10th Anniversary Wine Country Reunion...well, hello California!! (Draft)

Dave and I were married, 10 years ago, at a beautiful, picturesque Victorian winery, with close friends and family present. So it has been our wish to celebrate each 5 year anniversary at a winery, wherever we happen to be. 

Living, as we are, on the North American continent, what better wine country to visit than Sonoma Valley, just north of San Francisco (SF). We'd looked at the possibility of staying in the Napa Valley, but after a little research, determined that Sonoma would be a better "fit" - more small family-run wineries, and less bus-loads of tourists - more Yarra Valley, less Hunter Valley!



One of my dearest friends in the world, Lucy, and her wife, Claire, kindly offered to meet us in San Francisco, to share in the celebration. Luce and Claire had been in Australia for our 5th anniversary, and I was so thrilled to have the chance to spend some quality time with them again for our 10th anniversary trip.



The itinerary Luce and I organised centred around our first 3 nights, including the 7th November - our anniversary - in the town of Sonoma, about 30 minutes north of San Francisco. The next 2 nights were spent at Yosemite National Park, and our last 5 nights in the heart of San Francisco.

Further research into our trip involved Dave and I - in Georgia, and Luce and Claire - in the UK, watching the 10 year old classic (under the influence) road trip movie, "Sideways". I'm not sure about Luce and Claire, but Dave and I laughed our heads off, again, at Miles' declaration that if "anyone orders any f#$%^g merlot I'm leaving!!"...a funny, funny, film about shattered dreams, middle-aged friends behaving badly, and lots of pretty countryside - perfect!!

Anyway, back to our road trip! For the 10-day trip, we'd booked shared car-hire, and shared accommodation - AirBnBs in Sonoma and SF, and a log-cabin in Yosemite. Given our circumstances - expats abroad, with no family to count on for extended child-minding duties - we had no option but to take the kids with us. Not our idea of fun, but it was that or not go at all. Lucy had indicated that that would be fine and that they were looking forward to seeing the kids, so that was that.

In reality, we sort of had a tandem holiday in that the four of us did our own thing quite a bit while the girls did theirs, coming together to share meals and journeys between destinations. 

Arrival
Our flights from Atlanta arrived mid-morning, so we picked up the hire car, and took a drive south of SF to Half Moon Bay, where we stopped for lunch at Sam's Chowder House, a rustic looking joint, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with a mainly seafood menu and plenty of cocktails and beers on hand, to cool us down - we'd chosen to sit outside on the terrace, and had completely misjudged the weather. It was warm!!!

Great views and food (and alcohol for the parents) - what's not to like?!

This was the "best" selfie we managed...more practice clearly required!

Sonoma: By the time we met Luce and Claire - their flight from New York got in mid-afternoon - we were rather relaxed! 

Our ever trusty driver!

It was an easy drive up to Sonoma, and we checked into our AirBnB, which was a 3 bedroom renovated bungalow with a hot tub, large garden, and bicycles for our use. It was a cute house, stylishly decorated, with plenty of information on local attractions and even a few drawers full of toys for the kids to use during our stay.

Caught in the act...Nutella toast!

Isabella was missing a 'few' school days, so we had a few literacy
and maths activities, along with work from school...clearly,
she was more interested in Daniel's pressie
from Aunty Lucy and Aunty Claire!

REAL bread...no sugar added!! (Not a common sight in Georgia!)

We ate dinner at a local "pub", Hopmonk - a groovy joint with plenty of booths, an outdoor terrace, and interesting lighting. Claire and Dave were particularly taken with the extensive beer menu, and the kids were happy to nibble chips - I mean "fries", and play on the ipad.

 Aah, cute!

Food was quite tasty - beetroot salad, burger with onion rings and artichoke...

This is what we like to see - sleeping children, allowing Mummy, Daddy, Luce and Claire some adult time!!

