A bad combination

Day 39, May 10, 1997

Kirk Creek State Park- Palo Alto, CA

227 km in three days

We got up at 7:30 and I put two pots of water on to boil. Each of us had a bird bath: warm water, soap, cloth, and towel, we crouch in our tents and wash. It feels good! We packed up dew-sodden gear and headed for Stanford.

The traffic, as we neared the Bay, was amazing. It looked like rush hour, and it was Saturday. Our route took us across three freeways. I was driving and Erica was navigating. We very quickly learned that this is not a good combination! I am too cautious a driver to cross 4 lanes within a quarter mile, which one needs to do to avoid exiting again when entering a new freeway. Erica had a hard time reading the map and the road signs at the same time. I finally gave up and Ralph took the wheel. With my direction and his more assertive driving, we finally made our way to Stanford.

Once on campus, we found Bruce's residence quite quickly. He introduced us to his partner Heidi, gave us a tour of his apartment and the campus, and we made spaghetti dinner. Bruce has three room-mates in a reasonable size apartment, but residence housing is never opulent as far as space goes. Bruce had decided it was better that we not sleep in the front room, so he gave us his room and he (quite happily) stayed with Heidi.

Erica slept in Bruce's bed and Ralph and I managed to fit our air mattresses and sleeping bags in the remaining floor space. Our bins stacked up against the window. We had effectively taken over Bruce's room in hours! We also introduced ourselves to his room-mates as they appeared.