I set my phone on vibrate last night so no east-coast phone calls would wake me up early this morning where I slept in Santa Clara, California. Turns out I didn't need to worry about that at all. The jet lag had me up, bright-eyed, at 7:15 am west-coast time, which of course was a decadent 10:15 am back in DC. I heard my phone vibrating at 7:30 and thought about answering it, but let it continue to rumble. I waited until 8:00 to return the call.

I had spent the weekend hanging out with Mitch and his girlfriend - doing the sites around DC, a tourist in my own city. Which is fine by me. I never really get tired of the monuments, the capitol, the district. It's why I moved there. I love where I live and I love showing it off to people. Normally I've shown people around by foot. This time I did it by car, which was a little nicer, since it was August and too much walking means a bad case of 'swamp butt.' There was still a lot of walking, but it was good to cut out the long bits by hopping in the car. And I now know where all the good parking spots are, which will be helpful for future tour guide excursions. Also, this was my first time to really explore Arlington Cemetery, which was interesting . . . and educational. Arlington House, which sits a top what I believe is the highest point in the cemetery, and probably the entire area, has some interesting history to it. Also, it affords some great views of Washington.

My next favorite place after Washington DC, is Northern California, so it's a pleasant change of scenery to be here now. Actually, this time of year, Northern California wins, hands down. You always know what to expect from the weather here: mostly sunny, cool foggy mornings, moderate days, cool to cold evenings. You can get away with shorts during the day, and jeans and sweaters at night. Awesome. After a hot summer in DC, this seems like paradise.

Catherine and I drove down to Palo Alto this morning to have breakfast at a place called 'The Creamery,' which is your standard diner fare with some southwestern specialties. I got the breakfust quesadilla's, and no, that wasn't a spelling error. It was printed that way on the menu. We lounged around Palo Alto for most of the morning before driving back to San Carlos. My favorite part was pretending we were dot-com millionaires driving around in Catherine's dad's BMW Z4 with the top down. I held my hand over my DC Nationals hat, partly so it wouldn't blow away, and partly to cover up the team emblem, which might have blown our 'cover.'

Tomorrow we're all heading up north of San Francisco to Redwood Country. Just after we drive our vehicle through a giant redwood tree sometime around 5:00 or 6:00 pm tomorrow, we'll be rolling into a small B&B called The Myers Inn. Friday will involve more driving and taking in the great weather and scenery. We'll be back in the San Francisco area for the weekend so we can do some tooling around in the city before heading back home for what will hopefully be the end of humid, 95-degree days and the beginning of Fall in DC.

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