kickoff party in San Fran

Thanks to a great wedding gift from our brother John, we were lucky enough to see Jay-Z and Beyonce's On the Run tour, just before we take off on the run from CA to NYC. We may not have the Bonnie and Clyde routine, or the extraordinary fashion of Jay and Bey, but they don't have a cute cattle dog.

(enthusiastic fans light up AT&T Park during "Forever Young")

In addition to being a great concert, this gift was especially appropriate because one theme of their tour is marital love; as the show closed, Jay-Z and Queen Bey celebrated their lives as "The Carters," showing reels of their wedding and their young daughter.

On the way there, we enjoyed some final glimpses of HWY 1, taking in the dramatic cliffs between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. We ended up in San Francisco, the western terminus of route 80, an interstate that we will follow for much of our trip, including over the George Washington Bridge and into NYC in about two weeks.

All in all, a very kickoff to the fun vacation and interesting journey ahead.