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December in Cincinnati & Christmas in California
Before Christmas, I was able to watch the New England Patriots with Tom Brady as quarterback playing the Cincinnati Bengals in Cincinnati. I shared that I thought it may be the last time we see Tom Brady in person in a Patriots uniform and as events unfolded, we were correct. I thought he would retire.
My son joined me for a “fun run” in Northern Kentucky put on by the Arthritis Foundation. The Jingle Bell 5k Run was fun and a challenge (for me). My son ran with me the whole time giving me moral support and slowing down his pace for mine. One of the pictures he took while running backwards.
After a Christmas Eve church service we had a lovely Christmas day dinner in downtown Cincinnati, complete with a walk around town with wonderful December weather.
On Boxing Day I flew to California to enjoy the continued nice weather and live out my desire to spend time with family and friends. Our youngest lives in San Jose and we had a great visit. Besides spending time together, watching the MSU Spartans win a bowl game on TV and seeing the latest Star Wars movie, just spending time together was the highlight. We also had a day in San Francisco where we toured Golden Gate Park, visiting the California Academy of Sciences and enjoying the wonderful late December day. We ended up at Ghiradelli Square for some ice cream and good memories.
Lessons learned:
Just being together is enough. Listening and respect is also good. I love all our kids!
Other activity:
I did get in my running preparation while visiting prior to joining the running club for the Flying Pig half marathon I plan to run virtually in May of 2020. No bike riding on this adventure.
Retirement Model?
Reinvent yourself. Try new things. Discover again what you wanted to do before you went to college. This is all the advice from retirement books that I have read. I recently took a chance to become a retirement model. A company I work with asked me to participate in a video shoot in San Francisco.
By way of background, part of the retirement benefits from my company was the opportunity to have a coach work through the decision to retire or to stay at the company. My company employed the services of BetterUp! As a result of a great coaching and learning on my part, I retired and am working to lead the life I want. I cannot say enough good things about this opportunity for coaching and how good my coach was for me. I shared that during the interview; I hope they are able to use the work that a few other clients and I shared with them as we discussed our experiences.
So, when I was asked to come out and share my coaching story, I jumped at it. I hope BetterUp! expands the number of people they can assist with coaching as a result of video shoot. I was interviewed about my experience and had several still shots taken of me, just like the other models that were at the video shoot that day.
Other highlights:
- The photoshoot took one afternoon. In addition, I took my first Uber ride, good and easy, and visited with my youngest in San Jose, near San Francisco. It is always great to see family!
- Playing disc golf in San Jose and eating at the Diner of Los Gatos. The diner was a throwback to earlier diners. The décor was fun and the food was good. Since I had played the disc golf course before, it was great to see that some rain makes everything on the course bloom and grow.
Disc Golf Course
Spring is here!
The Diner - Taking a ride on the cable car. It was fun to take one ride, although the tickets for one way were $7.00. This is a great way to get around and still make other commitments. Their website does allow for some breaks if you know you will be taking more than one trip. Since on my last trip I did not ride the cable car, I thought I had better this time.
The Car turn around
Glen at the car
Wear back pack in front to keep from hitting cars!
The van is ready for a tour!
View of the Golden Gate Bridge - Biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. If you are a bike rider, this is a treat. Several bike rental companies are located in San Francisco. My recommendation is taking a bike from Pier 41—Fisherman’s Warf. I used the Blazing Saddles bike rental and was pleased with the bike and the price. I have used this same company for several years. I am in good biking shape, so no issues on the bike ride. The bridge has lanes for bike traffic on one side and pedestrian traffic on the other. The first time we went, the lanes were combined and it was not as much fun crossing the bridge on a bike. Last year when we walked over the bridge, it was a better experience without all the bikes on the pedestrian side so I thought I would ride and it was a better experience without walkers.
View on the way to the bridge
Hey look–no walkers!
Selfie!
View of the bay from the ferry
- While traveling to a famous location, you can always have desert for lunch, especially if you just biked across the Golden Gate Bridge!
Champion Lunch
Lunch location - The free walking tours from Union Square (at 10 AM daily) was a treat for me. I have been to the city several times and have not participated in a group quite like this. I enjoyed the Tony Bennet heart that he painted on Union Square, and that was just the beginning of the information our tour guide imparted. We walked along the Barbary Coast trail into China Town. What a great tour.
Union Square
Walking tour landmarks
China town Gate
Street in China Town - Visiting a new ball park is a treat for me. A no hitter from Oakland A’s at the Oakland Alameda Coliseum was a great introduction to the stadium. Of course I was rooting for the other team, but hey, a no hitter is fun to watch. I had a great time at the ballpark. The park looks a little faded; however, the experience was good. The train to the ballpark took about 20 minutes, much faster than driving to the stadium, not to mention it was only about $9 total for the one person round-trip ticket from my hotel in downtown San Francisco. The meeting with my BetterUp! coach in person at the ballpark was a benefit for me as well.
Take me out to the ballgame
Great fun!
A few lessons learned.
- On the way out of town, I saw some great glass work at the San Francisco airport, near the yoga room. It was nice to see the town with a “rose” colored view. Even though I have been to this airport many times, I had never noticed the colored glass window attraction. It made me think about the entire trip and how my world has expanded and grown since I retired. I now see things in a new light. You should try it!
