Planes and parties non-stop

We are parked on the street in San Carlos, California, adjacent to the Hiller Aviation Museum (map).  I would say this is a dead-end street, except an automated gate at the end of the street leads to the taxiway at the San Carlos Airport.  The gate is little-used, though, and the street has been very quiet.  As with most cities in California, San Carlos has a 72-hour parking rule, and since we arrived here Friday afternoon, we are good through Monday afternoon..

We chose this spot because our friends Stephanie and Martin had their wedding reception at the Hiller Museum yesterday.  Regular readers may recall that we were with them in Las Vegas when they actually tied the knot back in February, but they elected to delay their reception until now.  They live just around the corner from here, so the museum was a perfect choice, and many of their out of town guests are staying at the hotel across the street from us.

Friday afternoon they picked us up shortly after we got settled here, and we relaxed at their house until it was time for the "out of towners" dinner they hosted at a nearby restaurant.  We were able to catch a ride back to the hotel with some family members at the end of the evening.  Yesterday we spent some time with our nieces and their parents in Menlo Park before the reception, which ran well into the evening.  It was a great party, and we caught up with many old friends.  Also, even though this museum has been open for nearly 15 years, and my office was less than a mile away at the time, I'd never been inside, and it was enjoyable to go through the exhibits.

Today we took BART into San Francisco, where we had VIP passes to the Fleet Week air show and the America's Cup race.  We had decent weather and great seats, along with an open bar and catered lunch.  Unfortunately, low-level fog prevented at least one act from delivering a full performance, and the grand finale of the Blue Angels was delayed enough that we had to leave before they took to the air.  Still, we got to see a 747 do low-level, high-performance maneuvers, and the F-22 Raptor demonstration was also impressive.  I've lost count of the number of times I've seen the Blue Angels, a half dozen of which have been at Fleet Week events, so we were not too disappointed to miss the finale.

Tonight Louise will be heading off to see Madonna in concert with the aforementioned nieces and their mom at the Shark Tank in San Jose.  It's a girls' night out, so I will head back over to Martin and Steph's stag for yet another meal with them and some of the other out-of-town guests.  In theory, Louise will be returning tonight with a borrowed car, so we can make it to our appointment in the morning with our financial planner. Tomorrow I will need to move the bus, and we're still trying to figure out exactly where we will end up, to be positioned for the rest of the week's calendar.