Worn Out

Still visit new places the way I've always done.  Settle where I am going to stay, usually a hotel, but sometimes stay with my kids.  Then I venture outside, walk the neighborhood, get familiar with the transit system or when I have a car, my own or a rental, drive around the area, noting the supermarkets or clusters of restaurants.  Not changed much in pattern from my 20s to my 70s.  Not changed much from one location to another.  Even on the Big Island, I would walk around Kona a bit, noting the breakfast places, where the Walmart and Walgreen's could be found.  And then see the sights for which the area is known.

Toured out in SF.  Been to Alcatraz, Muir Wood, Healdsburg, and Stanford this trip.  That's my fill.  Mission Street, the main walking distance thoroughfare, has charm one time, but its utility is really access to the cheap city bus that enables transfer to other places.  Been through the City By the Bay in multiple neighborhoods by public transit, by tour guide taking us through much of the city to eventually depart the city via the Golden Gate, and by private car with kids driving.  Seen the coast, seen wine country, seen the mega-university and its environs, visited a suburban house of my wife's cousin.

My last few trips away have mostly been a day or two longer than they should have been.  Mammoth Cave I cut by a day.  Airfare has gotten expensive, so it pays to stay an extra day sometimes to get a lower return trip fare, as is the case with SF now or Florida last winter.  DC a couple of spring breaks ago was probably right, three days at a hotel.  A full week seems too long to be away.  I don't take well to doing nothing now that I've been retired long enough for the novelty of doing nothing to have worn off.  While Florida's beaches and pools offered relaxation, and probably in the right amount, as did Hawaii, I also need to escape the resort element.  The big cities, though, don't seem to have that resort element.

With a day to go before my return home, I feel worn out.  Not exactly overextended, but a feeling that I've really completed what I came to SF to do.