february 13th – nyc

after a raucous night out on the town, we let ourselves sleep in deeply saturday morning.  wyatt was curled up under the warm flannel sheets while natalie, phillip, and i chatted about the latest and greatest in each of our lives.  soon enough our stomachs started to rumble and our thirsts began to quench, so some breakfast (rather brunch) was needed.

“i’ll just order us something in.  what does everyone want?  i’m ordering from a place around the corner called hot & crusty.”  so, you might be reacting to two things about natalie’s comments here.  first, why would we eat from a place called hot & crusty?  off the bat it doesn’t have the most appealing ring to it.  well, that’s because they’re a great local shop with divine eats and who doesn’t like supporting that kind of place?  second, you may want to ask, “if it’s just ‘around the corner’, why not go get it yourself?”  oh, that’s because it was a whopping six degrees outside and when you can get everything delivered to your doorstep in new york, it just made plain sense to have it brought to us.  i’m sure those delivery fellas were bundled up!

twenty minutes later we had nine bottled waters, one large coffee with cream, and three breakfast bagels in our hungry hands.  there’s something so pleasing about eating breakfast in a warm bed as you gaze out the window at the winter weather.  mm, cozy!  my sesame seed bagel with american cheese and bacon was savory and delicious, the perfect choice after an enjoyable evening/early morning.

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san francisco – day 4

ah, yes, my final full day in san francisco arrived at last, and just like all my other mornings up to this point, it was an early one.  i’m talking we were out the door again at seven a.m. so that we could get breakfast.  our wine bus was picking us up at 8:15 a.m. sharp, so we went to get a little grub before boarding.  although i would have been perfectly content going back to cafe st. jorge (for a third time…), brian mixed it up and led us to cafe seventy8 right in bernal heights.  i kept the cafe au lait train going and paired it with a sesame seed bagel smothered in sun-dried tomato cream cheese.  oh boy, it was an excellent combination.  i typically go with plain cream cheese, but i think i need to start mixing it up with these flavors.  kinda fun!

we didn’t have a lot of time to waste, so brian called us an uber to take us to our pickup spot.  we hopped out of that sedan and hopped right on in to the incredible adventures bus with our trusty leader mitch.  i didn’t realize it until we began to drive through the city, but we were the first stop this day.  we had, i kid you not, eight more pickup points to visit before we would actually start the tour.  oh boy.  maybe i should’ve gotten decaf so that i could take a nap.  seriously, we were driving around in the city until almost 9:30 picking up other passengers.  i guess the bright side is that we really were on the tour all day?  no, that doesn’t even count.  oh well, now i know for next time, and i assure you, once you hear about what an amazing day we had, there will definitely be a next time.

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dallas – day 1

this coming week holds for me some work in the big d (dallas, texas!)  the original plan was to fly out sunday night, but i am lucky enough to know folks around here to come out early for a little vacation.  mark and kathleen are like a second set of parents to me, and the minute i told them i’d be in their neck of the woods, they gladly accepted me as a houseguest for the weekend.  how fabulous!

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