully renovated building are permanent stalls, including this fish monger where we got lunch. I had the oyster sandwich, the wife had fish and chips. Later I had mushroom-flavored ice cream. Yum. - 11/09/2008 4:57 PM Blue Mermaid Chowder House & Bar
$7.32
Yep, back to the Blue Mermaid. We didn't actually get dessert on our first trip but were intrigued by the Chocolate and Irish Cream Bread Pudding on the menu. (On that first night we indulged in a Ghiradelli fudge sundae instead.) So after a long, hard day of sightseeing we found ourselves back at the Blue Mermaid and shared the pudding as a late afternoon snack. Absolutely delicious. - 11/10/2008 1:24 PM Charles M. Schulz Museum
$16.00
On our last full day of the trip we drove up to Santa Rosa (stopped in San Rafael on the way to see the Marin Center) to visit the mecca of Peanuts and its creator. Schulz lived in Santa Rosa for most of his adult life and a tidy little package of buildings commemorates his tenure there: an ice rink, an indoor tennis court, baseball fields, a gift shop and gallery, and most recently the museum. No roller coasters, no teenagers sweating it out in a Snoopy suit, just an honest expression of the things Schulz enjoyed in his life. The museum itself was pleasant but not astounding. I did gain some insight as to why Schulz's pen lines tend to look jittery, like he was fighting Parkinson's disease. (He wasn't.) After examining a number of original Peanuts panels I could see that his pen lines were evenly jagged, as though he was moving the pen back and forth in a regular pattern as he drew. When the much larger original art was shrunk down to newspaper size the jagged strokes just look jittery.
