Happy 66th Birthday Joe

Today is Joe's 66th birthday. We started the day by letting him sleep late. He didn't sleep as late as his usual 10:00, but he did wake up after 9 am.

Our itinerary today was to visit Stanford University, where Scott has his fellowship classes. We met Scott, Ellen, Mary & Audrey at the bus stop across California Avenue from our hotel. They caught the bus at their bus stop outside their condo. We arrived at Stanford in no time.





Stanford is a beautiful, Spanish-style school. There are many quads with arches all around. There are many buildings housing the various colleges, libraries and book stores. There are fountains all over and, of course, beautiful flowers. These Californians certainly love their flowers. Scott showed us his fellowship office and the library. Ellen showed us the book store.








That afternoon Ellen & the girls baked a cake for Grandpa's birthday party. After Audrey's nap, Ellen, Audrey and I went for a walk to see the pretty homes in Palo Alto. When we returned, it was time to frost the cake and then go to a restaurant for supper. We went to Pro Bono Restaurant, an Italian restaurant. The food was fabulous.

Then it was time for Grandpa's birthday party. We went back to Ellen's for dessert, which was German chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Joe blew out all his candles, we ate the cake and he got his cards and present. All in all, it was a wonderful day.

UPDATE: Joe says he woke up at 8:18, not 9:00.

Travel Troubles

Friday brought bad weather to parts of the west, such as tornadoes to Texas. Because of that, many flights were canceled or delayed until Saturday. We never thought that would bother our plans, after all, we were in Florida and the storm was supposed to pass by early Saturday morning. Ha!

So, when we went to the Orlando Airport on Saturday morning, ready to embark on our regularly scheduled trip to California, we were hopeful that our flight from Orlando to Dallas scheduled to leave at 10:50 would take off on time, land on time, and let us connect with the 2nd leg of our trip from Dallas to San Francisco, which would leave at 12:45 Dallas time and get us into San Francisco at 3:25 their time. When we got there, however, we discovered that because of Friday's bad weather, our plane was late coming in and therefore would be late getting out -- it wouldn't even leave until 12:00 Orlando time, too late to make our connection in Dallas. The man at the counter said he would try to get us on a later flight from Dallas to San Francisco, but to no avail. The flights in Dallas were stand-by only, so we might get stranded in Dallas. No fun!

He tried several options, finding a flight from Orlando to Los Angeles, connecting there to a flight to San Francisco. So, we said OK to that flight. It was supposed to leave at 1:20. We would connect in Los Angeles at 5:05 their time, and arrive in San Francisco at 6:30. No problem. That's what we thought. The flight we were supposed to board got in late, and therefore wasn't leaving until 2:30. I hoped we would make our connection.

Well, to make a long story short, we did make our connection, because our connection arrived late and took off late because they had to get a clean-up crew to straighten up the plane before we boarded.

Whew! what a day. We finally got into San Francisco airport around 6:30, got our baggage, got our shuttle bus, and arrived at our hotel around 8:20. We were the 2nd ones dropped off by the shuttle bus.

Ellen, Mary & Audrey walked down to the hotel to meet us, and then we walked to their condo to have a little snack before we all were ready for bed. It was so good to see them again.

Welcome To My Blog(sky)

Old age has its drawbacks. For example, I didn't know how to create a "blog." My granddaughter, Mary, had to show me how to do this. She's only 7 years old, and has been computer savvy for many, many years ... more years than I have.

I created this blog to let you know about our trip to Palo Alto to visit Mary & Audrey, and our side trips to San Francisco and surrounding areas. I hope you will enjoy my trip and my blog.