After we’d got up and checked email and stuff, we planned our day. First, I took Mitchell out to Macy’s so that he could buy some Levi’s jeans.

When we returned, we decided we would have dinner at Frantoio, and the weather was looked good, so after discussing some options we agreed that a simple picnic would be ideal. We drove off to Trader Joe’s to get supplies, but in the process we saw some rather good looking sushi and changed our plans to allow for lunch at nearby KamiKazi Sushi. We’d been their before once with Derek – is basically next door to Trader Joe’s, so we stopped in there for a light lunch.

About an hour later we staggered out, groaning, wondering how we’d managed to eat so much and hoping we’d still have room for dinner later!

During lunch we had revised our plans and decided to drive up to the Mt Tamalpais lookout, figuring that exploring southern Marin would be a good way to pass the afternoon.

Mitchell and I walked up to the very top where the fire lookout is, and did the usual panoramic vista thing with our cameras. The late autumn light was particularly good, and we got a good view of Mill Valley and the city in the distance. We could even see the top of one of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge peeking over a hill.

We drove down Mt Tam and took a slightly different route, driving past the entrance to Muir Woods (we would have liked to go in but it was beginning to get dark – we had kind of forgotten how early the sun sets these days!) and eventually made our way back to highway 101, intending to drive around to the lookout on the North side of the Golden Gate Bridge. However, we hit rush hour traffic and when we eventually got to the lookout it was getting dark – and cold. Mitchell and I ran down the path to the lookout and snapped some pictures anyway.

As we returned to the car, we discussed the situation: Frantoio is located nearby, but we were still full from lunch and anyway we were much to early for the reservation we made. The traffic looked bad, and if we did go anywhere we’d have to come back through the traffic, and we were kind of tired. We settled on an alternate plan: We’d check out the audio equipment at the Good Guys store in nearby Corte Madeira, cancel our reservation at Frantoio (another time, Mitchell!) and then drive further North to Borders for book browsing and possibly coffee, and then go to the Broken Drum Grill in San Rafael for dinner. This plan was deemed to be a good one. We only had a few days with Mitchell in San Rafael, and the Broken Drum was definitely one of the places we wanted to take him.