Wanderlust

I've been thinking a little bit about travel and getaways. We've got a friend who would likely watch our dogs for us over the weekend if The Wife and I wanted to get away again, so that's handy. I've been thinking a lot about seeing the Sierras, where I've not been for several years, but that's not a very Wife-friendly sort of trip. So instead I've been wondering about how I could make good on my promise to take The Wife up to San Francisco. She's never been and I've always told her I'd take her.

I'm not actually a huge fan of San Francisco but it is certainly has some good points from a tourism perspective. It's as picturesque a city as you could ask for. It has some fantastic restaurants and good shopping. I'd rather go a few hours north and enjoy the wines in Sonoma and Napa, but there's no reason we couldn't do both the city and the wines if we had a few days up there.

Mainly what I want is a few days away from the Antelope Valley. Aside from three nights in Wisconsin, I've slept every night here in the Rented Mansion In The Desert -- a very nice, big, and empty house on the far west side of Palmdale that has a view of the Tehachipi and San Gabriel Mountains, with a vast expanse of a well-developed desert plain in between that lately has begun to seem more than a little bit dreary. The same landscape I remember as a teenager. It's making me a little stir crazy -- my world seems so small all of a sudden!

But, sensibly, I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. We've the holidays coming up soon and gifts to buy for then; after that we need to save up our money to buy a house when the lease on this gigantic, empty house expires in June. Spending several hundred dollars on gas, lodging, and food for a trip to San Francisco, while pleasant-sounding, is not the best use of our money.