Bob’s sister and brother-in-law took me to the Des Moines airport yesterday morning to catch my flight to Denver and then on to San Francisco to begin a housesit in Oakland, California, for two dogs. Bob will be joining me next Friday after a follow-up appointment with his orthopedic surgeon regarding his hip replacement, which at this point seems to be going well.
I was really worried about a couple of things with the flight — getting through security, which has become a problem at a number of airports due to the partial government shutdown, and finding the train at the airport that I needed to catch to get to the housesit. As it turned out, those two things were about the easiest parts of my trip. The real hiccup was getting into the San Francisco airport to find that my checked bag had arrived but had been missorted and couldn’t be found. I waited for about 45 minutes before filing a claim and heading to the housesit. Luckily, the bag was located and delivered at 10 p.m. last night.
The homeowners for this housesit are a younger couple who are expecting their first baby at the end of July. They left this morning for Japan with the husband’s father. They live very close to the West Oakland BART station which is super helpful. Their home is a lovely 2-story townhome style house in a neighborhood that is in the process of gentrifying and/or changing from industrial to residential.
They have two Australian labradoodles — Whisky (brown) and Peaches (white) are super cute and chill (with the exception of getting ready to go for a walk when Whisky gets very vocal.
The following are a few of the photos I’ve taken to date including one of the dogs, some showing a bit of the cultural background of the area, its industrial past, as well as some lovely California flowers and new development.
Peckish Travels 