Sonoma wine

 Ah, Reader,

This is, alas, the last blog of the trip.  Dag-na-bit!

The day started with an Uber ride to the meeting spot for the bus to wine country.  Hilariously, about 8 of us are standing on the sidewalk and these two women come around the corner RUNNING (or what passes for running in 30-something women who don’t run) up the hill towards…well, they came back walking.  They were with our group. 😂

It is an hour plus ride from North Point San Fran to the Sonoma Valley.  We stopped at the scenic view place. 

Our bus driver/guide talked incessantly the whole hour.  One factoid I didn’t know was that the Golden Gate Bridge (obviously pictured above) and the Bay Bridge (pictured later) were built simultaneously in the ‘30s.  Amazing.  No one would try such a thing today.  ):

We went to 3 wineries in “Napa.”  Actually, none were in “Napa” and only one was in the lower Napa Valley.  The other two were in the Sonoma valley, which is the next valley west and (acc to the incessant talk) grows more grapes.  The first place was Muscardini, which was blah.  Their charcuterie board was good, though overpriced. 

The second place was B R Cohn.  Cohn was the manager for the Doobie Brothers for 45 years and bought the farm in the early 70s and the Doobie Brothers have played there 26 times.  There’s a stage in front of the vineyard. 

RR liked their Malbec (a rare varietal in California) and their Chardonnay and Cab Sav.  

Then to Sonoma (the town) for lunch.  It is a town of 10,000, we were told at least twice.  We had Mexican, which was not great. 

Then to Madonna, which is special in that it is an organic estate winery.  Estate means they only make wine from the grapes from their land (there is a lot of buy and selling grapes to make various wines in wine regions).  The host, Caitlin, was a gas, but the wine…meh. 

Back to San Fran.  Google maps said the quickest way to the hotel was trolley over the hill and then a bus.  Google didn’t know it’d be THREE trolleys before we got on (we weren’t alone with this idea).  I don’t think we got a good picture. 

The conductor was a card.  Working on material.  He heard the one couple was from Australia.  “I heard you’re from Australia, I want to talk to you.  I heard they’ve got a kid friendly dog down there…can you help me get one?  I think it’s called a dingo.”  I groaned.  He had several of these.  Mistook the people from Ohio for Michiganders (ouch!), and claimed at one point to be from Cologne.  I missed the follow up to that. 

Then to dinner at the Waterbar.  It is on the Embarcadero, almost right under the Bay Bridge (pic). This has become a tradition, going back to ‘14 with M&S.  This time the choices and my dinner was a bit disappointing (I had the turmeric brined mahi mahi), until…

They brought the dessert menu and I told RR it was her turn to choose and she chose the toffee pudding. Well, before they brought it, they brought it to the couple on my left (again, we sat close together).  I watched and he took one bite and he made this sound of “oh my god!”  I laughed and said to him I guess it was good and he was all “it’s unbelievable.”  We laughed at how excited he was (including him) — “I was only going to take a bite, but now…”

After tasting it, we agreed it was ThAT good.  About as good as a dessert can be without being made of chocolate. 

And that was a good way to finish.  Tomorrow, we grab breakfast and backtrack to the airport.  

Note: we decided to not rent a car.  It turned out to be a brilliant move.  We had no problem using public transportation, and a few ubers and a taxi, and feel like we saved mucho donero.  I wish we could in Ireland next month.  But we won’t bother with a car in London.

That trip and those blogs are only 3+ weeks away.  And boy will I have material with the kid and two brother-in-laws along. 

Till then, much love…

The Intrepid Traveler.

Croissant the Bay

 Reader,

I don’t know what day today is.  Hate me if you want to.

Today was a day full of food porn and a ballgame in the saddest place in MLB. 

The day started with RR having fulfilled her assignment “to find a place for breakfast” by taking us (okay, I found it logistically) a mile and a half away (a long way in a cuisine heavy big city).

Aris*****s (it’s too much to remember) supposedly has the best croissants IN THE COUNTRY.  No, not just the city, the whole dagnabit country.  

They were good.  Photo goes here.

 

Okay, I don’t know how you determine that.  But I’m going to concede: it’s hard to imagine any BETTER. 

Loaded up on sugar, we took the cautious rout and took the bus up the hill to Grace Cathedral.  Google maps warned that it was 243 feet up. !!!! This picture may demonstrate it.

