Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

Sunday we visited El Charco, a large botanical garden, nature preserve, and bird refuge on the outskirts of San Miguel. It surrounds a canyon through which runs a fresh water spring. Along its banks are abundant cacti and native trees. It also has a conservatory dedicated to cacti and succulents. 

There were also some dramatic sky scapes. 

It was pretty dry, but there was drama in the skeletons of the dead plants. It made me think about Mary Oliver writing about the whole world in a single leaf. 

Most of the birds were hanging out by the spring and we lacked the long distance lenses to photograph them so sadly I have no pictures of them, but we did see a procession of leaf cutter ants.  In order to get a shot, I would have had to lie on the ground on my stomach  Not that dedicated, but I did crib a pic from the internet  pretty close to what we were seeing:  

Here’s one more shot with Linda showing how tall the cactus was  

I stopped out after a bit and let Linda and Max finish the trail. Meanwhile I rested at the visitor center and sampled some of the fresh limonada (I think it was actually made from limes) and inhaled the enticing aroma of cafe de olla (literally coffee from a pot, but more like a mulled beverage of coffee simmered in a clay pot with cinnamon and cloves). 

After a rest back at our hotel, we headed out to La Posadita, a rooftop restaurant recommended by Gail Mauner and David Braun who had been to San Miguel some years back. It was a chilly evening so we asked the staff to light the heater and the waiter also kindly brought us some wild, but warm blankets. 

My friends Gail and David recommended the “Escamoles”, translated as “Ant Eggs” also known as “Mexican caviar”. It actually is ant larvae, served with a marrow bone and an herb called Epazote. Max wasn’t going near it, but Linda and I decided we were game to try it. . Not bad, but I wouldn’t crave it. 

Once we were warmed up, Linda felt a frozen Margarita was in order. Turned out it also had tamarind in it - a tasty addition. 

Other dishes were Cochinita Pibil (stewed pork served here on banana leaves with tortillas to wrap up the pork) and two kinds of chicken enchiladas - one with a red sauce made with guajillo chiles and the other in a green tomatillo sauce with crema and cheese (usually thought of as Gringo food, but I was in the mood and it was very well prepared)  

As the meal progressed, we were treated to the main attraction here, other than the food- the view of the Parroquia cathedral as the sun set

There were also some wild goings at the next rooftop over - a fellow tightrope-walking in rhythm to disco music Quite the finale to our day.  

Saturday i was a little under the weather so Linda and Max went off on their own adventures while I stayed home to have a rest day. On weekends, the hotel restaurant offers brunch (in the courtyard which our room faces). I was trying to block out the violinist apparently hired to play muzak-esque versions of American 80s Pop when all of a sudden he started a lovely rendition of Bach's Air on a G string. He played it beautifully and it swelled my heart after all that crap. It occurred to me that perhaps he was as pained to play the other stuff as I was to hear it. So I stepped out to the courtyard to request another crowd-pleasing, but classical piece that I would enjoy. I asked him if he could play the meditation from Thaïs. His face lit up and he agreed immediately. One of those small travel moments that can make a trip memorable. (DavidMendozaComposer.com)  Sorry it’s so short, but the blog program doesn’t do well with long videos  

Made me happy as I returned to my languishing. 

By 5:00 or so, I was feeling better so Max and I took a stroll in El Parque Benito Juarez, a sweet little community gathering place across from our hotel where there have been frequent Mariachi processions, a craft fair, daily basketball games and a lot of folks just strolling or hanging out. It’s built around a ravine with lovely walkways and small plazas. The obelisk in the first photo below covers a time capsule placed in 2017 and intended to be opened in 2067. It carries the inscription "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in English, Spanish, Otomi, Nahuatl, Braille, and Sign Language.  

Kids can feed this fellow with their plastic bottles

One of the Mariachi bands from earlier in the week. Max asked what was the occasion and they basically said "Just because"

Here are some other shots Linda got on a different afternoon 

We've had lots of puppet encounters.  Here’s one I posed with on Thursday

Later that night, we dined at Casa Arca. Nearly empty, but the food was great. Stand outs were the Sopes Yecapixtla (fried masa dough with beans, beef and queso fresco and salsa) and the 2 desserts - creme brûlée with mezcal and panna cotta Maracuya (passion fruit)  

Our first stop on Friday was the Fabrica La Aurora - an old textile factory that’s been converted to an art and design space. 

They've preserved part of the old factory 

Here’s a photo of the workers in the old factory 

Very different look now

There are clothing and jewelry stores, antiques and folk art dealers, galleries, sculpture installations and a few eateries. 

