A Few Days in the City by the Bay

It's amazing how much your perspective can change when you get away from your "normal" life. My husband Mike and I returned Tuesday night from a five-day getaway to San Francisco. The last time I was there I was 12 years old. Mike grew up in San Rafael, Calif., just north of San Francisco. But like most people who grow up near popular vacation spots, he had never really been a tourist in his own town.

Mike had never been to Alcatraz (former federal prison on an island a mile from SF), so we went there. We walked the streets of Chinatown and North Beach, where we found the perfect pizza place to have dinner and a cute Italian pastry shop where we had coffee. We watched the sunset from China Beach and Baker Beach, both with great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. We strolled through Sausalito and took a drive through the Marin Headlands on the north side of Golden Gate. We took a cable-car ride to Union Square, ate a great fish dinner at Pompei's Grotto on Fisherman's Wharf and had ice cream at Ghirardelli Square. The wharf area is less charming and more touristy than I remember it from 20 years ago. Chinatown was less of a culture shock (I've traveled to other parts of the world since I was last there as a kid). North Beach, where San Francisco's Italian immigrants settled, felt very much like a little pocket of Europe.

We also spent a day at the University of California-Berkeley, where Mike went to college in the late 80s. We visited the KALX, the student-run radio station at Cal where Mike got his start in radio. It was enlightening to see the town where Mike grew up and the campus where he attended college. It's a part of his life I've never seen, so it's good to put all the pieces together. In January, we both visited my college campus in Columbia, Mo.

Spring was in full swing in the Bay Area. Coming home to Denver, where the trees are still bare and spring is a couple of weeks away from really getting started, I miss the green grass, the blooming trees and flowers I grew accustomed to over the past few days.

Most of all it was nice to leave the busy-ness of life behind for a few days. It's especially nice when vacation seems like it was longer than it actually was -- not because it was bad, but because you're able to leave everything behind and relax. Today it's back to work for both of us, but we go back a little more rested and a little less hurried. Vacations are good.