Denver, CO - Sept 2011

Shawna asked her boss if she could work from Denver for a week in September, as she had a couple of times earlier this year.  She flew straight from San Francisco to Denver - which would have been perfect except Keith had to spend a couple of days in LA before heading to CO.  Argh!

On the Tuesday, Shawna got a call from Cigna, where she had interviewed the week before.  And...they extended an offer to her at a comparable salary - so by Thursday, she accepted!  Since we were in Denver, we thought we'd look around the neighborhood we would be most interested in living in (Wash Park).  Kristina happened to give us the name of her real estate agent from when she bought her house a couple of years ago, so we thought - what the hell - let's look at some houses!  We really like the neighborhood as it has a huge park with running trails and is close to downtown (10 minutes), to work (15 minutes) and to bars and restaurants.

On Saturday morning, we met the agent (Jennifer) and powered through 5 places.  All were nice, but none were "all that".  After touring houses, we went for a run around the park and then had lunch at The Tavern.  It was at that time we realized we were at home.

Later that evening, we celebrated the new job with dinner at Rioja in LoDo - the food was very tasty and the environment lively.  It is definitely a place we would return to.  Before dinner, we had a drink at Ocean Prime where we sat in the bar and listened to live piano music and singing.

The next day, we saw another 5 houses - this time the price cap of the houses moved north a bit.  And would you imagine - these houses were nicer!  In fact, one was so nice that we put a bid on it and went under contract on Monday.  If all goes well, we will close at the end of October.

For photos of the house:

Tiburon, CA - Sept 2011

Tiburon

Keith needed to spend a weekend in the Tiburon / Corte Madera area. His company recently bought a property there and he is responsible for putting together the marketing plan. So with a twist of the arm, we went to spend a few days, researching what life is like on the weekend.

Accommodations:
The Lodge at Tiburon - Located in town just a few blocks from Main Street. The hotel looks like a motel that has been renovated. The room was fairly nice but not overly impressive. They have a decent pool with a nice courtyard and outdoor fireplace.

Activities:
We arrived in the evening on Friday night and quickly checked in and then walked to the restaurant for dinner. On our way to dinner, we walked around Main St which was blocked off from traffic. There were tables from the restaurants out on the street, music playing and kids playing games. Apparently they do this every Friday night. 

The Caprice Restaurant

The next morning, we went for a run, admiring the houses and scenery along the way. After this, the "work" part of the trip began. We drove to Corte Madera, stopping along the way to take pictures. In town, we drove by the park and then stopped at the Town Center for lunch which is an upscale outdoor walking mall. We also walked around the The Village at Corte Madera, which is an equally upscale outdoor mall right across the street. We then drove around some of the neighborhoods to get a feel for the area. We ended at the apartments that Aimco purchased. These apartments are quite run down but are in an amazing location and have lots of potential. It will be very interesting to see it again once all of the development is complete. Behind the apartments is a large park, Ring Mountain, with an extensive trail system. We hiked around a bit, taking in the views of the bay and the stunning houses that border the park.

Aimco Apartment - Before Picture

That evening, we joined Rakesh and Simran and four of their friends for dinner on a farm in Pataluma. The farm is owned by a woman who has a bakery in San Fran. Tables were set outside with china and cute flower arrangements as center pieces. There were several appetizers served buffet style, set up at three different stations. Some of the apps included grilled veggies, bread, and various cheeses. After snacking on those, we walked around the farm a bit drinking wine that we had brought. Dinner was served at the tables and included caprese salad, slamming beef ribs that just fell of the bone, yummy (and no where near healthy) blue cheese potato gratin and fruit tart for dessert. We ended up drinking seven bottles of wine amongst the seven of us which somehow fed into us being loud and obnoxious! We shared many laughs and got the pleasure of being inducted as honorary "brown people". I adopted the name 'Lakshmi' and Keith inherited the name 'Hardic' which of course made him giggle all night. We returned to our hotel none too sober, passing down the offer to return to Rak and Sim's house for a night of dancing.