Max was contemplating whether the HOA would let her add this piece to her front lawn in Greenport  

After wandering a while, we stopped for lunch at Food Factory, an odd mix of Mexican, Vietnamese, and Korean food. Linda had fish tacos and I had what they called a Vietnamese cazuela (casserole) which turned out to be clay pot chicken.  Both tasty and attractive as befitted the venue  

By then we were done with gallery crawling and decided to go in search of provisions for our rooms.    We often find that restaurant fare while traveling gets to be too too much so we were looking for snacks and staples so we could just have a simpler meal now and then.  At first we thought our cabbie didn’t understand the address we were giving him, but it turned out he couldn’t figure out why we wanted to go to a huge supermarket.  Our Spanish wasn’t up to the explanation, but we got there and found what we needed at a mega supermarket bigger than any we have in NYC  

The rest of the evening was a walk into the Centro in search of dinner.  Turned out to be a completely forgettable meal that evening, but Max did take this photo of Linda that I really love  

Thursday we had a laid back day (pretty much the usual attitude when we travel). Breakfast of chilaquiles (scrambled eggs with tortillas and salsa)at the hotel.  We appear to be the only guests so far, so we get a lot of attention from the very gracious staff. Then off to the Parroquia and the town center again. The Parroquia cathedral is notable because it’s Gothic in style. 

We ambled around the area, watching the buskers in the square and poking around in the shops

We were particularly taken with this pod of whales (ballenas) by Juana Gomez. We’re pondering going back to buy one of the medium-sized ones to ship back home. 

Next stop was the Centro Cultural de Ignacio Gomez also known as the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, a famous art school founded in the last century.  It’s housed in a former convent with a beautiful courtyard garden (I seem to have lost the courtyard picture)  

Inside, we stopped to see a huge indoor mural painted by David Siqueiros. He was a contemporary and colleague of Orozco and Diego Rivera and taught for a while at the Bellas Artes, giving classes to Canadian and US veterans in the 1940s. The mural was intended to be called The Life and Work of Generalissimo Don Ignacio Allende, but it was never completed so now it’s known as “El mural inconcluso” or the unfinished mural and is studied as a window into his technique since he sketched out the grids and outlines for the remaining part of the work. 

There’s also a lovely cafe along one of the garden’s arcades where Linda had an aggressively skewered, but delicious crab-cake burger and I enjoyed salmon with esquites (grilled, spiced corn). Max declared herself still “llena” (full) from breakfast so no other dish to show  

By then we were ready to head back to the hotel for a siesta. 

Yesterday we left the house at 5:30 am, took a flight from JFK to Mexico City and then another flight to Querètaro where we were picked up by a shuttle van for the 90 minute ride to San Miguel de Allende. 15 hours total in transit. 

The second flight was as the sun was getting low and gave me a view of a spectacular variety and quality of clouds like none I'd ever seen  i know cloud pictures from a plane almost never come out, but I had to try because they were so unusual.  We were just at the foot of the mountains where the clouds pile up and the angle of the sun brought out the layers of clouds with the ground below  

We finally arrived at what would be 9:30pm NYC time, pretty wiped out, but pleasantly surprised to be welcomed into the Tres Fuentes Hotel, located in the old part of the city which is beautifully preserved. Like many of the old buildings here, the only thing you see from the street is a wall and a large “porton” door, but once inside you are admitted to a series of rooms which surround a large central garden and gallery

The house we're staying at has a lovely front garden with cherry tomatoes,tiny peppers, kale, and a lot of herbs, including this spectacular rosemary bush (I might have to snip a bit to bring home because it travels so well). 

This is a parking lot sign I’ve never seen before - not even in a hospital where you might expect it (it was actually in the local Safeway lot):

On the next to last night here, we had drinks at Skates on the Bay, one of our favorite spots by the Berkeley marina. We've been sampling the fried calamari all along the way on this trip (I think 4 different versions). We recalled that almost 5 years ago we went to Skates for dinner. There was a wait for a table so we sat at the bar and ordered drinks and the kung pao fried calamari. It was so delicious and abundant that in the end, we decided we didn’t need dinner and left happy. So this time we planned on just that and no dinner. It’s always tricky when you have that kind of memory - was it really the food and wine, or was it the company or a special moment that made it so good? But we were not disappointed. Beautiful views, perfectly crispy and spicy calamari, and an Oregonian pinot noir to accompany it. A very satisfying farewell to the Bay. 

Some of you know the story of my brother’s biologic daughter finding him after her search for her biodad.  Back in the 1980s when Jim was a starving artist jazz piano player, he was also a sperm donor to help make the rent.  At that point, no one was expecting that there would come a time when you could mail in your DNA sample and find a path to your relatives.  Adria grew up with two moms and knew that there was a biologic father in the picture, but had no way to find him until recent years.  She did find him though and it’s been lovely to connect with her and her family.  Saturday we gathered for the first time since pre-COVID days at Jim’s partner Louise’s home in Alameda.  She has a lovely place on the lagoon and it was a spectacularly beautiful afternoon:

Clementine and Juniper, Jim’s granddaughters showed up in full princess regalia:

We had a pizza party on the deck where Clementine included us all in a game she devised where we were given superhero identities with special powers (I got to be a shape-shifter and Linda was assigned the power to move water).  

