It was with particular glee that I added you to the localistas list juliana.

-t should be on the localistas list too.

Yay! I forgot that -t moved there too. The Buffistaverse is tilting to the NW.

That page looks amazing, Laura!

Sadly, Muni fare has gone up since the last info-gathering; it's now a whopping $1.50.

Laura, gorgeous page.

To do: the Wine Country (Napa, Sonoma). Marin County, from splendid Sausalito through Skywalker Ranch and all the way out to Tomales Bay. Sausalito has my favourite Italian restaurant, Angelino's, right on Bridgeway; it's featured in the Kinkaid Chronicles, the series I'm writing, and a few Buffistae have been, including juliana, today. If you like wild things, there's Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods. There's the museum, Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge. You can take the ferry from the Ferry Building at Embarcadero to the East Bay, or to Marin (Sausalito and Larkspur; not sure about the east bay destinations, as I've always been either Marin or SF).

There are shopping outlet malls galore: Napa has a large one, St. Helena (just up the road from Napa, heart of the wine country) has a small chichi one, with things like a two-storey Donna Karan outlet and a Coach outlet next door. Gilroy has a monster outlet mall in the South Bay, spread out over about four different sites. The Old Monterey Highway, which parallels Highway 101 south to Gilroy, has one of my alltime favourite burrito places on earth, El Patio, which also sells about seven jillion varieties of dried chilis in its grocery store section (Betsy's been there with us).

Down the road is Santa Cruz ("One thing I've always hated about Santa Carla, all the damned vampires!", and yes, the Lost Boys was filmed there). Also Half Moon Bay (some killer seafood). On the hill, La Honda, Roaring Camp, Alice's Restaurant...

Sadly, Muni fare has gone up since the last info-gathering; it's now a whopping $1.50.

Hrmph! Back to the drawing board as this changes everything. What were the Vegas options again?

Thanks for the list Deb. I'll update with a whole lot more in the Things To Do category after the soccer game, basketball game and the boy's 14th b'day party today. Tomorrow should be a little more relaxed.

Thanks for all the compliments on the page. I just did a big thread suck and put what I found on one page. Added pretty pictures. No shortage of pretty in the area.

Just read beep me. Have fun with smonster. Give her a big hug and smooch for me.

It was with particular glee that I added you to the localistas list juliana.

Awesome.

So I'd better do my first localista duty and arrange Thursday night's dinner. What do people think of Helmand? I think it would be appropriate for our wandering bellydancer, but if anyone has any other ideas, I'm happy to hear them.

juliana, I'd actually suggested Helmand to smonster and she salivated.

We went there -Lee, JohnSweden, Sparky and me - and adored it. The food is gorgeous.

There's a Helmand in Cambridge, which I'm pretty sure is owned by the same family, and it is yummy!