At the Cheese Cake Factory on top of Macy's Union Square with the first glimpse of blue sky in days.

Thanks to Meg and Jake for the pictures. It was funny to see people whole dressed up whom you previously only knew in bathing gear...

Hundreds of people from Lafayette were gathered to pay Karen tribute. It was a fun, emotional and official dinner where the "nine lifes" of Karen were explained by friends, family and local dignitaries.  It turned out that Karen made quite an impact of this city with your work at the schools, library and other institutions. And it was very nice and moving to see that this work is being recognized. 

Also it was nice to meet the family and friends and the whole evening was something not to forget.

So Karen, Tom and Meg were all aware of our coming to the citizen of the year dinner - the only one we could surprise was Mason. Which we did at breakfast the day after we arrived. I was surprised by the very modest breakfast he had ;-)

A couple of weeks ago we found out that Karen Mulvany, whom we met @ the Galapagos Islands while on our National Geographic Expedition, is voted to be 'Citizen of the year' of her hometown Lafayette (near San Francisco). While it has been a year or so since I was in SF it seemed a perfect excuse to fly over and celebrate the occasion with Karen and her friends and family. It should have been a surprise - but as everything else in this age of Wikileaks our coming somehow was revealed to Karen... Maybe for the better, otherwise she would have had such a shock that she probably would not have recovered. In the mean time Eddie and I made such a huge shopping list that the only thing we will do in SF is shop till we drop. (As it turns out that is one of my favorite things to do!). BA flew us comfortable in our beds.

But have to till November! :-(