After a short 242-mile drive north through the icy central valley of California, we arrived in San Francisco at noon, giving us plenty of time to visit the Golden Gate Bridge – an absolutely spectacular thrill and dream come true for Jutta. That might sound a wee bit hyperbolic, but remember that this bridge has been celebrated around the globe as an engineering feat that added a stunning visual addition to the city by the bay.

The weather was slightly warmer than down south, and the visibility was the best of any of our trips to Frisco.

This is the city where Caroline and I, with my mother-in-law Jutta in tow, are beginning the 14th year of our marriage – today is our 13th Wedding Anniversary.

We have walked to the halfway point on the bridge in sticking with our motto, “Always leave something undone, unseen, in order to draw you back to the special places.”

The color of the bridge contrasts to the deep blue sky creating a design brilliance I can’t get over. The funny thing is, it looks red to me, and yet the color is officially called International Orange.

Coit Tower is in the distance as we make our way to the hotel we’ll be staying at tonight.

After checking into the Nob Hill Hotel, we took off for a walk in anticipation of our 7:00 p.m. dinner reservations this evening.

A leisurely walk through Chinatown fits the bill for finding entertainment in the form of sights one wouldn’t see in Frankfurt or Phoenix.

From diversity, the quality of life is amplified, which in turn adds to the cost of living. Just look at Anywhere, America outside of its biggest cities, and the price to take up residence is a fraction of what you’ll pay to live somewhere that art, culture, activities, great entertainment, and amazingly exotic foods are always on offer.

Things are getting quiet in Chinatown while they are probably hitting their stride over at Fisherman’s Wharf, but we’re not looking for crowds right now; we’re looking to make our way to a meal we anticipate will be extraordinary.

Our celebratory vegan dinner in honor of our anniversary was at Millennium, where we opted to try the Winter Citrus Menu. The three-course meal started with a blood orange & shaved fennel salad, followed by an heirloom cauliflower en papillote with a coconut-kaffir lime sauce. The third course was a choice between habanero-orange jerked tempeh with a sweet potato-coconut mash, roasted turnips & chantenay carrots, and a citrus-jicama salad or Meyer lemon bucatini made of seared maitake & clamshell mushrooms, sauteed escarole, white wine & Meyer lemon cream with crispy capers over bucatini pasta. Naturally, we tried both. Dessert was an assortment of satsuma mandarin, ruby red grapefruit, and blood orange sherbets with a champagne-vanilla bean anglaise sprinkled with candied macadamia nuts. What a great start to our 14th year this was.