EASY WEEKEND GET-AWAY

Did you hear the AMAZING NEWS????????? Team Oracle USA won the American’s Cup!!!!!!!!!!!! Had you told me that during the last time they raced, I would have said, “Oh neat. What sport are we talking about again?” But this year is different. Because we went to the America’s Cup. We saw it with our own eyes. We cheered for America.  And let me tell you what…nothing’s better than cheering for America! It was a fluke that I took the kids down to San Francisco. Darrin was out of town and we didn’t have any plans so I put everyone in the car and just drove. And the weekend was so great, so easy and so totally doable, I wanted to share it with you all so you can do it too. Ok, here’s what you do.

Get out of bed early Saturday morning. Throw everyone in the car and drive to Truckee. Grab a coffee and pastry at The Coffee Bar at 10120 Jibboom Street. It’s fabulous and a perfect potty stop to make sure you make it the rest of the way. You then drive to Walnut Creek (2 1/2 more hours) where you are staying at the Embassy Suites. It’s important you stay there… I’ll explain why in a moment. Now, you go to downtown WC and shop till you drop.  As you can see, my kids went to town!

Seriously! Walnut Creek is now known as the Rodeo Drive of the north. It has everything. And it’s beautiful. When I grew up in Walnut Creek, we had a Bullocks. Then came Nordstrom… and Neiman Marcus and Tiffany… truly, the list goes on (except for Justice which I think is totally weird and my 9-year-old daughter thinks is totally ridiculous!) And then, you eat. Just take your pick, people. There are more restaurants in Walnut Creek than there are bars in San Sebastián, Spain. Just drive down Main Street and pick the one that looks good to you. There are literally dozens to choose from. If you want old school Walnut Creek, eat at Sunrise Bistro for breakfast (http://sunrisebistrocatering.com/). Enjoy Lark Creek for dinner (http://www.onemarket.com/larkcreek/walnut_creek/index.html) And if you want to check out one of my favorite hangouts for cocktailing stop by Crogan’s (http://www.crogansbarandgrill.com/) After a fun night on the town in WC, you’ll head back to Embassy Suites (about 2 miles outside of downtown WC) where you are perfectly situated to catch BART in the morning.  Literally the hotel is in the BART parking lot.  The train schedule is online at http://www.bart.gov/schedules/bystation.aspx  You are actually at the Pleasant Hill Station.   It looks like this:

 You can also figure out how much your BART fare will be here http://www.bart.gov/tickets/calculator/index.aspx  For most places in SF from Pleasant Hill it’s $10 round trip per person.  Once on the train, you will go through a long tunnel (which is actually the train going under the water of the bay… that freaked my kids out!) and you will pop out in San Francisco.  We got off at the first stop which is Embarcadero.  This took us to the piers where the America’s Cup was happening.  It also is your stop for Pier 39 if that’s your style.  Get off at Powell if you want Union Square and SF shopping.  We stayed at the races…

meeting the teammates for both New Zealand and Team USA….

and of course chanting USA-USA-USA…

until 3 in the afternoon.  After that, we caught BART, now heading toward Pittsburg/Bay Point, got off at Pleasant Hill and picked up our car and headed east to Reno.  After a stop at Ikeda’s in Auburn, we got home at 8:30.  Really, a perfect get away for a family or just you and your honey.  Even without the American’s Cup, San Francisco is fun to hang out in for a few hours and now that I’ve given you a glimpse of the town I grew up in, I hope you go check out Walnut Creek too.  And hopefully, just hopefully, Oracle Team USA will decide to host the American’s Cup in San Francisco the next go around!  If so, I’ll see you down there!