Part 3…Cali

and yes I’m calling it Cali even though I was informed there that it’s as tacky as pronouncing Illinois w/ the ‘s’ sound.  =0)

The drive to California was long, we decided to try out US route 50 through Nevada which was officially named the Loneliest Road in America by Life magazine in 1986.  Not much has changed in 20 years, it’s still a very lonely road with very minimal services.  We’d maybe see one other car every 40 minutes or so. 

We arrived in California on Friday afternoon and crashed at Miranda’s place.  Friday evening was full of catching up, showers, laundry, and tours around the Stockton area.  She briefly showed us around her school, University of the Pacific.  It’s a really pretty school, all old buildings with tons of huge rose bushes and other flowering plants everywhere.  We had Chinese for dinner, and tried out a local brewery.  Tired out and with a big day ahead of us we went back early but stayed up late drinking wine, jugs o beer, and watching the Other Bowen Girl.  Tastey. 

Saturday was the much anticipated Napa Valley tour.  We had signed up for a tour that guaranteed us visits to at least 4 wineries.  I liked the place we picked because they picked wineries to tour that are more family owned businesses and off the beaten path. Also they’re tastings were not over $10 and some places let you share tastings.  Napa wasn’t quite what I expected, but I’m also not sure what I really expected.  It was a fun time in a pretty area.  Most of the wine was good, and the stuff I was eh about was toward the end by then my pallet was completely gone.  Two vineyards stood out the most to me.  Mario Andretti’s vineyard was by far my favorite wine that I tasted.  We sampled 4 or 5 wines and I paid extra to try the port and it was heaven.  I now know good wine from cheap wine.  This was the second place we stopped and we bought a Pino Grigio and a Cabernet sauvignon and now I wished we’d gotten the zinfandel and the port and possibly doubles of it all!  I don’t even know how to describe it but the flavors were intense and mellow and complex and smooth.  Doesn’t make much sense, but take my word…yummy!  The other fabulous place we stopped at was Ballentines vineyard. Their wine was good and had quite a nice selection selection of really nice white sweet wines and rich zinfandels.  The best part of the this stop was the tour of the facility and a lesson in wine making.  We got to taste young grapes that were tart, and mature grapes ready for wine which tasted like candy.  They took us to the fermenting room where we got to taste very young wine (5days old I think) which tastes like fruit juice.  They explained the importance of temperature and the differences of whites and reds.  Then we went to the barrel room which is kept at 90% humidity where we learned how oak is so essential for the full flavors of red wines to establish.  It has to do with the oxygen transfer through the wood and the humidity keeps the wood porous for this transfer.  Even if the oak is old and cannot pass flavor onto the wine it is essential for reds to sit in oak for some period of time.  It was a great in depth lesson that really brought the complexity of wine making to light.           
Other cool stops was the first winery, Hill Family, which was using red wine to dye wood.  It produced a lovely burgundy color.  They had a Fender guitar, a surf board, and baseball bats there that had all be dyed with the wine.  They then produced limited edition wines based on these pieces.  St. Clement was probably the most scenic of the wineries, up on the side of the mountain it had a beautiful view.  And finally the last winery we stopped at was small and specialized in pino noirs.  By this time most the group had had enough wine.  We tasted there and shared between the 3 of us.  The wine was good, but also our pallets were pretty gone by then.

The next day was just as action packed.  We slept in which was nice but quickly got up to hit the road for San Fransisco.  Driving through Cali is so pretty.  This hills are golden with dried grass and covered in giant windmills.  There are signs everywhere to stop and buy or pick fresh fruit. We headed to Golden Gate park to walk around and check it out.  Golden Gate park is huge and despite Miranda warning me it was huge, I was still surprised.  It’s 3 miles to walk from end to end.  There was a small art fair going on.  There were people practicing Tai Chi in another area.  A chorus was practicing not far off from the tai chi people.  We walked around the botanic gardens for quite a while.  This was cool, it was divided into sections showing what plants from exotic countries could thrive in the California climate.  We walked around Stow lake where there was a wedding in the Tibetan temple.  There was a concert going on that we got to eaves drop on while walking to the other side of the park.  This place was so big there was even a buffalo paddock!  We probably walked 4 miles just around the park that day.  We took a detour back to her place to drive over the Golden Gate bridge. 
Since we were in the city we wanted to say we’d seen and better yet drove over the Golden Gate bridge.  To get there we got to go over the Bay bridge as well.  This was a lot cooler than I had expected.  Both bridges are huge, up to a mile long and very high over the water.  They provide very pretty views of San Fransisco Bay where we could see Alcatraz as well as city skylines.  The architecture of the bridges is quite stunning; I couldn’t imagine what it took to build such huge bridges.  The rest of the architecture around San Fransisco was amazing as well.  Houses built into the hills with views to amaze.  No wonder it costs so much to live out there. 

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