On Sunday morning, we ran again and then went to Angel Island for a hike. The hike was about 4.5 miles round trip, taking us to the top of the mountain. We saw awesome views of Tiburon, Sausalito and San Fran. The hike only took about 2 hours so we took the ferry back to Tiburon and drove to Sausalito where we walked around town. 

View from Angel Island

 After having enough of walking, we drove to Rak and Sim's house in the Presidio where we stayed the evening. For dinner, they prepared an awesome meal of tomatoes, spicy shrimp and mussels. Of course, we also managed to polish off a few bottles of wine as well.

On Monday, I worked from their house while Keith went to visit competitor apartments and then we went to the airport where I flew to Denver (to spend the week and following weekend there) and Keith flew to LA for a couple of days for meetings.

Observations:
We decided that there are way too many people that make way more money than us. The houses in the area are just amazing with many of them selling at over $5 million a pop. We also have not seen so many Mercedes, BMWs and Lexuses in one place!

Restaurants:
The Caprice - This restaurant is located on the water in Tiburon with amazing views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. Formerly a house, it has been operational for 50 years. While the interior was nice and cozy, the food was not exceptional. It wasn't bad - just didn't meet our expectations, especially given the reviews we read.

World Wrapps - Located in the Town Center mall, this wrap place has yummy non-traditional wraps. We went for lunch and shared a cup of tortilla soup and a chicken curry wrap.

Della Fattoria Farm Dinner - Refer to description in the activity section. It was awesome!

For more photos of this trip:

Bald Head Island, NC - Sept 2011

Harbor on Bald Head Island

We had a long weekend planned on Ocracoke Island for Labor Day weekend.  Unfortunately, Hurricane Irene spoiled those plans so we had to rally with a backup option.  Fortunately, John is on a distribution list that let him know there were houses available on Bald Head Island, so Keith/Shawna, John/JoAnna, Phil/Joyce, and Steve/Amy re-arranged the weekend and headed for Bald Head instead.

Accommodation:

Rose Cottage

Rose Cottage - This is a four bedroom house on Bald Head that we rented.  Three of the bedrooms are in the main house, with an extra bedroom in the "crofter" above the garage.  It is a beautiful home with a large kitchen/living room area where we could all hang out.

Activities:
Bald Head Island is a gorgeous island about 3 hours from Raleigh.  Its claim to fame is that there are no cars or trucks on the island - everyone gets around on golf carts.  The beaches are beautiful, there are plenty of activities and the houses are definitely owned by wealthier people than us!

We picked up John and JoAnna on Friday at 2:45 and were on the road shortly thereafter.  The car was amazingly stuffed for just a short weekend - we had brought a couple of coolers with us filled to the rim with beer and wine and a bit of food.  With traffic only hurting us in a couple of places, we made it to the ferry terminal by 6pm where Phil and Joyce were waiting for us.  John had already booked tickets so JoAnna picked those up, John collected the keys to the house, Keith parked the car, and we made it on the 6:30 ferry with ease.  The ferry ride is a quick 20 minutes and after only a few minutes from disembarking, we were on the tram to the house on South Beach.  John had the foresight to book dinner while we were en route, so after quickly unpacking, the six of us grabbed the two golf carts and headed to the Shoals Club for a fantastic dinner.  We called it an early night (which Keith did the whole trip - he was pooped!) while the rest of the gang stayed up playing the "Battle of the Sexes" board game.

After breakfast the following morning, we worked out for an hour, showered, and then went for our first paddle boarding experience with John and JoAnna.  It was amazingly easy to balance on the boards.  The guide said he had only seen two people fall in - and one of them was drunk!  On a few occasions, we thought that Keith would be the third as he had a few near misses.  We paddled in the internal salt marsh which meant that there were no ocean waves, but there was still a current.  This was not much of an issue as we paddled out, but it was a serious amount of work paddling back.  There were times that no matter how hard you paddled, it seemed like you were standing still or even going backwards.  At one point, JoAnna and Shawna contemplated having the guide tow them back to the dock but pride prevailed and they persevered the long trip back.

