Onwards to the California and the Bay Area

April 4: Onwards to Carmel CA
The drive to Carmel was broken up by a stop at Tobin James Winery in Paso Robles for a tasting. We encountered several 30-somethings celebrating a B’Day. We lingered talking to one who teaches yoga in Mexico - Baja Norte. The wines and conversation made for a good break in long drive.  The weather in Carmel was a little chilly and windy. The seafood at Flahertys, Scallops & a Lobster Melt, was quite enjoyable.

Here are a few shots of some of the scenic highlights of the drive...

An Oil Farm

A Wind Farm - a cleaner look for a cleaner source of energy

Mission San Miguel - to help us deal with being away from SMA for so long

April 5: Hanging Out

Happy Easter! We spent the day strolling around town and shopping. The lunch break at Little Napoli included roasted artichoke and gnocchi and a bottle of Primitivo. We especially enjoyed returning to Demetra's (after a few years) for a "mediterranean dinner", in our case with an emphasis on Greece and a fine Agiorgitiko (Greek red wine).

The Beach at Carmel

April 6: Onwards to Los Altos & the Bay Area

We headed "home" to Los Altos by way of Capitola, a favorite stop of ours. We wandered around the shops and enjoyed lunch at a seaside restaurant. A great thing about this route is the that there are several farm stands that carry strawberries and artichokes. We topped and loaded up on both.

Capitola

Visiting with Friends in the Bay Area

It was amazing how many good friends we managed to visit in our short time in the Bay Area... a group from Apple, old friends from Stanford Business School, and more. 

In our brief visit with the Albrights we enjoyed some amazing wines.

The Heitz is 1984, the BV is 1978 and the Unico is 1970. Wow! We also enjoyed sampling some Chartreux!

On a visit to Half Moon Bay (actually El Granada) we visited Grant & Su's new home where Tom & Monica joined us for dinner.  We arrived early and shopped a bit and then hiked along the "Devil's Slide" area.  The last time we were there it was the Coast Highway. Now the highway is diverted through tunnels (due to the many issues with landslides in the area.)

We 

Pat Li came down from the city to explore with us and then have dinner with Fred & Sue. Before meeting up with Pat we wandered around Palo Alto.  And we almost missed the new Apple Store there because the glass front makes the space almost seem like just open space.

The new Apple Store in Palo Alto

The primary trigger for our US Roadtrip was the fact we planned to move to "Permanent Resident" status in Mexico and as such we cannot drive a US plated car there. Since our car was made in Japan (as opposed to a NAFTA country (ie Canada, US or Mexico) we could not "nationalize it" and get Mexican plates. So we need to sell the our 10 year old Honda CRV which had around 24,300 miles on it when we left Mexico. This just seemed a sacrilege. So we devised a plan (a US Roadtrip) to add miles before selling. 

To become Permanent Residents, we needed to return to Mexico while the paperwork was processed. So we left our car in the good care of Patty & Matt in Los Altos and returned to Mexico.