What a wonderful rainy evening in Sausalito with Steph and Jared and a photo bomb by Bill Geist 😉

Dining at Poggio, we laughed, ate, drank and had a dandy time for hours! And, in the Bay Area, when you go out for an evening, you expect to travel a bit. Steph and Jared went from Oakland up to Richmond and then down into Marin County – at least 45 minutes each way – in the pouring rain! Thanks you guys – it was so nice spending time with you both.

When it was time to come down from the Muir Woods, we decided to start early and make certain we would be on time for our 5PM reservations (don’t judge here, we’re seniors now and maybe we get a discount!). So, given the troubles of the past day, we logged in to get our Uber at 3:30 PM.

First tried Uber Black since that was the only one that came up the night before. After 5 minutes of the app spinning looking for a car, I decided to try Select. Within a minute, Elly popped up. Now, Elly was one of the drivers that bailed the night before.

So, I immediately asked him…’Are you really coming this time?’ He replied 👍, so I replied ‘Thanks’, to which he responded again 👍 and I proceeded to watch his progress. Sure enough, he called shortly and asked where we were! Well, Elly showed up and if you look at the photo of him, it must have been taken 30 years ago!

Turns out, he was a charming man who has lived in SF for 50 years and the entire time in the car all he could talk about was if we have ever been to Burning Man. We said no, and he told us about going alone one year and then taking his 28 year old daughter the next and how it was such a life changing event for them. Not for the drugs or partying, but for the connections to other people wanting to be together for all the right reasons. Very sweet.

He told us to call him for a ride back up, so we did and this time the conversation was about Italian Soap Operas on a special channel on TV. Then, driving back up in the rain and fog and deer and all the eeriness of crazy curvy mountain roads with NO streetlights, we realized we were quite lost and heading deep into the Muir Woods on the way to Stinson Beach. None of us had cell service at this point, and finding a place to turn around was difficult as well. Now the windows are fogging and he is cranking the heat up to the point where sitting in the backseat after tons of food, wine and laughter, we’re at the point where we might need airsickness bags!

We retraced our steps – we were at least 5 miles off the correct path and finally found our way back to cell service and directions to our guest house.

Hanging in the woods for another day, then tomorrow we need to store the Westy on Treasure Island, the tiny island between SF and Oakland just before you cross over the Bay Bridge. From there to the airport and back home tomorrow.

Not sure when we’ll be back, so I ordered a cover for the Westy and Steph and Jared will receive it and go tuck our baby away for another day.

That’s all there is from the wet woods, with the exception of all the ants we saw this morning carrying our food off the counter 😳