I took no pictures of the cathedral, which was built after the nice combo of earthquake and fire in 1906.  It is a classic neoGothic design, very impressive.  With lots of stained glass, a huge organ, and…well, that about covers it.  We then walked 200 feet DOWN to the gate at China town, another SF landmark. 

Now we begin the stories du jour.  We take the BART under the bay to Oakland for the ballgame.  No, it’s not weird that here comes a woman who loudly starts “I don’t mean to show no one any disrespect…” which you know isn’t good.  She pitched for money for her and her 3 kids who were in a domestic abuse situation and needed a precise amount (she told the amount to the penny) for a hotel room tonight.  Everyone stared down in our car. 

Then the car stops at the second station on the Oakland side and the announcer (probably not the same stoner from the day before) says we have a jam up ahead and there’ll be a 2 to 5 minute holdup.  

Holdup is right.  Here comes two policemen.  One comes through the next car, through the door between and another comes through the open door next to me and they have this couple in the corner cornered.  “Someone has reported you for smoking marijuana on the train” I hear the cop say.  Busted.  Big time!  They pulled a pipe out of the guy’s hand; the woman protested some.  With some patience they got the two of them up and off the train — they had a cart which I think was their worldly belongings — and they stood them outside the train.  And then the train took off. 

Sherlock here thinks the delay was for that.  :)

I told RR we weren’t in Bloomsburg anymore. 

The stadium is a bit of a dud, as I suggested yesterday.   Here’s the prerequisite shot. 

First, the stadium is an odd shape.  From the picture you can see the bullpen is on the sideline.  There’s a lot of room there.  

The place is dead.  Half the venues were closed; there were a couple decent places to eat, but nothing like Seattle. 

And there was no one there. If you can’t tell by the picture, it was a sparse crowd.  Officially, 25% of capacity.  On a sunny day against the best team in their division, a rival (they booed two Astros players incessantly), on a holiday afternoon.  There’s a word for that. 

And then back to San Fran to meet my stepsister and her two daughters.  She took us to dinner at Fog’s, which is a tourist trap on Pier 39 (tourist trap central in San Francisco), and we had a decent meal.  I had the risotto with seafood and RR had the mixed grille.  

But here’s the funny thing, which may be story #3 of the day: halfway through dinner, in walks a couple and sits across from us — it was the same couple from last night at the Peruvian the place — the one with the Peruvian woman and the non-Peruvian man.  They waved to us and we talked.  Turns out she IS Peruvian and he isn’t.  :). And she said the food the night before was not up to Peruvian standards. :). GTK.  It was very funny.   We made sure we weren’t going to the same place tomorrow, but they are leaving and going back to Cincinnati.  She kept calling RR “Becky.”  LoL.  And I have no idea what their names were, Susie an Keith? 😂 😂😂 

Tomorrow Napa.  It’s supposed to be 88.  I’ve frozen for days, so I will be v v happy. 

Till then, enjoy your croissants. 

(think Tony Bennett) I brought my stomach to San Francisco

 Oh, patient reader,

Sunday. Travel day. Sigh.  Tough when you get up at 4:45.

 

Which might explain the start of the day. 

We were down at the front desk, expecting a taxi, with no one at the counter, and I see the man I think is the doorman (he’s been opening the door for two days, but masked…) wave from the door and point up the street, like the taxi is here.  Karen goes out to it.  I end up leaving Amanda (there was a later text message apologizing) a note saying we were checking out, I go out and the trunk of the taxi is open and the guy is there, ready to help me put my suitcase in the trunk.  He does and I dig out a couple bucks to tip him.  “No, no…” he says, and RR, from the car says “no…he’s the driver.”  Embarrassed emoji. [this is a variation, John, on the Castle Course starter in St. Andrews 😂 ]

Then we got to the airport and it turns out the driver hasn’t loaded the software for payment.  Then he tries to swipe my card on a device attached to his phone, and it doesn’t work.  Then he wants another card to try.  And it doesn’t work.  Finally, he calls the office.  The woman (I’d say “young” but maybe she just sounded young) on the other end doesn’t understand him well enough to recognize he’s a driver for several exchanges (by now I have the taxi # and his ID memorized) and finally she understands he needs her to take my card.  Okay, this won’t surprise you: she didn’t get the 16 digit number right the first time! ):  Meanwhile, RR is standing on the sidewalk giving me the X signal and I’m doing Y.  “It was 49 degrees and raining”…I was told.  From arrrival to payment took 17 minutes.  There were time stamps. 

