Working the Wine Country

After a quick breakfast we were heading across the Golden Gate bridge in the convertible, with the top down, of course. Poor Jemma in the back was shivering under her six layers of clothing, but Naoko and I pumped up the heat in the front and were feeling just fine.

By the time we arrived at Muir Woods, the place was PACKED. There was no parking within a mile of the park entrance, and since we still had wine country to conquer, we decided to tour Muir Woods another time. A word to the wise, if your travels bring you here, come early or come prepared to hike a bit to the entrance.

We did make a quick stop at Muir Beach, which is an off-the-leash dog beach, so we had great fun watching people play with their dogs, and occasionally tossing a ball ourselves. It was too breezy to do any swimming, but the weather was clear and fabulous, and we lamented not having a picnic with us to enjoy on the beach.

Wine Country

Our next stop was to be Sonoma. There are many wine choices in Northern California, and while Napa is the most famous, it doesn’t have the Sonoma Jack cheese factory. Luckily the giris humored my need for cheese, and soon enough we were enjoying a picnic in the plaza outside the cheese shop.

On this beautiful President’s Day Sunday afternoon, people were out in full force. Kids were playing, adults were sipping wine and there was a general "gee, it’s good to be alive" feeling in the air.

My two traveling companions had never been on an American picnic before, so they were enjoying soaking up the local culture as much as I was. After lunch we did get to stop at two wineries to do a little tasting, but time was once again getting away from us.

Sausalito


With no real plans for the evening, we made a stop in Sausalito and wandered along the waterfront, overlooking the sparkly view of San Francisco in the distance. We weren’t actually hungry enough to eat yet, although Naoko was hoping to be able to enjoy some native Clam Chowder soup somewhere.

Back in the city we were feeling strangely mellow and couldn’t quite decide what it was we wanted to do (and/or eat.) We wandered from Union Square to Chinatown and back (a fairly adventurous walk) and maybe it was because it was late, or maybe because it was Sunday night, there were surprisingly few restaurants open at that time.

We finally settled on Lefty O’Douls (a little bit by default, because there weren’t a lot of options open to us) and were totally thrilled by the VERY affordable prices here, as well as the live music. We spent some time listening to the singer and just enjoying the cameraderie before returning to Hilton.