Keoni and Bonnie

A great way to beat the 98 degree temps in Atlanta is to pick up a 30 hour layover in Northern California.  I love downtown San Jose and the weather was a glorious 84 degrees with no humidity!

This is a great walking city with lots of restaurants, bars, movie theaters and a couple of musuems.  I chose the art musuem instead of the technolgy one.  They had a special exhibit of an artist named Todd Schorr whose style is considered American surreal.  It was very interesting, although not my personal taste in art.

I wanted to try a local restaurant and signs led me to Don Pedros Authentic Mexican Restaurant at 43 Post Street.  It seemed to be pretty much a “hole in the wall” place.  Very old looking, almost like an old diner but there were already a good amount of customers at 11:15 so I thought, why not?  I was pleasantly surprised.   I got a lunch taco carnitas with beans and rice.  It was full of deliciously seasoned pork carnitas, pico di gallo and cilantro.  The beans were good and the rice was average but the salsa was nice and hot!

Later on in the day, I met up with some of the crew members at a favorite, McCormick and Schmicks for the wonderful happy hour.  They have a special bar menu that ranges from $1.95 to $4.95 and everything I’ve had has been good.  The drink prices are not cheap but they do have a nice wine selection and the service has always been good at any of the locations.

If I have this layover again, I would be tempted to rent a car and go to some wineries or Santa Cruz (a beach town).  I read that J Lohr has a winery and tasting room minutes from downtown San Jose.  If not, I could still find lots of adventure on foot.