Wisetrips Travel Blog

My wife purchased tickets to the Some Like It Hot! musical playing at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts  on Sunday, October 25, 2025. Before attending the performance, we decided to stop by Scott's Seafood in downtown San Jose for dinner. While traffic was light, we had difficulty finding inexpensive parking. The outdoor parking lot near the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts had a more reasonable price o…

As I started playing more classical guitar music on my Yamaha FG830 acoustic (metal-string) guitar, I ran into difficulties with the narrow string spacing common to most metal-string acoustics. Unlike modern acoustics, classical guitars are strung with nylon strings, spaced farther apart to allow more space for plucking. I decided that to perfect my classical guitar technique, I really needed to learn on a classical, nylon-…

Sunday, September 28, 2025 Inna had one more Birthday surprise for me - a visit to the Refuge Spa at the Carmel Valley Athletic Club. After an early wake-up at 07:00, we showered and dressed. We walked downstairs to another delicious breakfast at the Stilwell Hotel. There was a wide variety of small prepared items, and I enjoyed some eggs, yogurt, and pastries. We decided to stroll to the beach before packing and …

Friday, September 26, 2025 For my birthday, Inna arranged a weekend getaway to Carmel-by-the-Sea with tickets to the Monterey Jazz Festival on Saturday (a big, unexpected surprise for me). We finished work early, packed our suitcases, and started the drive to Carmel-by-the-Sea. Usually, it takes about 75 minutes to reach Carmel, but there was heavy traffic with multiple slowdowns. We eventually reached Carmel at 6:20 p.m.,…

For my birthday, Inna made dinner reservations at Dio Deka , our favorite Greek restaurant in Los Gatos. Fortunately, Alex was in town for his job interview and could join us for dinner. After parking near Los Gatos High School, we walked over and were seated inside. We looked at the menu and ordered the following items: Appetizer: Soutzoukakia (over-baked lamb and beef meatballs) Drinks: 2 x Mosel Valley Riesling…

On Saturday, September 13, Inna and I visited the Flower Piano show at the Golden Gate Gardens. We wanted to enjoy the sights and smells of beautiful flowers while listening to beautiful music. When we arrived at Golden Gate Park, we had real difficulty finding parking. Eventually, we found a space many blocks away. After parking our Tesla, we stopped by Tartine Inner Sunset for lunch. We ordered a few delicious items (but…

Friday, August 29, 2025 About a week ago, Inna and I decided to visit North Lake Tahoe (Incline Village) during the Labor Day weekend , when we would have Monday, September 1, off as a company holiday. Inna had made hotel reservations at the Incline Lodge for 3 nights and dinner reservations at a couple of restaurants ( Soule Domain  and  Big Water Grille ). We planned to start our drive to North Lake Tahoe at around 18:00, but…