I'm writing this on my Palm while I'm in the air on my way back to Philly.

As I thought, we finished our work early and rescheduled our flight back on Thursday in the early afternoon. As we ate breakfast we spoke about what we'd do with our time in the morning. My boss said he had to get some sourdough bread for his wife and wanted to go down to Fisherman's Wharf to get it. I half-heartedly suggested we go to the Anchor Brewery if it were along the way. I circled it on the map just in case.

I was driving and lucky for me my boss isn't much of a map reader. As we made our way north on Highway 101 we ended up going towards the exit for the brewery. "Mariposa Ave., isn't that where the brewery is?" I asked him. "Sure" he replied. "Let's just take 5 minutes to see if we can find it," I said as I exited the highway. A couple minutes later we were standing outside it. Nice old building.

We went in and I was hoping that the gift shop was open. It was and it was just a small display case next to the tasting bar. We each bought a baseball cap and thanked the bar tender for allowing us to show up not knowing if they were open to the public at the time. He must have liked us as he said he'd give us a quick tour. Jackpot!! He told us a quick history of the brewery and that they bought the copper brew kettles from Germany and allowed us to walk right up to them. I was in heaven! Next we saw the room where the open fermentors are located, then the room where they store the various varieties of hops. Amazing!! After a brief glimpse of the bottling line and the other open-top fermenters we headed back to the tasting bar. I figured we'd be leaving as we weren't there as part of a regular tour, but the guy gave us a few samples much to my delight! After chatting about the brewery and the Philly beer scene, we thanked him and left.

We then headed up to Fisherman's Wharf to get the bread. Lucky for us traffic was light and we made quick work of buying some bread. Looking at the time we then were in a bit of a panic to get down to the airport. Just as we pulled up to a red light as we drove through the city to hook up with 101, we witnessed an accident just ahead of the car in front of us. A car either sideswiped or ran perpendicularly into two folks on a motor scooter. It was hard to tell as the scooter was on the far side of that car, and the car next to me was blocking my view up the road. The car's driver stopped and got out to check on the man and lady lying on the street. Looking around I saw about 6 people on cell phones calling (I assume) the police. Three people went over to help the victims. The man was wearing a helmet and took a minute or so to get up. Unfortunately, the woman(?) didn't have a helmet on and was not moving at all. We thought about pulling over to help, but there were now a good handful of people helping and we didn't fully see it occur. We were both in a state of shock as we turned the corner to head to the 101 on ramp and on to airport. I'm still stunned. I hope the woman is OK.

Now I'm on the plane and heading home. The question I ask to myself is this: should I be telling the story of the accident just like any of the other events of this trip? I kind of feel guilty (if that is the right emotion) retelling it to the few people I've spoken to so far.

Anyway, thank goodness for podcasts! I downloaded a bunch of beer-related podcasts before these last two trips. Good stuff and a good way to pass the time on the planes and trains. Although some of the folks that make these tend to ramble and go off subject quite a bit more than network radio shows.