But all went well otherwise — we were early enough to get Starbucks, get through security, eat our Top Doughnuts and get on the plane easily.  

So.  San Fran. 

You know you’re in San Francisco when…the BART driver seems to be stoned.  I mean, c’mon, man!  He announces the masking policy, reminds us, with some tone, why, then says “next stop is Daly City.”  Except most of the time (we came 13 stops, so we had time to document this) it was “The next station is…[long pause]…Daly City.”  And then “this is a…[long pause] a train to Richmond.”  Once and awhile he got it right right away, but mostly it was like “dude, I’m not feeling it today and it’s like I’ve never seen this route before” 😂 😂 😂 He also completely broke down on his last reading of the masking policy: “oh…you know why…” 😂 

We got to the hotel, checked in, the uber’d over to Mama’s.  The Uber driver had a Tesla.  San Fran, man.

Mama’s lived up to both its rep and its previous performances.  This was our 4th time there.  Things have changed — there were outdoor seats — but it was still the same food.  And the line to get “in.”   It took us 45 minutes to get to the ordering window. Le. There were 4 young guys behind us who were talking about clever lines and blogs (no kidding) but I never heard a single thing worth repeating.  All hat, no cattle. 

Here are your first food porn photos of this issue:

OJ and a mimosa to start.

The French toast sampler (cranberry orange toast, banana bread toast, and cinnamon toast).

California omelette (OC) with hollandaise sauce. 👍

Then we jumped on a bus down to the tourist district around Fisherman’s wharf. 

Here’s a shot from near the sea lions at Pier 39 of Golden Gate Bridge.

It was a very clear day.  See, no clouds!

After fighting the crowds (there’s a pandemic going on?), we grabbed one of their trolley trains back to the hotel.  And about the crowds: a lot of them weren’t speaking English.  We must be open for tourism again. 

And back to food porn.

The funniest thing about tonight’s restaurant was that we immediately recognized that we had eaten there before. :). As it was a Peruvian place (there has to be a joke there, though isn’t Jose Andres Peruvian and he deserves a Nobel Prize?) on the Embarcadero, you’d think you would remember.  Olds.

That was probably the funniest part of the evening.  Here’s food porn 1:

Their empanada sampler (from left, mushroom, chicken, beef, and corn).

The couple next to us (not quite as close as the wine snob on Friday) were intriguing: as RR said “it was like a first date.  She paid.”  The dynamic was curious.  They discussed “going for a drink” as they finished. 

I had the fish of the day, halibut (yes, there’s a joke in there), with collard greens (I need the 🤢 emoji) and black rice with a sauce that was to die for.  The waiter explained that it was a certain kind of yellow pepper (you can see the color) and two spices he wasn’t allowed to know (LoL).  

RR had the quinoa salad with barrata on top.  She likened the dressing to a sweeter balsamic. 

The first couple was replaced by another next to us.  I would have said she was Peruvian, and since she spent a lot of time explaining the menu to him, as did our waiter, he wasn’t.  :). We don’t know what they ordered — maybe the tasting menu? — but when we left, they’d already gotten two kinds of ceviche and the empanada sampler and it looked like more was coming as soon as there was room on the two-person table.  There aren’t enough tums…

We overheard the dessert pitch, so we looked at that menu and had to get this.  Organic Peruvian chocolate (is there inorganic Peruvian chocolate?) with tres leches layers with some vanilla ice cream on the side.  It WAS as good as it looks. 

Okay, we now have to lay down and sleep off our food coma.  We’ll be back tomorrow, which is ballpark #29.  Rah…but my life coach, who lived in Oakland, apologized up front for the stadium.  As have other people.  It is NOT supposed to be a ballpark highlight.  (They are in the midst of negotiations for building a new one — one for baseball [the Coliseum was, as the name suggests, built as a multi-purpose facility back when Caesar was around])

Manana

Okay 

It’s a swamp, it’s not a swamp, and meeting my life coach

Oh, Holiday Reader, 

Have I told you that I lived here as a child? I was 1.  Or 2.  I don’t remember.  And my mother, when I asked for clarity earlier in the week, claimed she couldn’t really remember.  Where did we live? “On the third floor.” 🙄 Helpful.  All she claims to remember of our year here was that it rained every day. 

The point here is that it was “rainy” all day today.  But, as our tour guide said, rain here isn’t like rain in East Coast cities — it’s more of an eternal mist rather than an actual dripping rain.  

