Greetings from California

We are at the Hampton Inn in downtown Mountain View, California. It's an odd feeling being in a hotel here in our old stomping grounds.

We had a short and uneventful drive Monday down US-41 to the outskirts of Tampa. After getting Odyssey well parked and squared away at our friend's place, we pulled the scooters out, and I rode across town to the ParkerStore to see if they could make us an air hose. As it turned out, I got the last two 14mm metric flare fittings they had in stock, but they had to make the assembly with hydraulic hose instead of air hose. The finished assembly cost just $36, which I am certain is way less than it would have cost to order the factory hose from Germany.

I was hoping to have time Tuesday to try to install the new hose, but between packing for the trip, getting some eBay items ready to ship, and two trips to the post office, I never got to it. I'll have to do it when we get back to Tampa, as I want to get it installed before we get too far from the hose shop. We had nice dinners with our friend Niles both evenings.

Yesterday was an early morning for us, as we had 8am appointments for all three pets at the vet across town from where we parked. Niles was very kind to come in early and drive us all over to the vet, then sit around through our appointment to drive us to the airport. The pets are in good hands, and between Opal's advanced age and concomitant problems and George's renal condition, we are happy they are kenneled at a vet rather than elsewhere.

Our flights were uneventful and we were lucky enough to have one of the two or three empty seats on the plane in between us on the longer segment from Charlotte to San Francisco. That flight was delayed 50 minutes and landed half an hour late, so we ended up taking a Super Shuttle to the hotel rather than the planned BART/CalTrain route.

We'll be here in California through Sunday night. Our friends are getting married Saturday and we'll be in Oakland that night at a nice hotel in Jack London Square. Since our return flight leaves San Francisco at 6am Monday, we'll spend Sunday night at a hotel near the airport with a free shuttle. Other than the one night in Oakland all our hotel stays are on my Hilton points, which we seem to use up this way at about the same rate we earn them on our credit cards.

We'll probably have Internet access for most of our stay, but we've got so many quick visits planned for our very short stay here that I do not expect to post here again until we return to Tampa late Monday evening.