I'm away again. And that's why there were no posts yesterday.

We left Third Street in an Eastern Car Service car at 6 am Tuesday morning and got to the airport around 7 am, which was lucky because the Jet Blue Bag Drop lines were incredibly long at the terminal.

We had loads of time to explore the nicely designed newish Jet Blue terminal which is a huge, light-filled space full of shops, restaurants and and cool seating areas.

Our 9:15 flight boarded at 8:30 and we were goog to go at 9:15 as scheduled. For once there was hardly any wait for take-off and we arrived in Oakland 20 minutes early. Nice.

Once in Oakland we hopped on the AirBART, which is the bus from the airport to the Bay Area Rapid Transit stop across the street from the Oakland Stadium.

Hopped is a bit of an exageration when you're lugging three suitcases, three laptops, and three carry-on bags plus Hugh's camera bag.

Then we had to figure out how to buy tickets for the train. On Bart, your fare depends on where you're going. It's not a one-size-fits-all fare like NYC.

Luckily there's a homeless guy who helps all the tourists figure out the somewhat confusing user interface. What a service that guy performs. BART should just hire him to do that job full time!

Then we took the clean, quiet, fast BART train to Dublin/Pleasanton, a small city about 50 miles east of San Francisco. There we met Hugh's mom and drove to Tracy, a city in the Central Valley of California. Hugh grew up on a farm a few miles out of town. It's a very special place.

Hot and tired, we arrived in Tracy at around 4 pm Brooklyn time. It was lunchtime in Tracy, where it was a very dry 100 degrees. Luckily there's a pool and we were in it for most of the afternoon.

Ahhhhh.