Travel Diary

I wasn't meeting my friends until about 11:30am, but I got up early enough to take a shower and relax a bit. There wasn't much packing to do since I didn't really unpack much, and I also didn't bring a whole lot.

I did call the front desk to see if I could check out late. They said that would be possible and I left it at that, except after I hung up the phone I wasn't positive that they said there would be no charge, so I called him back and asked if there would be a charge. They said they normally do charge $20 but that they could waive at this time—so it was a good thing that I had asked. I actually expected to be a little higher, but at 11:30, I did check out and about 15 minutes later Raquel came and picked me up.

We drove into Concord at some shopping center that I guess was very popular and a short time later Kalaine arrived. It would just be the three of us this time as Gardner was dealing with his newborns once again and wasn’t able to meet up.

Our first stop was lunch at a nice Italian place. I wasn't really that hungry and the food was fairly overpriced so I just got a couple of glasses of wine. And we spent the time catching up.

We then went to an Escape Room that they wanted to try. I'd only gone to one before, but of course I spent a lot of time with murder mysteries and even some VR escape rooms, so I did have experience with the concept. The front desk worker was concerned about my microphone, but I said I wouldn't be recording any of the clues or mysteries inside. And I didn't. We opted for just a half hour game as the one-long ones were a little pricey. Plus I wanted the others to get familiar with this type of event first before committing too deeply. Doing an hour long game isn't much fun if you kind of know you’re going nowhere during the first 15 minutes, and the rest of it is a waste. However, we actually did pretty well and the others figured out more than I did. But we escaped with two minutes left on the clock so that was pretty exciting—and we got to take a picture with the “escaped” sign. The last time I had done such a game we didn't end up escaping, but I suppose teamwork makes the dream work—as the cliché goes.

Then we went over to a bar/restaurant and I got a flight of tequila which was fun to try although a bit wasteful, yes. I also think I'm not really into spirits as much anymore at least not overpriced spirits. So probably very few things like that ahead.

At that point, we took Uber into Walnut Creek so we could walk around there. One of the first places we went to was the Hoffman or Lesher Center and I got to see the theatre (well, the outside) that I had done some shows at many years ago. I think the last show I did there was in 2003, so yeah, it had been quite some time. We even went up to the parking garage roof. I wanted to take a picture of the city from the view up there, but also it was fun to see the place where I had the pseudo fight with Virginia many years ago about my driver’s license. Time goes by so fast.

We went into a bar called Gibson’s and got some drinks. I had a Guinness as it was an Irish pub. Always a good choice. I also ran into Nathan (my former neighbor from years ago) who was working there. Small world.

Then we walked around the streets and found a place for dinner. They picked a new place at first, but the line was way down the street and not worth waiting for. It's crazy how long people will wait when a place is new and trendy. I would see that several times during my trip. But we found an Asian fusion place which the other others seem to like. I just ordered a beer and some simple sushi holes nothing too fancy. Although I also tried some bone marrow dish that tasted very odd but it's good to try new things I guess. That said I would never try it again.

After dinner, we walked around some more and even passed by the place where Stanford’s used to be, which is now renamed to Original Joe’s, and is pretty much a whole new restaurant, but I do remember going there a lot after rehearsals or shows back in the day. So many memories. Notably, I never had drinks there since I was always driving back to Pleasanton or even Livermore afterwards.

But then I was getting cold so we took Uber back to the Concord and walked around there some more. The others got some ice cream, but I passed on that. You really didn't get a lot for the money. We went into a Dave & Buster's and walked around there a bit too. I'd actually never been inside one before. Obviously, I had heard of the place many times and figured it was some sort of arcade or dining establishment with low quality food. But it was kind of neat to see all the different games that people could play, although many of them were just oversized video games that one could probably play at home for free. We looked but didn’t touch.

At that point it was getting late so Raquel said farewell and I hopped into Kalaine's van and we headed towards Sacramento. It was a long drive, but eventually I reached some Best Western near Sacramento and said goodbye to Kalaine. Hopefully, it won't be too long before we all meet up again. I always tell them it could be more than once a year.

For this hotel, the check-in was similar to the last one. It was behind glass partitions. Do people, rob hotels or something? It just seems so crazy. But I got checked in and found my room to be okay, not as big as the other one, but still with the fridge, microwave, and coffee maker. I guess that must be a staple of Best Western. But for short stays the coffee maker is the only thing I use. I took a bath and then went to bed.

It was great to not be too drunk like two years prior. The previous year I was sober, but that had ended, so I could drink. I just ensured I didn’t spend the entire day drinking. It’s just not a fun thing to do when it goes that far.