Bridges

Yesterday Debbi and I had plans to meet with her friends Lisa and Michel and drive up to Fairfield - which is about 30 minutes north of Berkeley, i.e. north, to go to the Jelly Belly factory up there. It turned out that her friends bailed on us, so we went by ourselves.

We had a good time, though, stopping in downtown Berkeley for lunch, hitting a couple of used bookstores, and going by Dark Carnival as well. I successfully resisted going into the CD stores, though.

You probably know that Jelly Belly is a jelly bean company. Their "thing" is that they have many, many flavors. Dozens. Right now they've even got six Harry Potter flavors (including such delicacies as "grass"). They have some other good things too, such as gum drop-type things. I must admit I still prefer Starburst jelly beans, I think because they have a stronger flavor, but many of the beans I bought at Jelly Belly were quite tasty.

Debbi wanted to pick up some ridiculous amount of "Belly Flops", which are not-quite-right jelly beans, often involving two or three beans stuck together. You can get them for less than half price, although you don't have much choice of flavor. The beans aren't so expensive that you can't indulge in just the flavors you want, though.

I'd recommend their licorice (if you like it; I do), and also - to my surprise - both Root Beer and Dr. Pepper. The blueberry is a bit too strong, I think, but the grape is quite good.

On the way back I persuaded Deb to drive the long way 'round over the north end of the Bay, which means I've now driven (albeit not in one way) all the way around the Bay. Cool! There's not much to see at the north end, though; lots of fields and marshes.

But on the way down 101 to the city, Debbi suggested we stop at Battery Spencer, which is another of the pre-World War I gun emplacements around the entrance to the Bay. The advantage to this one is that it's both the remnants of an old fort with quarters and such clearly visible, and you get an impressive view of the Golden Gate Bridge from above. I'd had the foresight to bring my digicam, so here are a few photos:

	The view from near the parking lot, with several old buildings on the right. The battery itself is over the hill ahead. The view is to the south-southeast. (60k)
	The view of the north end of the Bridge and the viewing area from atop the hill that Battery Spencer sits on. That's the lot where I took some of the photos when Monique and I walked across the Bridge. (88k)
	About halfway to the Battery, which can be seen in the distance. (64k)
	A view of the Bridge from the very point of the Battery hill. Downtown San Francisco is in the distance. (56k)
	A view of the Bridge heading into the Presidio. (48k)
	A look back at Battery Spencer, looking in the direction we came from. (68k)
	Debbi took a couple of photos of me with my goatee. The one without the sunglasses didn't turn out so well, so here's this one. (60k)

It was a neat place to stop, which I didn't know about. Debbi says it's her second-favorite view of the city (after Treasure Island at night), and I can see why. A very cool trip.

Today John called mid-afternoon to say that he and his friend Renee were going to head to Borrone to lay down some Bridge hands, as she's learning the game. I decided to join them, and phoned Debbi to meet us if she was interested. So we ended up teaching Debbi Bridge, which was instructive for me since I'd forgotten just how much there is to learn if you know nothing about the game! She picked up the rudiments pretty well, though. Dunno if she'll ever decide to play competitively (or even more than very casually), but it made for a good afternoon.

We wound up on California Ave in Palo Alto playing at the Printer's Inc. cafe. Printer's Inc. is a pair of bookstores - in Palo Alto and in Mountain View - which have been popular independent bookstores and cafes on the peninsula for, well, far longer than I've been there. But they've been struggling for their survival for the last few years, and the Palo Alto branch has closed its bookstore and turned it into an art gallery. The Mountain View spot might get sold to another independent chain, or it might go under completely. It's a bit of a bummer, although truthfully I've never found it to be a terrific bookstore. I've preferred Keplers, and I wonder what it is that made Keplers successful and Printer's Inc. not. Hm.

We also stopped in Know Knew Books, where John decided to buy me a late birthday gift, a copy of Julian May's Jack the Bodiless, whose title had caught my attention before and which John had apparently read and enjoyed. (I recommended several books to him, as well.)

So it was all around a good weekend of going out and doing things with friends.