Ryan, their father, works with AI and video so he created avatars for our hero selves based on our powers and characteristics.  He promised to forward the images later.  He was musing about how the kids just think it’’s normal to put that kind of information into a phone and get a picture of a powerful super hero.  

Later, Ryan wanted to show us a couple of videos he and the girls put together.  This involved a major tech discussion to get it from his  phone onto Louise’s TV

But the mission was finally accomplished.  

We got a group shot at the end or the afternoon:

And one more of Jim and Louise before we left

Aaaand one more of us that Jim took

Thursday we began our day at Kitchen Story, a breakfast-focused restaurant on College Avenue that does Korean American fusion cuisine in Oakland

Linda had her usual two eggs with bacon and potatoes, but it was “millionaire’s bacon”  - thick cut and marinated with brown sugar and spices and the potatoes are whole, splitt, and roasted

I had a breakfast bibimbap - a Korean dish with galbi (slow cooked short ribs), rice, vegetables, and a fried egg

Meanwhile, Bob Ross kept us company, painting a mountain scene in the background:

The check is presented clipped to a book rather than a tray or clipboard

Next we were off to San Francisco via BART.  Linda had a reservation for. Pier 24, a photography gallery on the Bay and I was meeting an old high school friend, Katie Riggs. 

I got to our meeting place a little early so I walked around a bit and found this lovely little public space between the big buildings on Mission

Even with the fire pit though, it was pretty breezy and a bit chilly so I continued on and found this warmer and cozy spot - also a public space - with sofas, lounge chairs, and a video mural.  A lovely place to hang.  

Katie and I met at a coffee shop and then strolled along the Embarcadero.  She let me pick the direction and sadly I picked the one with the less panoramic views, but we did wader around the old Ferry Building and got some glimpses of the Bay.

We met up with Linda later at Katie’s place in Balboa Park and were joined by Katie’s husband and daughter for a delicious dinner of roasted salmon with roasted kale with feta and farmers market corn.  Sadly no pictures of the meal.  But we did get some pictures of the people this time:

The Oakland Museum of California has become a favorite for us.  This visit they had an exhibit called “Into the Brightness” featuring work by artists with developmental disabilities via three studios founded by Florence and Elias Katz  - Creativity Explored, Creative Growth, and NAID (Nurturing Independence Through Artistic Development).  The promotional material said that several of the artists showing in the exhibit had since developed contracts with galleries and a few have published books.  The energy in the space was great and the videos of the artists at work showed a lot of joy, laughter, and dancing.   

This blog program sometimes makes its own decisions about the order of photos displayed.  In some of the multiple images below, you have to scroll to see all the works and their info.

Camille Holvoet told a heart-breaking story of her time at “Napa” (I assume Napa State- a psychiatric hospital) and the constraints placed on her drawing while in foster care and later when hospitalized.  The greater range of media and expression is apparent in her later work after she was released.   

This one especially interested LInda since it seems a cousin to some of her images in her reccent Urban Constructions show: 

Apologies to the artist below for the weird reflections on the glass, but I liked the painting so much, I decided to include it anyway:

Some pieces were videos

I particularly enjoyed the wearable art

And these two collaborative murals:

We finished our visit with lunch at the museum cafe - a pleasant, airy space where you can take your food out into the garden, though we stayed inside because it was a little hot outside. I had a beautiful salad with blueberries, beets, goat cheese and greens.  Linda had the “best fried chicken sandwich”  Both excellent.  

Monday we got together with my brother Jim, his partner Louise, and his goddaughter, Alexis. We had dinner at 5 Tacos and 5 Beers on College Avenue in Berkeley.Their claim to fame seems to be large planks of multiple tacos and beers, but we kept to simpler fare. The adobado tacos and elote (corn on the cob grilled and served with mayo, spices, and salt) were particularly good and the "verduritas" (vegetarian enchiladas) were also very tasty  

Though the food was very good, the noise was pretty intense so we didn’t dawdle over the meal, opting instead to go back to Jim's place where conversation was more possible. We did manage to get a picture of all of us, thanks to Jim's photo setup (that responds to voice command!). 

Then Tuesday night, we had dinner with our college friend Denise and her husband Caleb on their lovely deck. Also joining us was another Pomona College alumnus, Frank and his partner Bill. We realized that we had last been together the very same day 2 years ago. 

As usual, Caleb and Denise put out a wonderful spread, starting with homemade hummus and baba ghanoush and home cured olives from their own olive trees. Frank had also made a fabulous gaspacho with a surprising secret ingredient - cantaloupe! Sadly, I forgot to photograph the first course which is a shame because it was very much a feast for the eyes.   The Main course was a Santa Fe Stew with beans, butternut squash, and green chiles, garnished with avocado, pepitas, and a chipotle crema. 

Two sides were offered as well - a super slaw of cabbage, jicama, apples, and carrots as well as an avocado corn salad. 

For dessert there was homemade sugar-free banana-chocolate "ice cream" (no dairy or sugar) and cookies, but the light was too low for photos.  

So we've been well fed two nights in a row, but of course the most important part was the company and conversation.