If there's one thing Akhil and I know how to do it's get out of town, and so we did, this past weekend, to San Francisco. We needed it more than ever, and made it through 3 days with just a couple of arguments, after a long month of life decisions (more like, indecisions?) made by a pair of very different types of thinkers.

So we hopped in the Civic and headed up early Saturday on the 5 with all the traffic, straight to the Cliff House for lunch at the bar -- a spectacular sea view. The place reopened in September, and the food and the beach were perfect; the crystal clear, sunny skies stayed with us all weekend long. From there it was strolling in Cow Hollow, then to Hotel Rex at Sutter and Powell, which is by far the best place we've ever stayed up there (oh, okay, besides the Mark Hopkins in '98)... highly recommended! Dinner was a trek around town to find long lost Little Joe's, an old Akhil haunt, which is now in the bottom of a dingy hotel on Van Ness but the food's still great.

Sunday was hiking up to the east peak of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin, which was gorgeous, with killer views of the world's best city (except maybe for Sydney -- but it's close). There's a lodge mid-way called the West Point Inn along the railroad grade from the tracks that used to go up until the early 1930s. They tore up the tracks when people started getting their own family cars.

Here we are en route, over the Golden Gate and up on the trail...



We drove all the way out to Stinson Beach so I could see it afterwards, and then we went down to Sausalito for food, followed by dessert in the city with Hiten and Suzanne, and managed a Union Square stroll and Coit Tower ascent on Monday before heading over to Berkeley -- where Akhil spent his formative years -- briefly on the way home, where we treated ourselves to dinner at Saladang in Pasadena. Splurge! Meanwhile, I neglected to publicly wish Akhil a happy birthday earlier this month, so here is a bonus pic of the birthday boy from May 18 (we celebrated a day late, on the 19th, for various reasons, ahem). Happy Birthday my love!