And here's the conclusion of Wendi's San Francisco travelogue:

That evening we met up with Carolyn, a long-time friend since college, who was our lovely host for a few days. Carolyn has a gift with cats, which was a real treat for KDcat to see. Do you know how you can teach dogs to sit and give kisses? Well, Carolyn has taught one of her rescued cats to do the same thing! He *really* sits and *really* gives kisses on command! WOW!

Carolyn showed us all around the San Franciso and Berkeley areas, bringing KDcat to a thrift shop (she's been having fun popping into random thrift shops to see what she can find) and a fun shop called Ancient Ways, stopping by some Indian shops so I could pick up some more bindis and some ground coriander for a dish I made while visiting, checking out the Berkeley campus area, and taking us shopping for organic foods.

While looking around at the city, we saw some great views, but the most beautiful was the piece of paradise in Carolyn's back yard! The owners of the property are some sweet guys [see pic of the two of them in the photo set, below] who have turned their back yard into a peaceful sanctuary away from the hussle and bustle of city life. They have a few edible things (including an amazing amount of lemons we took with us), a spectacular koi pond with a waterfall, and beautiful/fragrant flowers everywhere. They're talented guys--creating that beauty in the back yard and also inside the home that they fixed up. It was a nice place to stay.

Since Carolyn is interested in raw foods and still learning more about the lifestyle, I decided to show her how to make some foods she might like to prepare on her own after I was gone. So, she filmed me preparing some of the foods for our Makin' It Monday video series. I prepared tacos, using some Meyer lemons from her back yard!!! I also showed her how to easily prepare a "veggie stir don't fry." [We'll show the Makin' It Monday video in a coming installment.]

As we've been trying to do each evening, I was able to hang out chatting online with Jim using video chat. It was fun for Jim to be there with Carolyn, KDcat, and me, even if it was only virtual over the Net.

Oh, and Carolyn has the BEST shower, ever! The water pressure was amazing and it helped wake me up each morning! All of this traveling is very tiring for the body, so an invigorating shower in the morning is a real treat. We had a fantastic time in San Francisco and will definitely visit again (next time with Jim).

Once again, we d love to thank our generous trip snack sponsor, Natural Zing, for helping us to make this possible on our budget!