Paddle Boarding

Ghost Walk Guide

Shawna had brought sandwich fixings, so we headed back to the house for lunch where Steve was waiting at the door.  After lunch, we went to our favorite spot on East Beach to relax, get some sun, crank through our Kindles, do some people watching and have a few beers.  Later that evening, we went to the harbor area to go on the ghost walk.  While fun, it was very cheesy and we are quite sure that everything was completely made up!  At one point, several people pointed to what looked like a bear in the distance - there are no bears on this island so you can imagine the surprise.  Come to find out, it was someone dressed in a bear suit who attempted to scare us throughout the walk.  I say attempted but I think it accomplished this task - at one point Shawna yelled 'holy s***' and Steve screamed like a girl.

Steve had offered to make us dinner so we retired to the house for wine, cheese, and a wonderful beef and pepper dish with rice and crab cakes.  We stayed up late playing a few rounds of "Battle of the Sexes" (the women were in the lead) and Mexican Train.

Sunday was even more relaxing because we had no morning event to commit to.  Steve's wife Amy, her daughter Margaret, and a school friend of Margaret's arrived right before lunch.  After a quick lunch, we headed back to the beach for more reading and beer - this time we walked across the street from our house to a spot on South Beach.  There were less people but there was a lot of fish activity in the water.  We were hopeful to see a shark fin but never did so we braved the water and swam around a bit as well.

South Beach (BHI, not Miami)

For dinner, we all returned to the Shoals Club - this time with 10 of us.  Thankfully, they seated us in the rear of the restaurant as we certainly were a loud bunch.  Everyone enjoyed the meal and Phil especially enjoyed one of their cocktails that starts with an 'o' and ends with an 'o' (another famous catch phrase coined by John)!

Gang at Dinner

Following dinner, we went on a Turtle Walk.  The Bald Head Island Conservancy monitors the various turtle nests on the island.  The event starts with a 45-minute  PowerPoint presentation about turtles which was surprisingly well done.  We then all jumped in our golf carts and headed to one of the 100-ish turtle nests on the beach with hopes that it "boils" that night - meaning that the 100 eggs in the nest all hatch, climb to the surface, and then waddle to the ocean.  While this would be a really cool thing to see, the odds of it happening are quite slim.  Turtles hatch in a 20-day window, and while almost always at night, Steve calculated the odds of this particular nest hatching at the exact time we were sitting there at about 1-2%.  What this meant is that Keith had yet another nap on the beach while the rest of the gang sat staring at the nest using flashlights covered with red cellophane to no avail - not even JoAnna and Shawna's singing could get these turtles to hatch!  We returned to the house to play more rounds of "Battle of the Sexes" - this time the men pulled into the lead and won the overall number of games.  There was much complaining by the women that the game was stupid and clearly written by men; however, we just couldn't pull ourselves away from continuing to play!

Steve was generous again and made us a yummy egg and bacon breakfast on our last morning.  We cleaned up, packed and boarded the tram at 10:45 am with sad faces and caught the 11:30 ferry back to the mainland.  To mix things up a bit on the drive home, we took the Fort Fisher Ferry so we could head up Carolina Beach to Wilmington to get home.  After a quick stop for lunch at Fish Bites, (recommended to Jo by the person on the same tram as us) we headed home - back to the grindstone!

Sunset on BHI

Restaurants:
Shoals Club - So good we ate here twice!  The location is beautiful at the southern edge of East Beach on BHI.  We particularly loved the bread, the Crab and Avocado Parfait, Shrimp Brule, and Grilled Vegetable Napoleon appetizers - as John said, the best a vegetable can taste without being meat.  The Pork Tenderloin was good, but the Shrimp and Grits was a bit disappointing.  We did have a taste of Steve's lamb entree and it was fantastic. 

Fish Bites - We stopped at this Carolina Beach restaurant for a quick lunch on the way home.  The service was attentive and the "Fish Bites Shrimp Bombs" (beer batter shrimp stuffed with pepper jack cheese, wrapped in prosciutto, fried, and served with a Thai chili sauce) were killer.  However, we were disappointed with the fish tacos and the fish and chips entrees that we ordered.