Planning for the summer

I had planned to write in the blog over the winter, but we got involved in the whirl of visitors, theater, and so forth Some highlights: we had friends from NY for the Inauguration of President Obama, a really great time. They went to the Mall to see what they could and were electrified by the event.

We had a couple of trips out of town in January, to Charleston, West Virginia, and to Brewster, NY. This was not our first trip to Charleston, where we stayed comfortably at the Marriott and had dinner at a local seafood restaurant in the city's large shopping center.

Our latest major event was to the San Francisco Bay Area, for a friend's 70th birthday party at the Menlo Park Circus, an equestrian club in Atherton. A party not to be forgotten. We spent a day in San Francisco with old friends, had an afternoon at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, with a couple of exhibits that brought back the happenings of the 1960s. We lunched at the reputed best dim sum restaurant, the Canton Restaurant at 655 Folsom Street, and dined with family friends at Liberty Cafe, 316 Coleridge, on excellent chicken pot pie, the best we have ever had.

The trip out and back on Continental through Houston, to San Jose, was uneventful.

Since then we have stayed home, though we had dinner at Restaurant Eve on Pitt Street, Alexandria, VA, this past weekend. The tasting menu, courtesy of one of our best friends, was just exquisite, with an individual wine to go with each course. Loved it. Could go every night! I will stick my neck out to say that it is the best restaurant we've been to in the area in years. Service, food,wine, setting, all very lovely.

Last year after the great Western progress we did a couple of trips to the beach to see friends: One to Asbury Park where friends Patrick and Michael have bought a restored Victorian and entertain us well, and to Longport, where friends Paul and Linda have a gorgeous view of the water, steps from the front door, where we regularly watch the cloud formations as they skirt the coast over the Atlantic.

This year we look forward to a spring and summer of travel:

To New York for a Columbia reunion, a few days upstate at friends' new home, a visit to Rhode Island to friend Elaine's for lobster, and then to Boston for daughter's wedding. More to come on all that.

Then in June to Cambridge for a Harvard reunion followed by four days on the Maine coast in Ogunquit and Bar Harbor, a trip across the state into Canada and then five days in the Quebec countryside and Montreal.

In August we will revisit Brittany in France, have a few days in Paris, and thence to the Benelux countries for a car trip.