Berkeley is seductive. We planned to stay here for three days but ended up staying for a week. Aside from our adorable 4 year-old granddaughter (Lyla) and much loved son (Jadam) and his equally loved partner (Laura) there was so much to keep us from leaving. First, there was their beautiful house high up in the Berkeley hills, then there was the Shoutout Street Festival (honoring the Grateful Dead) that we just happened upon and kept us “groovin” on a Saturday afternoon. There were fun hikes in Tilden Park, rides on the park carousel, a trip around the park in a steam engine, and terrific dinners from Tibetan to Peruvian, culminating with a top notch dinner at Alice Waters’ iconic restaurant, Café Panisse. We also commuted into San Francisco on the BART, had breakfast at Twitter HQ where Laura works, and hopped the ferry to see Ai Wei Wei’s exhibit on Alcatraz. Ai Wei Wei, for those of you who are unfamiliar with his work and his personal story, is a Chinese artist and political dissident, who is currently under house arrest in China. We were just too busy to keep up with the blog. But here we are back again working on this post in the Roadtrek while camping at the western edge of Yosemite National Park.

Jadam and Laura

Lyla as a witch

Apollo and Chunk

Shoutout Street Festival

We had a lot of fun.

 

ALCATRAZ

Ai Wei Wei Installation at Alcatraz

Porcelain flowers.

Lego portraits of more than 100 dissidents from around the world who have been imprisoned. They were sent in pieces from his studio in China and assembled in the US for this exhibit.