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This is the 3rd installment of a trip down memory lane about my first visit to Wine Country. You can catch up here for Episode 1 and Episode 2.

Friday June 30, 2006
After a relatively short night that involved more coma than sleep we arose the next morning to cram in a few more things while we were in the bay area.

We first had breakfast delivered to the room and then headed out across the bridge Sausalito. I had been there once before but it was a new experience for Robin. What a cool little town Sausalito is. We walked the main street shopping here and there. We got a coffee and marveled at what it must be like to live in this place. We decided that if the 3 of us got 2 jobs each and put the 2 dogs and 1 cat to work we might be able to afford to share a garage apartment somewhere near San Francisco or Sausalito.

One of the few things I bought that wasn’t wine or chocolate was a set of photos from the Mark Reuben Gallery in Sausalito. He has a neat little store off of the main street and we probably spent an hour in there looking at all the vintage photographs he has. I bought 3 different photos of Denver Bronco players before/during/after Super Bowl XXXII including a classic shot of Elway in the locker room after the game with an ear-to-ear smile. I can’t find it at his online store presumably because I bought it! He does still have a shot of John Elway near the end of SB XXXIII.

Around lunch time we headed back to the Archbishop’s Mansion to pack up and head to Wine Country. Finally!!!

After a quick stop at Walgreens for some snacks and Pepto Bismol (not necessarily in that order) it’s about a 40 mile drive from the Mansion to the Motel 6 in Petaluma.

How could we go from staying at a Mansion to the Motel 6? We chose to do it that way so that we could spend our money on the limo drive through Napa and Sonoma instead of spending big at a hotel. It was a fair trade off and there is just nothing like touring Wine Country in a limo, not having to worry about driving, tasting/drinking as much wine as you want, getting tossed around in the back as the driver speeds through the valley, there is nothing to compare it to!

In any event we checked into the Motel 6 and headed a few blocks down the road to Starbucks for a quick pick-me-up before our next jaunt over to Bodega Bay. What a very cool place that is! Here’s a picture of Robin nearly getting blown away by the winds coming off the bay. Jerri used to do a bit of camping around the area and pointed out several landmarks and camping locations. It seemed to be growing with some construction going on at both ends of the main drive and we just hope it doesn’t lose the charm when that’s all done!

Robin was driving us nuts by singing at every quiet moment. The Muppets song Mah Na Mah Na was the tune and Robin was replacing the scat-like Mah Na Mah Na words with “Bodega Bay!”. To this day whenever any of us hears that song we all sing “Bodega Bay!”

We stopped in for more wine at Gourmet Au Bay where we watched some very skilled windsurfers surf in and out of the bay. I think in my next life I want to own that place. What a spectacular view and lifestyle. We must have fit right in because one of the locals walked over and started talking to us like she knew us! After a minute she realized she didn’t but was very nice nonetheless!

We then enjoyed our final meal of the day at the Tide’s Wharf where I had a fantastic lobster dinner! We got a table at the window and sat back to take it all in. What a great trip! If it ended here it would have been a vacation to remember. But we still had 2 more days to go!

We called it an early night and drove back to the Motel 6 to get some beauty rest and prepare for our trip to Napa.

Saturday would be filled with wine tastings, great cheese, George the Limo Driver and our first In & Out Burgers experience. Stay tuned!

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Here is the second installment of Wine Country Revisited. If you missed the first one you can catch up here.

Thursday, June 29, 2006 - Noonish thru 2am

So after leaving the Buena Vista and the Dirty Martini bar we take a ride down Lombard Street. It’s one of those things that I had seen on TV and to drive it is something else. There was a line of people waiting to drive down it and most weren’t too friendly about keeping their place in line as people were cutting and didn’t really care what what anybody else thought about it. The guys in this black truck did cut in front of us. I tried snapping a couple of shots on the way down and this is the best one.

Jerri then gave us a tour of some pretty cool places around San Francisco including the Presidio, the Cliff House and Ocean Beach before heading to our one-night stay at the Archbishop’s Mansion. The place was pretty cool. It has themed rooms though I can’t recall which room we stayed in or which room Jerri stayed in (but Jerri can probably recall if she’ll comment). The place offered some wine and cheese around Happy Hour time and we enjoyed some in the Parlor where there was a chandelier that was used in the movie Gone With the Wind. Robin is a huge fan of the movie and was purely delighted to be drinking wine beneath it!

Wait, isn’t this supposed to be about Wine Country?? It is…I know…hang in there with me. It will be worth it I promise!

We drank some wine and had a bite or 2 of cheese and catch a cab to Kuleto’s in the Financial District for dinner and drinks. We started out at the front bar drinking some good Syrah and eating marinated olives, pickled garlic and other finger foods when 3 guys to our left strike up a conversation. We talk about Texas and Colorado and SF while one of the guys makes eyes at Jerri. They seem to travel a lot and are in town for a medical convention. Eventually, our table is ready and we stuff ourselves with a great dinner and a couple more bottles of wine. Now we are primed and I mean PRIMED for a night out!

