We Left Our Heart in San Francisco

Katie's commencement ceremony for her Ph.D graduation was on May 14, so we planned our itinerary to be in a campground near Pittsburgh in order to fly out to San Francisco. On Thursday, May 10, we arrived at a KOA in Washington, PA, a little town Southwest of Pittsburgh, conveniently located about 45 miles from the airport. This was a very hilly site, and Kathy had the privilege of hauling that heavy rig up the side of the hill and around to the site. The site itself was level, and positioned so that we got a spectacular view of the Pennsylvania hillsides.  AND, as an added bonus, we discovered that the WWE wrestling stars were due to be in Pittsburgh for a big show, and three of their tour buses were also at our campground.  Never saw the wrestlers, though.

On Friday, we took the opportunity to take a long walk into the town of Washington – about 10 miles round trip. It's the county seat, and the location of Washington and Jefferson College, so it had some interesting sights. We stopped for lunch at the Tuscan Tavern, which had some good beers and very good salads. After a stroll around the center of town, we walked through the college campus and back up the hill to our campground. Here's a photo of Kathy engaged in deep conversation with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson:

Our flight left very early Saturday, so we met our driver at 4:45 am at the campground entrance. Lucky we left extra time because work on the nearby highway interchange had the on-ramp closed and we had to detour. Our flight was without misadventure, though, and we arrived in SFO Saturday morning, getting to Katie's apartment before noon. Katie's mom Joan and her husband Joe also came out for the commencement ceremony, and we all joined for a walk to lunch through the Pacific Heights District. After lunch, Katie went shopping with Joan and Joe, while we took a spectacular hike along Cliff Walk, on the ocean side of the Golden Gate Bridge, above the beach, down to Cliff House:

Getting around SF by bus is pretty easy, so we got to and from the hike by bus. That evening, Katie and we had sushi at one of our favorite restaurants just around the block from Katie's apartment.

On Sunday, Katie drove the four parental units, along with Katie's dog Maggie, up to Napa Valley for a very enjoyable wine tour. As designated driver, Katie gave up the tastings, but in compensation, we all agreed to buy her lots of bottles of wine to take home! Here's a photo of Katie, Maggie and Joan at one of the wineries:

That night, after being dropped off, we two found a very good Pakistani restaurant in the Financial District, and shared na'an and spicy curry dishes.

Monday we joined Katie and Maggie for breakfast at a favorite little shop around the corner from Katie's place. Afterward, Katie joined Joan and Joe for some shopping while we hopped a bus up to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was just as much fun as we hoped. Here's a photo of David on the bridge with San Francisco in the background:

We met Katie, Joan and Joe for lunch at Chez Panisse, an upscale restaurant in Berkeley, and then toured the campus and Katie's office before walking up to the commencement ceremony in the Greek Amphitheater on the Berkeley campus. We are all very proud of Katie for setting her course and working as hard as she has to complete her doctorate and dissertation. Here's a shot of the three of us with Katie in full regalia:

Because of schedule issues, we had to take a red eye flight home from SFO, so we needed to leave right after Katie symbolically received her cowl. We hightailed it down the hill through campus to the BART station and rode straight down to the airport for a 12:25 am flight.

For more photos of this trip, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/scranton21/sets/72157629787326564/