A digital travel diary. · WP v1.08 · Updated
Inna and I planned a two-day weekend at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa from Friday, December 5, to Sunday, December 7, 2025. . . . . I precharged our Tesla Model Y's battery to 95% capacity, anticipating the long drive ahead. . Friday, December 5, 2025 . We started the long drive to Sonoma in the late afternoon. There were periods of heavy…
Read More: Two Nights in Sonoma
On Wednesday, November 26, I found some reasonably priced tickets ($200/ticket for floor-4 seats in Masonic using StubHub) to Sarah McLachlan's Better Broken Tour at The Masonic in San Francisco (for Friday, November 28, 2025, at 8:00 p.m.) . . Though I have been a fan of Sarah's music for a long time, I was not sure what to expect at her concert. . .…
Read More: Sarah McLachlan – Better Broken Tour
After seeing the beautiful Manet & Morisot exhibit at the Legion of Honor Museum, we decided to hike the nearby Lands' End trail. . See the Google Maps link for directions. . We started our hike around 15:30 from the grounds of the Legion of Honor Museum, following the coastal trail. There were lots of people on the trail (probably families trying to burn off…
Read More: Hike to Lands’ End, San Francisco
For our day out in San Francisco (Friday, November 28), we decided to stop at the Legion of Honor Museum to see the new Manet & Morisot exhibition. . . . . This is the first major exhibition dedicated to the artistic exchange between French Impressionists Édouard Manet (1832–1883) and Berthe Morisot (1841–1895). Manet was the era’s great pioneer of modern painting, and Morisot, the…
Read More: Legion of Honor: Manet & Morisot Exhibit
For Thanksgiving, Inna decided against cooking and instead selected the nearby Lele Kitchen restaurant for the main dinner. She made reservations for Thursday, November 27, at 16:00. . . . . We ordered the Thanksgiving "Trust the Chef 7-Course Menu" as follows:. . Bread (freshly baked from a 38-year-old starter). Pie Tees x2 (Boris, Inna). Oysters x1 (Alex). Chestnut Soup x3. Trout Draniki x2 (Boris,…
Read More: Thanksgiving Dinner at Lele
Today, Inna and I attended a concert by Mashina Vremeni (Машина времени) at the Fox Theater in Redwood City. The concert was scheduled for 20:00, and we were looking forward to seeing the group again. . I had never been inside Fox Theater, and it's not a bad venue. Parking was relatively easy to find. Inna purchased excellent seats in row G, and we had…
Read More: Машина времени Мы рядом
After a short stroll around Vasona Lake, on a beautiful fall day in San Jose, we decided to eat an early dinner at our favorite Orchard City Kitchen in nearby Campbell. I booked the 17:15 time slot on OpenTable, but it was unnecessary since that time was not busy. . . . . After sitting outdoors, we looked at the updated menu and ordered the…
Read More: Dinner at Orchard City KitchenMy 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…
Read More: Some Like It Hot! in San Jose
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. .…
Read More: Refuge Spa in Carmel
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…
Read More: Monterey Jazz Festival
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…
Read More: Birthday Dinner at Dio Deka
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…
Read More: San Francisco Flower Piano
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). .…
Read More: Back to Incline Village, Lake Tahoe
After my wing foiling session at Coyote Point, I drove to Palo Alto, where Inna had made dinner reservations for 18:00 at the highly-rated Ettan Indian Restaurant. . . We had eaten at Ettan last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ettan is extremely popular and challenging to reserve on short notice. . . After I had parked my Toyota Sienna in a nearby parking garage,…
Read More: Dinner at Ettan, Palo Alto
After checking the iwindsurf.com pro forecast, I decided to wing foil at the nearby Coyote Point. Being late August, winds are less reliable and can quickly die out. . . On arrival at Coyote Point (a 45-minute drive from San Jose) via US-101, the wind was showing as 16 knots. I decided to rig my brand-new Duotone Slick SLS 5.5m wing (to provide additional thrust…
Read More: Wing Foiling at Coyote Point
Since Alex was leaving for Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA), we decided to treat him to dinner (and to celebrate his birthday, which we missed). . . . I found Joey Valley Fair on Google Maps and was surprised to see so many high ratings (for a local restaurant I had never heard of). I was intrigued, and Inna and I made reservations while we were…
Read More: Dinner at Joey Valley Fair
Inna found an exciting and highly regarded magic show in San Francisco and decided to purchase two tickets for Friday, June 27th, at 19:00. . I had never heard about the show, but I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Happily, Kevin Blake exceeded my expectations and had a wide variety of magic tricks to showcase. . . . . . A MODERN MAGIC SHOW.…
Read More: The Illusionist at Palace Theater
I have been a fan of James Blunt for a long time and was excited when I learned that he was touring the world with a stop in San Francisco. I purchased the best seats I could find (on the Spotify Presale) for June 26, 2025 (Section FLR-4, seats 15 and 16, at the Masonic Auditorium) . . The tickets indicated a start time of…
Read More: James Blunt Back to Bedlam 20th Anniversary Tour
With a free day at work (and no wind in the forecast), I decided to return to mountain biking at Almaden Quicksilver County Park. . . After I pumped up the tires and lubricated the chain, I loaded the bike into the Toyota Sienna minivan and drove for about 20 minutes to reach the Hacienda Entrance of Quicksilver County Park. . As it was around…
Read More: Biking Almaden Quicksilver County Park
On Saturday, June 21, Inna, Alex, and I decided to hike around Saratoga. Inna found a highly rated trail on AllTrails.com, called Seven Springs Trail, and we decided to hike it. . . The trail had panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay Area, including the new Apple campus in Cupertino. The grass was all yellow (burned out), so this hike might be more scenic…
Read More: Hiking Seven Springs Trail, Saratoga