Ricky’s & Raider Image

Second day in the San Francisco area. We slept in a bit this morning. But once we started we went from zero to full speed in no time.

First stop of the day was Ricky’s sports bar for lunch and College Football. When we arrived at Ricky’s we found a new shop that sold Raiders t-shirts among other Raiders things, JV’s Locker Room.

It turned out that JV stands for John Vella and won a Super Bowl ring with the Raiders in Super Bowl XI back in 1977.

Mash-san mentioned that his all time favorite NFL player was Ken Stabler, who happened to be the QB when John Vella won his ring. That seemed to make a bond between them and Mash-san could borrow John’s ring… For a while.


Mash-san & Russel Shimura-san, Mash-san & John Vella

Afterwards we visited Ricky’s to have lunch and watch College Football. We watched Stanford @ USC (Pac-10) while eating typical American sports bar food. The game was a great upset since Stanford won. We gave Ricky a #1 t-shirt and some cookies, and we all got a gift from Ricky (I got a Bobbing Head Touchdown).


Shimura-san & Mash-san at Ricky's Mash-san in front of his framed Raider Nation fan of the week printout Chie & Ricky (with our #1 t-shirt)

Then it was time for our yearly visit to the Raider Image. Usually after we leave the Raider Image they need to refill their storage rooms. This year was no difference. We had our hands full of bags once we exited the shop.


Chie, Johan, Mash-san, Shimura-san, Kikue-san at Raider Image

On our way home the sun set while we drove across the San Francisco bay. When we got back home it was dark. And we spent the rest of the evening preparing the tail gate party tomorrow, eating dinner, and talking.


Sunset in California

Leave a Reply