{"id":12605,"date":"2024-05-20T08:02:42","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T15:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=12605"},"modified":"2024-05-20T08:00:26","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T15:00:26","slug":"road-trip-novato-our-home-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=12605","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip – Novato, Our Home Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow<\/p>\n

The Road Trip \u2013 Novato, Our Home Town<\/p>\n

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Spinnaker in Sausalito<\/p><\/div>\n

I left Orange County mid-morning last Thursday, hoping to miss the L.A. traffic . . . NOT!\u00a0 So, the three-hour drive to meet up with Jack in Santa Maria took four hours.\u00a0 I spent Thursday night at Jack & Sharon\u2019s where they invited Sharon\u2019s daughter and son-in-law, Deb & Steve Rau<\/strong> over for dinner; a very fun evening.\u00a0 Jack and I embarked on our road trip the next morning around 8:00, getting us to San Francisco in time for their commute traffic.\u00a0 So, my first road trip accomplishment was to be stuck in both L.A.<\/strong> and San Francisco<\/strong> traffic within 24 hours.\u00a0 Check.<\/p>\n

Jack & I both enjoyed visiting San Francisco while we were growing up in Novato, however, we\u2019d heard not-such-good things about it over the last several years, so we were afraid to see for ourselves what \u2018The City\u2019 looked like.\u00a0 We took major streets through town, Van Ness and Lombard and we were very pleasantly surprised \u2013 we saw not one homeless person on the spotless streets and The City sparkled on this beautiful, sunny Friday morning.\u00a0 We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge<\/strong> and went into Sausalito<\/strong> where we had lunch at The Spinnaker<\/strong>, a restaurant right on the water.\u00a0 The last time I was at The Spinnaker was for dinner before my high school senior prom, just a few years ago!\u00a0 We had a window seat which offered us a spectacular view of the San Francisco Bay and the many boats out sailing on this perfect spring day.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever taken a photo of a meal I was eating, but this one looked and tasted so good, that I just couldn\u2019t help myself.<\/p>\n

After lunch, we continued into Novato and to the home of Pete Ferrarese<\/strong>, a former high school classmate and football teammate of Jack.\u00a0 He is living in the house \"\"<\/a> his parents owned and that he grew up in.\u00a0 He invited his brother, Paul<\/strong>, who was a classmate and teammate of mine in high school, over for dinner as well as semi-retired lawyer and classmate, football teammate, George Gnoss<\/strong>, who brought a very nice bottle of wine.\u00a0 Needless to say, the before-dinner conversation in Pete\u2019s beautifully flowered backyard, the dinner conversation over delicious barbequed steaks, and the post-dinner\/wine conversation was filled with stories about, \u201cDo you remember when . . .\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> A most entertaining and fun evening!<\/p>\n

Saturday morning, we met the family of a dear friend of both Jack and mine, Don Stutzman<\/strong>, who passed away several years ago.\u00a0 We met, Gwenn<\/strong>, Don\u2019s ex-wife and two of his three children, Susan<\/strong> and Mark<\/strong>.\u00a0 This trip is just beginning, but having the two-and-a-half-hour breakfast with the Stutzman clan will unquestionably be one of the highlights.\u00a0 The conversation never stopped about adventures that we had with Don.\u00a0 Gwenn looked great at 84 and the kids were chips off the old block, very nice looking, delightful and totally entertaining.\u00a0 After breakfast Mark invited us over to his house to see his \u2018Man Cave\u2019.\u00a0 It is unbelievable!\u00a0 A large room, separate from the house, with a full bar and filled with 49er<\/strong> memorabilia.\u00a0 The stories continued as we had a cold beer and a toast to Don.<\/p>\n

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Jack, Paul, Bob, Pete, George<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pete’s garden with 70 foot redwood tree<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Stutzmans: Mark, Jack, Gwenn, Susan, me<\/p><\/div>\n

Saturday afternoon we visited all the houses (4) that we lived in while growing up in Novato as well as cruised down the main drag of town, Grant Avenue<\/strong>, saying, \u201cThat\u2019s where (fill in the blank) used to be\u201d.\u00a0 We also went by Novato High School<\/strong> and sadly watched part of a soccer game being played on the football field \u2013 where Novato no longer has a football team.\u00a0 We then visited \u2018our brick\u2019 at Novato City Hall. \u00a0\u00a0Pete, Jack & I hit a very good Mexican restaurant on Grant Avenue for dinner, then called it a night.<\/p>\n

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The ‘Brick’ at Novato City Hall<\/p><\/div>\n

Next week, Suzanne will post her traditional \u2018Memorial Day\u2019 blog paying tribute to the Novato men who lost their lives in Viet Nam.\u00a0 I will return the following week with the rest of the \u2018Road Trip\u2019.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Mark’s 49er Man Cave!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Jack & my first home – upstairs on Grant Ave.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow The Road Trip \u2013 Novato, Our Home Town I left Orange County mid-morning last Thursday, hoping to miss the L.A. traffic . . . NOT!\u00a0 So, the three-hour drive to meet up with Jack in Santa Maria … read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[813],"tags":[1983,831,4428,2044,1451,625,4420,4427],"class_list":["post-12605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-49ers","tag-golden-gate-bridge","tag-grant-ave","tag-novato","tag-novato-high-school","tag-san-francisco","tag-sausalito","tag-the-spinnaker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/man-cave-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aN0-3hj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12605"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12620,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605\/revisions\/12620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}