Curiously, there was a gumnut arrangement in the tavern, but then we did notice quite a lot of eucalyptus trees while driving through San Francisco!

The ipad was something we relied on quite a bit during this trip. It distracted, entertained, and amused the kids, allowing us a few more minutes here and there to have uninterrupted conversations or just eat our meals! I remembered looking on disapprovingly, at parents with toddlers and even babies, playing with phones and devices in cafes in Yarraville - now I was one of them, and I didn't give a ****!! "Whatever gets you through", is my new motto!!

We made use of the bikes, one of which was hitched to a toddler trailer, which enabled us to all ride into the centre of Sonoma - the Plaza, as it's called - for lunch with the girls, at the Sunflower Cafe, and a wander around the various tasting places, and shops.

Sonoma City Hall and Tourist Information Centre

After lunch, we all drove out to the Buena Vista Winery, which ended up being the only winery Dave and I managed to see. It has the auspicious title of being the first winery in California, so we thought it as good as any a place to start (and finish) our wine tour!!


Buena Vista ended up being the only winery Dave and I managed to see, and poor Dave(!?!) didn't really feel as if he'd seen that one, as it was his turn to kid wrangle.

Luce, with a little drop of something yummy...

We loved Sonoma, for it's beautiful food and countryside and its genuinely laid-back atmosphere. California, in general, reminded us very much of home.

Dinner that night was at Harvest Moon Cafe, which was recommended to me by my hairdressers' boss, and known for serving locally sourced food in fresh and innovative ways. Daniel was exhausted and fell asleep in the car on the 5 minute trip to the restaurant, whereupon we transferred him to two chairs and shrouded that configuration with a blanket. Amazingly, and much to our relief, he slept for the entire meal!!!

Dave's rib-eye!

My risotto with local porcini mushrooms!

My bittersweet chocolate pot de creme - delish!!

On our anniversary, we took the kids to Train Town - a recommendation from a sympathetic parent, the previous day, while Daniel was having a "moment" in the Cheese Shop. Although a number of rides were closed for the season, the main ride, a miniature steam train, was operating and chugged along 30 minutes of track, through tunnels, over trestle bridges, along lakes, and the like, even stopping for 10 minutes in the middle for us to feed the local llamas and goats, beside a miniature country and western styled main street. It was a little hokey and amateurish - to these seasoned Disney officionados - but the kids loved it, and it killed time in a kid-friendly manner prior to our "special" destination restaurant of the trip!

Whilst in Georgia, I had read up on the foodie destinations in Sonoma, in particular, and had already booked a dinner at one, the eve of our anniversary, and lunch at another, on the day. The Girl and the Fig was a popular and highly reviewed restaurant, in Sonoma Plaza, with a French flavour, and a quirky outdoor eating area. Lunch, we'd guessed, would be a more relaxing opportunity to sample a smart restaurant with small children, relatively stress-free - and it was. 

How very Californian...Ken and Barbie to signify the unisex loo!

Fries, fries, and more fries...as I type, however, I think I can safely say that the kids are sick of them!

 

Pate, mmm!!

Moules et frites!!

Confit of duck - yummmmmmmmm!
(That's a very happy diner!)

Bouillabaisse!

And a close up, because it was just soooooo good!!!

Coffee icecream!

That duck, again...!

Chocolate semi freddo...was as delicious as it looks!!!

Claire and her omelette!

Luce and her salad!

The food was beautiful and the atmosphere, while casual, still had a few fancy-schmancy looking diners, whose heads jerked towards us every time Daniel peeped. I was determined to make the most of this and ordered moules et frites (mussels and fries) to start, confit of duck for mains, and a extremely unctuous - to use Luce's word of the trip - chocolate dessert!!! I was in PIG HEAVEN!!! I can't even remember what everyone else had ... but it was all good!!

Dinner that night was a homecooked meal in the pad, of steak and salad, local cheeses, along with a bottle of our coveted Mitchelton Reserve Shiraz, which we'd bought a dozen of after our wedding, cracking open a bottle each anniversary. We also had a local zinfindel - the red variety, which is what Sonoma is known for, which the girls had purchased after one of their tastings. It was a pretty simple meal, compared with our lunch at the Girl and the Fig, but it was more relaxing and pretty evocative of the times we'd shared in Victoria, 5 and 10 years ago, so in many ways, much more enjoyable!

 

Yosemite National Park: The next day was Saturday and time to check out of Sonoma and head for Yosemite, and our digs for the weekend - Evergreen Lodge. We drove north through the Napa Valley and east to Yosemite, passing through some pretty smoggy countryside. 

Living in Georgia has spoilt us with relatively pollution-free air, so it was quite a shock. We saw hundreds of massive wind turbines outside of wine country, which in itself, was quite dry and scrubby looking - much like the Australian wine country we're familiar with.

The tiny tranche of the Napa Valley we saw was pretty, but much more touristy and some of the wineries seemed to be attached to big name champagne and wine houses, such as Domaine and Taittinger - much to Claire's disdain. In the UK, their products are considered "cheap plonk" - which wasn't our memory of Taittinger when we visited Reims about 11 years ago, perhaps us New World types are much more impressed by such things.

For lunch, we stopped at a nondescript Mexican Taqueria in the town of Escalon. We noticed a much more distinictive Spanish influence through these neighbourhoods, and hoped the food would be authentic! It was a pretty dingy looking place, but Trip Advisor had it pegged quite highly for the area, so we gave it a go. The food was hit and miss - Dave and Luce's were hits, mine a miss - my nachos were a gloopy looking mess of refried beans, which look unappealing to me at the best of times, melted cheese and a so-so guacamole. I wouldn't usually order such a thing, but I wasn't that hungry and thought it would be a safe bet. Dave and Luce had ordered meat-salad combos with flour tortillas which were a much tastier meal.

 

Onward and upward to Yosemite which was roughly 3 1/2 hours from Sonoma. We arrived at the outskirts of Yosemite's western border, where our lodge was situated, to find extensive swathes of land burnt out by recent forest fires. So much for a lush woodland log cabin experience!! Luckily, the lodge was in a preserved bit of forest, though much of the fire had skirted its perimeter.

We had opted for a family cabin with two bedrooms and a sofa bed in the middle lounge area. It worked pretty well, for the most part, and the kids were mostly too exhausted to muck about at night so settled pretty quickly and didn't stir until 7 or so the next morning.

For our only full day in Yosemite, we drove to the Village, which was serviced by a rather ritzy looking general store - the likes of which would be most appreciated in Middle Georgia. They had gourmet meats, cheeses and bread, wine, beer, organic muesli bars, and the like. So we stocked up for a picnic and headed in to see the sites, namely a couple of famous granite rock formations, El Capitan, the Half Dome, and the largest Giant Sequoia (tree) grove in the park, Mariposa Grove. 

We spotted the Half Dome part way into our drive, and picnicked under beside El Capitan. The final and only physically taxing part of our day was the 3 mile return walk into the Mariposa Grove to see some of the majestic, ancient grandfathers of Yosemite. The kids were pretty exhausted by then, and Daniel ended up hitching a ride on Daddy's shoulders for most of the walk.

These trees are awe-inspiring - their size, their age, the history that's taken place in their 200-300 years of life, just blew us away. Some people go to church to have a feeling of euphoria - for a non-believer, being amongst these "babies" was as amazing as it gets, and possibly healthier than the alternative "religious experience".

From there it was back to the Lodge, for dinner at the Tavern - captive as we were, to the one dining establishment on the property. The food was ok, but not amazing. The service - from one waitress, in particular was surly, and unfortunately, being a remote location, we had the "pleasure" of her company for our two breakfasts and dinners. I was starting to miss Georgia, and the South [*SHOCK HORROR*], for the genuine hospitality and politeness shown by service staff wherever you go. Our Californian madam was quite the contrast!

For our final morning at Evergreen Lodge, the four of us took a stroll after breakfast, around the Nature Trail, a signposted walk, with accompanying notes on points of interest, such as tree varieties, local Indian folklore, resident birdlife, and the like. It was a beautiful finish to a fleeting but relaxing entree to Yosemite, and with that, we piled back into our people mover and headed back to the Big Smoke of San Francisco.

San Francisco 
Dave and I shared very fond memories of SF from our trip 11 years earlier. It didn't disappoint this time either. With it's amazing contrast in climates depending on which side of town you start your day, and the too pretty gingerbread-houses, crazy hills and great food and shopping options, we fantasised about moving here for the next two years...and then, back to reality!! 

Our first full day in SF saw the four of us head north over THAT bridge, to the cute little bayside neighbourhood of Sausalito. Dave and I had a coffee that wasn't a Starbucks concoction, and enjoyed the click-clack of masts on yachts, while the kids chased seagulls and spread their wings.

After that we headed up to the Marin Headland for a spectacular view of THAT bridge, again - it seemed to be the magnetic force that pulls people towards the bay and all that surrounds it, much like Sydney's famous "Coathanger". While on the headland, we observed the interesting folk that observe the birdlife of the Bay. Clipboards in one hand and binoculars in the other, they had all points of the compass covered as they took tallies on airborne feathered friends.

Apparently, the thermals above Hawk Hill provide a great vehicle for hawks, vultures, osprey and other birds of prey to swirl and swoop while stalking rodents in the scrubland. The lack of safety fences up there made it a little nerve-wracking with Daniel, who was in danger of swirling and swooping himself!!

Lunch after all that bird and bridge watching saw us back at Sausalito, at a groovy Japanese place I'd found online - my usual M.O. "Sushi Ran" had a great menu of sushi, sashimi, and a variety of bentos (lunch boxes), as well as some old faves - edamame (soybeans) and agedashi dofu (fried tofu).

Dave and I took our chances and also ordered a "large" carafe of sake - large was an understatement! Our sake came in a wine bottle and was served with wine glasses - whoah!! We managed to drink it - out of politeness, I think!!

From lunch we headed north a little way, to Muir Woods, the closest national park to SF with Californian Redwoods, which we really had to see, after our experience with the big trees of Yosemite. The woods are names after John Muir who was an environmentalist who had an enormous impact on the national park scene in North America.

These gorgeous big babies were indeed worth the visit, and much like their friends in Yosemite, absolutely awe inspiring, and incredibly peaceful presences - being among them was like yoga for the soul. We'd arrived late, and with the park closing at 5pm we did a power walk of most of the circular boardwalk that wended its way along both sides of a creek.

Back to reality and back to the Big Smoke...

10th Nov:

Nature walk

Lunch @ Cotton A Cafe??

Arr SF

Dinner @ Indian Oven on Fillmore St, SF

11th Nov:

Marin Headland (view of GG Bridge)

Hawk Hill

Lunch @ Sushi Ran, Sausalito

Muir Woods (Californinan Redwoods)

Dinner @ Mel's Diner

12th Nov:

Randall Museum

Lunch @  Squat & Gobble ??

Dinner @ home (rice + leftover curries)

13th Nov::

Pier 39: Carousel, Sea lions & Rescue Center

Lunch. @ The Crab House 

"Hop on Hop Off"

Union Square - Tiffany's 

Dinner @ L'Ardoise

14th Nov: 

Alamo Square

"Hop on Hop Off" bus tour over bridge and back through city

Lunch @ Lori's Diner

Hot fudge sundae from Ghiradelli's

Watched the busker, "Jujitsu" while waiting for bus back to Alamo

Walked down the hill home

Dinner (cocktails and Chinese duck sliders) @ Maven

Drinks @ Toronado