Day 80 -- June 19, 2003 -- Thursday

On June 19, 1971 in Dallas, Texas, Barbara Jane Gray and I were married. 32 years of wedded bliss today. We dated for almost two years before we were married. I am a really lucky guy.

We continued to extend our stay with son Ryan in San Francisco. Two of Ryan's key employees had personal emergencies that kept them away from work. Meanwhile, the phones were ringing off the hook. So, we decided late last night that we needed to spend another few days as telephone tour reservation agents. Our job was to help answer the phones and whittle away at the seemingly never-ending list of 300+ calls that ring into voice mail while the lines are busy with other callers. A madhouse. Ryan was working on hiring and training two additional people! He has developed a surprising ability to remain cool under such massive stress. Bozzie and I don't drink hardly at all, but we felt like we needed to take the wine-tasting tour every night after the stress of each of these phone days.

Boz was actually answering phones today. My duty was returning calls to Alcatraz inquiries left on voice mail, since that's all I have been trained for. I'm an Alcatraz veteran now.

We weren't sure when we would leave San Francisco. It would depend on when Ryan had helpers back in place. Tomorrow, we planned to go on a Fire Engine Tour, and we arranged to see the renowned San Francisco show, Beach Blanket Babylon. The plan was to work really hard in the morning and early afternoon and play late tomorrow afternoon and evening.

I enjoyed several emails today from people we have met along the way.

Ryan took us to the Buckeye Roadhouse in Mill Valley for anniversary dinner. Dinner was excellent, and we enjoyed the White Peach Blackberry Cobbler and the S'more Pie. Mike, the valet, was especially nice. At the gas station on the way home, we met Mike and Mike, Jr.

The thought for the day is to make every anniversary special.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we've seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of "vital statistics" on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you'd like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.

San Francisco