Superior skunk day

27 April 2016

Well, I’m calling this Superior Skunk Day ‘cos strictly speaking this is the day we got great views of a nifty little skunk. The only other animal likely today was the Sonoma chipmunk at Muir Woods, but although we had a nice walk there and hung around the picnic area a while, there was no sign of any. So it’s onwards to San Francisco and a break from mammal-watching.

Here’s a thing that you’re bound to notice if you come to America, something that just doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. Restaurant/cafe/shop merchandise. The cafe a few doors up from our little apartment in San Francisco is nice enough; they make decent coffee, good pastries, but it’s just a neighbourhood cafe. With its own printed T-shirts and mugs. The local restaurant we ate in back in Point Reyes? Has it’s own T-shirts, mugs, wine coolers, etc. The Fig Cafe back in Glen Ellen? Yep. The ol’ Cayama Buckhorn motel waaaay back at Carrizo Plain? T-shirts, sweat shirts, mugs, caps, bottle openers, the lot. In fact looking back, perhaps that’s the definition of “fine dining” in America? A restaurant that doesn’t have its own T-shirts.

San Francisco is a beautiful city. We’re staying in an area called… hmm, actually we’re a bit between neighbourhoods, but I guess this area is now called NoPa – North of Panhandle – and it’s a residential neighbourhood of vertiginious streets, leafy trees, sunshine and brightly painted Victorian wooden houses. Ours is just such a house, a survivor of the 1906 quake, with a big bay window at the front and old wooden floorboards darkly stained. It’s not warm, but there’s a gas fire that gives out enough heat to make it comfy of an evening. This is our first stay in an AirBnB property, and it’s a good’un so far. The fridge is piled with enough food and drink to last us three days even if we never went out.

But we did go out, at least for a walk and then to dine at the eponymous local restaurant, Nopa. Lovely ambience, great food, good service, perhaps only the second time in America where I could have walked outside after the meal and not been surprised if I’d found myself in London.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 22nd, 2016 at 12:26 am and is filed under USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.