The day began with food porn, which is probably good, because yesterday ended with it. 😂  The restaurant at the Westin advertised great things so we decided to try it.  They get many stars — good stuff. Pics: 

I had the chicken and waffles.  I like chicken and waffles and this was a high end version. That the chef had put his own twist on: that’s chipotle sauce on it (yes, it had a bit of heat, which is surprising with the sweet of maple syrup) and then cinnamon cream on top. 

RR had the Benedict with the touch of “avocado hollandaise.”  Neither of us know how it was done, but she loves avocados, so it was right up her alley.  🙂

We then walked the two blocks to Top Doughnuts for afternoon snacks. 

Our afternoon activity was the Underground Tour.  Not like “underground” as in subversive, but underground as in under ground.  It seems that the current city of Seattle is actually built up 20’ from its original heighth, which was actually no height at all — sea level.  They did so by using water cannons (straight from your local strip mine) to knock a 48% grade down to about 18%.  

Doing this put the first floor of a number of buildings “underground.”  Thus the tour.  

Our tour guide’s name was Mike, and he was the infamous character of a tour guide.  If I added up all the jobs he’d held for all those years he did it, he’d be about 150.  and he was clearly a aspiring actor.  No offense, Michael. 🤣  He did a pretty good job.  

Things to know: Seattle was built on a bad spot, but started as a lumber town.  Got rich sending lumber to San Fran.  Populated when the Feds gave every couple who’d move there a square acre of land free.  Never mind that there were already people there. (And chief Seattle’s name wasn’t Seattle)

A fire destroyed the place in 1889 and they were in such a hurry to rebuild that they did so again on the sea level spot. Eye roll.  The Klondike gold rush enriched them, too, as everyone came through here on their way there. 

They also made a lot of money in the 20s importing alcohol from Canada.  Who knew? 

And, then, the adventure of the baseball game. 

First, for Josh, I have to begin with an “obvious brothers” — ballparks are better in good weather.  It was 50, rainy and biting at T-Mobile stadium.  It has a retractable roof, which was, OC closed (one wonders how often it is open in the land of cloudy, wet weather), but it’s not enclosed.  You know they saved millions on HVAC and not closing two walls. :).  It’s a perfectly good ballpark, we were told by the elderly (hahaha) trio behind us it won architectural awards when it opened, but there wasn’t much in terms of ballpark to recommend it.  A bit like Ranger Stadium..

Except for the food.  They had several exotic stands (Hawaiian?) and the “world famous” garlic fries stand reeked for sections of the stadium.  I think it is the first stadium ever to actually have a wine selection — as we discussed, I think the wine bar in SF had only one vintner.  Here’s a picture of RR’s dinner, pork dumplings.

MY LIFE COACH

This may be a staple of this trip’s blogs: the guy.  Tonight…well, here we go.  We took the elevator up out of the stadium (it doesn’t matter) and got on with this “couple” — he was without a coat.  To his credit, he had given it to his companion, a petit woman who seemed to be freezing.  She was Hawaiian.  It was not Hawaiian weather. 

He talked incessantly from the moment we walked up (I concede I thought he was just talking at first to keep warm…but no it wasn’t THAT), through the elevator ride, then during the walk to the train station (10 minutes?) and then we just, just missed the train and he talked incessantly for the ten minutes we waited.  She said like two sentences the whole time.  I thought about pushing him under the train just to get him to shut up.

He was from San Francisco.  Or “the Bay.”  He had made lots of money, since he was making over $100k a year by the age of 21.  In his 30s he could retire and he had enough money to “live anywhere.”  After quizzing RR about what we did for work, she politely asked what he did.  “Well, I’m what you call a life coach.  But you know I’ve learned almost everything is sales…even though it took a long time to admit it to myself.”  There was clearly a lot that he had trouble admitting to himself. :). “Do you know how hard it is to convince people that they need a coach for sex and dating?”  I conceded that I probably didn’t but I thought it ironic that a life coach so wanted me to end a life, in just 20 minutes.  

We separated on the train, but, as luck would have it, we ended up on the same elevator going up to the street level.  KMN!

But we survived.  And so did he.  I look forward to an early morning and maybe a day full of like minded life coaches, in the home of my favorite life coach.  God help me. 

Donuts, Dawgs & Moroccans

 Dear Reader,

Of course one of the questions that come with blogs is “how long”?  Or, to put it as John does, “why so long?”  I will try to keep it John-short, but it was a busy day.

