San Francisco - March 29 - April 3 2006

Well...I took a few days off and went down to San Francisco to visit a friend. I was a lot of fun ! Although, it never fails, I had tried to prepare all my work ahead of time and the day I went to leave (Wednesday) I was given some work to do for Wednesday night. Fortunately, I was able to work from my friend's computer down there in SF. All went well in that respect.

Thursday was a very relaxing day. We just hung out, ate and walked around Fisherman's Wharf. I had not been down to San Francisco in nearly 5 years. Once place I had never been was the Coit Tower on Telegraph hill. We hopped a bus that seemed like it was having transmission problems. At one point I thought we almost could have walked faster. But we finally got to the top of the hill and took in the view. I have to admit that it was probably one of the best views of the city I had ever seen. Although, not much else has changed in with respect to the tourist traps.


We made it down to the Italian district walked around for ever trying to find a good place to eat. We finally decided on a nice little place and had a relaxing dinner. The food was pretty good ! Afterward we enjoyed a huge bowl of Gelato !! I can't believe I ate the whole thing. We then walked back to Dave's apartment. I needed that exercise after that meal. I'm going to have to work out an extra few times for that one too

Friday we rented a car and drove up to Sonoma to do some wine tasting. The hills and the grass were so green. There has been a ton of rain in the Bay areaa and in the wine country. I'm use to seeing the brown dry grassy hills. But this time it was quite beautiful.

I know/knew absolutely nothing really about wine. I basically knew the difference between sweet and dry wines. Reds seem to be mostly dry. The smell....oh wait...that Aroma of the wines are supposed to be able to have the character of the barrell(sp?) they were stored in. I was able to smell some of those characteristics, but not all. I guess I have to train my snoz to know better.

We tasted at the following Wineries:

Buena Vista

Kenwood

Ledson

It was quite fun. I had never really tasted at the wineries themselves. My friend Dave knows quite a bit about wines and enjoys them very much. After a day around the wineries we ended up in Guerneville for the night. There had been alot of flooding of the Russian River and you could tell it was off season. alot of businesses were closed.

The next day we were up fairly early and drove out to the coast and drove north along Highway 1. There was one area of the road that had a mud slide over from too much rain. Fortunately we did not have to wait that long for it to be cleared. We travelled about 150 miles north of San Francisco up to a light house called the Point Arena Lighthouse. It was a nice size light house. We were going to go up in it but then decided not to.

Point Arena Lighthouse

After stopping to take in the view from the light house we decided to head inland on a really cool highway that curved thoough a good size forest of Redwoods. We ended up in Healdsburg and had lunch and did a little more wine tasting and then made it back into San Francisco by early evening.

Picture I took out the window of the little shop at the light house

On Sunday we decided to do the Tourist thing again. We got on a boat and took one of the San Francisco Bay tours. It takes you out under the Golden gate bridge and then back via the north side of Alcatraz. I had never seen Alcatraz that close up. It was great to see the city from the bay insteaed of some of the ordinary views.

Under the Golden Gate Bridge:

My Friend Dave and the Golden Gate Bridge: