san fran: day 4

for our last day in san francisco we hit napa valley. an old co-worker and friend of dani’s lives in san fran now so he got a trip up together for us. our car was truly a melting pot of different cultures. stephen, the canadian. michael, the german. michelle, the brazilian. dani, the mid-westerner. and then there’s me, the southerner. we technically “tagged” along as they did business as they are over food and beverage at four seasons sf. i don’t think i could ever go back to a winery as a “normal” person {not sure if that is a good or bad thing}. the service we received at all the wineries was top notch.

stephen picked us up bright and early at 8am. we stopped and had breakfast at this “great little bagel place” {which turned out to be just a convenience store with a deli in the back that served bagels out of a bag}. our first stop was pahlmeyer. it was there that dani and i discovered we were in a room of pros while we were definitely beginners. everyone is swishing and spitting while we are guzzling.

on our way to our next stop, chateau montelena, we stopped at this castle just for some photos…

at chateau montelena we were given a tour of the residence and had our tasting in their awesome kitchen…

then it was off to rudd. by far our favorite. cameron, our wine educator was about 25 years old and knew more about wine than i ever will. he gave us a tour of the grounds, the cave, and finally the tasting. i have no clue how long we stayed - but it was hours.

the cave...

the concrete "egg"...

they had a cool event space in the cave for parties and dinners and this special room....

then it was on to the tasting...

we ended the day with dinner at dean and deluca where i think i had one of everything. then it was back to san fran.

dani and i left the next day and of course decided to try a new {to us} mode of transportation. bart. it was a fiasco as we were on the wrong train and had no clue what we were doing.

dani waiting on our correct train...

it was a great, memorable trip. can't wait for the next one!

san fran: day 3

for our third day in san fran we didn’t have as much planned. that morning we hopped on the bus to go see the painted ladies. the bus rides became a source of entertainment for us as the people watching was just too good {and i also thoroughly embarrassed myself and still laughing about it}...

because of the mess i ran into getting to sf we missed our night tour of alcatraz but we were able to reschedule it for Sunday {just not the night tour, sorry dani}. i’m not usually a big group tour person – but this audio tour really was great…

after we got off the boat we headed straight to ghiradelli square...

where i devoured this pb & choc combo…

then we spotted the bushman hiding out. my feet were killing me by this point so i stopped in gap to pick up some flats. i couldn’t tell if they were “real” shoes or slippers. i asked the salesperson and she didn’t know either. so I thought if it wasn’t obvious they were house shoes i didn’t care. they were the most comfortable things ever. so i slipped them on and off we went to boudin for dinner where i had an awesome sourdough pizza. {i am now convinced since they have a fur type lining they are slippers}.

we crashed early that night to get ready for our next big day in napa.

san fran: day 2

on saturday dani and i hit all the tourist attractions {warning: long post}. we hit the ferry building first thing for their market day. lots of neat specialty food shops and it was packed...





we then walked {up a very steep hill} to chinatown. street was lined with souvenir type shops...




we did find the alley that held the fortune cookie factory and got a sample, of course...


then it was off to find those dern cable cars. that was the one thing about san fran that i didn’t expect. i thought the cable cars were a viable mean of transportation for all san franciscans. they seem to be a more touristy thing to do. we let the first one pass by as it was packed and we weren’t exactly sure what to do...

we rode the next one to lombard street...

dani saw one of these and wanted to rent one...

then we hopped back on the cable car to only ride it a few blocks to fisherman’s wharf.

we grabbed a burger at in-n-out. we didn’t eat at the one in scottsdale so we had to try it this time. nothing special to us. {later we found out that the “real” in-n-out’s are only in southern California}.

we walked along fisherman’s wharf and found these guys.

it was a beautiful day with tons of sailboats out around alcatraz...

we hopped the bus to coit tower for a great view of the city, the bridge, and alcatraz...

then we had to go see the golden gate bridge...

we ended the day at the crab house where dani proudly sported her bib...