Around 10pm we catch another cab over to Bix where it’s standing room only and we somehow make our way to the bar and I continue drinking Syrah while Robin switches to, you guessed it, dirty martinis and Jerri switches to Cosmopolitans. Somewhere along the line I lost count of the number of drinks we all had but we had a great time debating what the butler in the huge painting to the left of the bar was thinking.

As we’re about to wrap up the evening we are accosted by the same 3 guys we met earlier at Kuleto’s. It turns out that they are salesman for surgical instruments used in female-only procedures; hysterectomies and such, yeah, THAT was a comfortable conversation! The one is still trying to pickup Jerri and she’s having none of it. After being rebuffed multiple times he finally reveals that he’s married and the gang catches the cab before us. Jerri later claims to have known from the minute we first met these guys that she knew he was married even though he wasn’t wearing a ring. This still baffles me but you just can’t question a woman’s intuition!

The point of the evening is that nobody can remember specifics. We remember the salesmen, the paintings and the drinks (nameless syrah) but we’re all a bit foggy on the details.

Before the night is over, well…let’s just say that only 2 of us remember the cab ride home! I won’t say which one of us it was who couldn’t remember but I will say that I vividly remember the Asian cabbie getting all 4 wheels off the ground on the way back to the hotel on one of those steep downhill roads. Kinda like in the opening sequence in the Streets of San Francisco with Michael Douglas. It was crazy!

I think we woke everybody in the hotel up as we ssshhhed each other and the ladies giggled all the way to our rooms.

Well, it was a long day and it was still only Thursday and we still haven’t gotten to Wine Country. Rest assured that we make the trek to Petaluma where some interesting things happen at a Motel 6, a visit to Bodega Bay and a crazy limo ride with George through Napa Valley.

Tune in next time!

It’s been just over a year since my first trip to Napa and Sonoma, aka, Wine Country. I had such a blast on that short vacation that I had to relive it with the 4 other people I went with. We spent a few hours discussing it and I thought it was worth sharing for others that may be making their way to Wine Country.

What follows is a series of posts recapping the visit, the struggles to get a rental car, the perils of useless limo drivers, an unforgettable night at Bix, 2 of the best lunches I’ve ever had and they were on-the-go, Sooz and downtown Petaluma.

This is installment #1 of 3-5 thoroughly enjoyable posts you’ll get to read.

Thursday, June 29, 2006 - 6am thru noonish
We caught an early morning flight from San Antonio to San Francisco, non-stop. Wahoo! We hate layovers.

We arrive sometime around 10am and make our way to the rental car section of the airport…the dirty underbelly of the parking garage.

There are 3 of us to begin with and between the 3 of us and all our bags it’s determined that a minivan is best suited for toting us around. You can be sure that I did not vote for the minivan. I vaguely remember saying, “convertible” and “sports car” but the sensible side in us (the ladies) won out. I am there with my wife Robin and our close friend Jerri. Jerri drives a minivan everyday so this was a good fit for her.

Jerri goes to the counter to get the keys while Robin and I wait in the parking garage near where all the minivans are parked. While we were waiting a porter somewhere between 90 years old and … oh, I don’t know…dead? backs a Subaru Forester right into a concrete post. He doesn’t even notice, or at least pretends not to. He gets out of the car and walks off like nothing happened. I take a quick peek at the rear of the Subaru and see that the damage is not severe. We got the van with a navigation system and headed for the wharf.

Since Jerri lived many years in or near SF she is our guide at Fisherman’s Wharf and the rest of the city. We drive up the wharf and decide we’re up for an early lunch at McCormik & Kuleto’s. It’s about 11:20am and time for the first glass of wine. I get a Syrah that I can’t remember the name of (theme building here). We eat a fantastic lunch while enjoying the view, watching swimmers in wet suits, freighters on the water and homeless people walk the street.

After lunch we take in the view and get a first-hand look at several people sleeping

on the steps of a small amphitheater. There is what appears to be a field trip for several classes of 7 year olds and they don’t even seem to notice the people sleeping on the steps; even when one wakes up and fingers a Vienna Sausage out of a can, licks her fingers and rolls back over for some more prime time sleeping! We eventually make our way back to Ghirardelli Square where I buy a 5lb bag of assorted chocolates that I will enjoy for the rest of the trip!

Since we’ve had a little time to let lunch settle and work up a new thirst we walk down to the Buena Vista for Irish Coffees where a guy who looks like Jack’s dad from LOST lines up 6-8 coffee cups drops in sugar cubes, pours in hot coffee and whiskey and uses a special wrist motion and a spoon to mix them all up. He’s very efficient as he can do all 8 cups in about 90 seconds.

Before leaving the wharf area we stroll around “shopping” and found a cheese store near/at the cannery. Both ladies love cheese but decide to wait until we get to Dean & Deluca’s to get the good stuff. Robin is a martini drinker as evidenced by this photo taken outside of a bar called Dirty Martini. We always try to bring her back from the dark side but I’m afraid it’s too late.

The day is just getting started and a night of too much fun is on the horizon. Check back for the next installment of Wine Country Revisited when our heroes take a ride down Lombard Street, continue to drink no-name syrahs and have multiple run-ins with a gang of surgical instrument salesmen.

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