And we're back

I'm a little too brain-dead right now to recount the whole trip or post pics, but here's some thoughts and highlights:

• Note to bar proprietors in cities outside of the Pacific Northwest: Six bucks a pint is an unacceptable price for good beer. Why is it whenever I'm in Portland, Seattle, or even here at home, I can get a tasty beverage for $3.50, but as soon as I leave the friendly confines, I'm socked with outrageous prices. Six bucks for Mirror Pond is a rip-off. Six bucks for Sam Adams is highway robbery. Please follow this handy pricing guide for your drinking establishment:
  • Domestic swill (including Sam Adams): $2.50
  • Micros: $3:50
  • Guiness or Murphy's on nitro: $4.50
• Driving like a jerk will not get you where you're going any faster.
• Rarely do I think a $23 admission price is worth paying, being the cheap bastard I am. It's worth it at the Monterey Aquarium - I love that place! Too bad the rest of Cannery Row is a freakin' tourist trap.
• Here's to big city eats. We ate lunch yesterday at the Naan and Chutney on Haight Street. Best Indian food I've had since I was in New York, and it puts all the Indian cuisine I've had in Eugene to shame. Their Paneer Tikka Masala was sumptuous, and their chai was some of the best I've had - perfectly spiced and not too sweet. For dinner last night, the high-rollin' ms. wobs and I stepped out to Asia de Cuba near Union Square (inside the Clift Hotel). As the name implies, the cuisine was a fusion of Asian and Cuban, and the three dishes we scarfed down (a seared tuna appetizer, a calamari-banana green salad, and a chipotle-glazed cut of steak) were insanely delicious. All the good eats made me want to be a culinary tourist, only visiting the restaurants.
• It's amazing how much easier traveling is when you give yourself plenty of time to get where you're going.
• Why is the architecture in San Francisco so beautiful, while in the rest of the state it looks like the same cookie-cutter subdivision?
• I think the post-modern disconnect of being served exclusively by immigrants in an "all-American, Fifties-style diner" (complete with finned cars, black and white checkered floor, and doo-wop tunes piped over the speakers) was lost on most customers.

More later.