First, we got into Seattle after two uneventful plane flights last night.  We took the light rail from the airport (don’t let them tell you that it is a “short walk” from the terminal ):).  Also noteworthy was Alaska Airlines keeping their promise on having your luggage on the carousel in 20 mins.  👍. After turning the wrong way out of the station downtown (Google Maps often seems confused when you are walking), the trek to the hotel was easy.  The room is very nice, meeting a number of H&H hotel standards.  And it is right downtown, so very convenient. 

Next, we did a morning variation of the donut tour — going to the same places as the tour, but without the tour guide and the crowd.  One place was temporarily closed.  If you are NOT a doughnut aficionado (what’s wrong with you?!), then know that no two donuts are quite a like.  Besides there being cake v yeast, there are also shapes, temperatures, textures, that can be different.  We got quite a difference in our three places today. 

The first is Top Doughnuts, their old-fashioned maple and their today’s special of red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  Yes, more like a dessert.  The second is Dahlia Bakery’s Dahlia donuts — which are to die for (Michael should like that one 😂)  They are squares and come just out of the fryer with marscapone and jam.  Finally, it was Daily Doughnuts, which may be a real tourist trap, as it is actually in Pike Place Market.  Theirs were the least great of the three, though how you can complain about a bacon covered maple donut, I’ll never know. 

The afternoon adventure was a trip to UW campus.  It sits on the east side of town, facing the mountains (you might see them way out there in this pic) — across Union Bay (not Puget Sound, which is on the west side). 

It is a large (Big Ten like) campus, with some great vistas, and some good looking buildings.  This is my best money shot of campus, despite the fountain not being on.   We both got a kick out of the sign that said “ducks are already afraid of huskies, so don’t bother these further” 😂. (Footnote: the UW mascot is a husky, the UOregon one is a duck)

And then it was back to Pike’s Place for dinner.   Trigger warning: food porn coming. 

I will claim some kind of neglect about dinner tonight: it was (as the title alludes) “Moroccan.”  What I know from Moroccan is from two black and white movies with Bogie, Bob and Bing.  And I think Bob and Bing ate camel (right?) and Bogey only drank.  

We didn’t have camel. 

We had the meatballs on hummus starter, and I had the chicken tagine (the pot it is cooked in) and RR had the lamb.  Pictured.  It was all excellent. (There were also fancy cocktails that didn’t taste like they were supposed to based on the description, but there was a good joke about Rosemary floating in RR’s drink that the woman at the next table laughed at). 

Speaking of the couple at the next table (it was one of these places where the two-person tables were separated by a skooch [I could have eaten off either person on my right or left’s plate]), HE was obnoxious.  I mean, he could have played the Paul Giamatti character in Sideways, if he had been taller and better looking.  “Was the ‘19 drinkable or was it too young?  But they had thought of the white, but now he was thinking the red” (she was gone to the bathroom; she being the one that laughed and the drowning Rosemary joke).  He and the sommelier (which is what he called him when she came back — I missed the credential check) decided on the not-young, drinkable red.  I think it turned out okay.  I threw up a little in my mouth.  

On the walk back we made up for it by meeting a nice couple, just in town (they had their luggage) from Leeds (the one in England, as their accents indicated).  And then a couple from near Dublin getting into the elevator at the hotel.  None wondered if the wine was too young to be drinkable. 😁

And now I go and watch episode 2 of ˆObi-wan Kenobi. Episode 1 was good; he’s still “our only hope”…but he doesn’t look that much like Alec Guinness (John’s favorite actor).  Who knew? 

till tomorrow.  We are having brunch someplace with build your own Benedicts (sounds like a plug for a Dr. Strange tie-in) and then a tour and a ball game.  Much to say.  Manana. 

Alert: We're Going Again

 

Okay, I'm not sure it's the right mountain in the photo. 🤷

But we're off tomorrow to the Pacific Northwest (Seattle), then to San Francisco.  The agenda at this point is two baseball games and three high end places to eat (including a return for the S's to the Waterbar in SF).  So, some sites, some food porn (there's talk of a Donut Tour of Seattle? and/or a vineyard trip).

One notable aspect of the trip: we aren't renting a car.  We'll see how that works out. 

Obviously, I'll be blogging.  

More say Friday night...or Saturday morning...who knows on WC time? 

Toodles!