- I am trying on a few new perspectives since coming to town. Being a model is hard work! The models I spoke with had interesting lives; they willingly shared some of their stories and how they got into the career. Not all are doing it full time. A lot of people are involved in making one person look good for the camera. I was surprised that most of the people at the photo shoot were supporting the activity and not models or actors.
Activity statistics:
- My personal bike ride across the bridge was over 12 miles. I also took the boat back to San Francisco and enjoyed the ride.
- Although I walked several miles, I did not keep track of them and just enjoyed getting out, as it was still cold when I left home and when I returned. Sunny and mid-sixties was great for me!
San Francisco and No Cable Car Ride?
It is true; we went to San Francisco and did not ride the cable cars once. We have been several times to the city and did not feel the need to ride on them this particular trip.
- It is one of the highlights for newcomers to the city and I have always enjoyed the ride.
- We did see them several times and riding would have been easier than walking, like we did, up Hyde Street on the way to walk Lombard Street (a 31% grade up 269 feet from the beginning).
This was our first experience using Air B&B and we enjoyed it. Our millennial kids all asked who was the millennial as they have not used the service. Just trying to pave the way…
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” The coolest thing Mark Twain never said according to my research. Of course it was in the 60s (15-20 C) while we were in the city. Going north to wine country and south to Silicon Valley was much warmer. We did spend most of our time in San Francisco where I wore my Michigan State University hoodie around the city and received several positive comments, even one positive comment from an Ohio State fan, with the lone exception of one U of M fan…
The point of the travel was to see our youngest son who works in Silicon Valley and we were successful. We also learned from our prior trips out here that too much Mom and Dad was bad, so we planned this year’s travel accordingly and had some great tours on our own.
- AT&T Park to see a San Francisco Giant’s baseball game: one stadium visited since retirement
- Muir Woods tour
- Bike ride and tour of Napa Valley, completing biking in our eighth state since retirement
- Self-guided walking tour of San Francisco, including the Golden Gate Park and Bridge
The views from AT&T Park were great and the game was exciting—this last place team had almost every seat sold for a three-day series with the Cubs.
- We saw an incredible inside the park home run and enjoyed all of the new food options not yet served by the Reds.
- Our favorite was the Helmet Nachos
- Although we did not try them, Churros was an interesting new (for us) item sold in the ball park and elsewhere in San Francisco.
- It was Metallica night at the ballpark, and we got to rock the national anthem as well as Take Me Out to the Ballgame. All of the songs that night were Metallica songs.
If you have not seen how tall a redwood tree can get, you should definitely visit Muir Woods National Monument.
- We had a tour walking into the park from Mount Tamalpais State Park above the Muir Woods Park with a connecting hike into Muir Woods.
- It was enjoyable to hike from the canopy of the redwood forest on down.
- Keith, our tour guide, did well leading our group on the hike and was very knowledgeable about the area and all things San Francisco.
- One of the highlights was the ferry boat ride back from Sausalito to the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco.
Last year when we visited San Francisco, we said we would visit Muir Woods (check) and wine country. We signed up and enjoyed a half day bike tour of Napa Valley. Two wineries were plenty for me to handle; we kept the bikes for an afternoon ride along the Napa Valley paved bike path.
- I really enjoyed the wine and the whole area.
- We noticed a distinct culture that has grown up in the Napa Valley. The atmosphere was just different in a good way.
- We met several people on the tour with us who spent the night and it sounded like a good idea, especially after one or two tastings.
In 2015, I biked over the Golden Gate Bridge from Pier 39. This year, I did not want to bike. We noticed that this year the Golden Gate Bridge opened the west side of the bridge for biking only and we walked on the east side (with best views of San Francisco) across the Golden Gate Bridge (1.7 miles one way) as a part of our walking tour.
We wanted a walking tour of San Francisco and we took a self-guided (or misguided!) walking tour of about 20 miles.
Our walking tour began with the Haight-Ashbury district as San Francisco is celebrating 50 years since the “summer of love” from June through August, so we made it in timeJ.
- We also walked to Alamo Square Park to view the Painted Ladies, a wonderful row of colorful houses.
- Walked through Golden Gate Park and saw the bison, funny for us as we have a herd of bison close to our house as well.
- Walked to the beach near Golden Gate Park.
- Walked through the Presidio on our way to and from the bridge and enjoyed the nature trails and homes in the park. We also took advantage at mile 19+ of the shuttle service throughout the Presidio to visit the Main Post and catch our train back to our Air B&B.
A few lessons learned.
- We had a fun tour guide, Mike, on our bike tour. He said he had been retired for three days and went back to work. He lives in town and he and his wife walk to work. He only works part time and loves the job and the opportunity to stay active.
- A good guided tour is worth the money. Our self-guided tour was fun, but we could have learned a lot more, and been a little less tired if we hired a local guide.
Other highlights: Played disc golf in Silicon Valley and Golden Gate Park. Only problem at the Golden Gate Park—they were “closed” to house the Outside Lands music festival at the park. The group Metallica played at the Outside Lands as one of the headline groups.
Visit to Stanford University—a wonderful campus on Palo Alto. We sat and had ice cream and watched some of the new orientation students. We also visited the University of California Berkeley. It was interesting to see the college campus at Berkeley after having visited the Haight-Ashbury streets and the “summer of love” promotions.
Trip by the numbers:
States visited (number in total…) 1 California, flew direct
Activity statistics:
- Biking miles: 22miles.
- Hiking/Walking 40 miles.
Biking in wine country–fun!
Retirement Travel with Glen 