Sept 29 Golden Gate Park

This is our condo up in the clouds.

On our way on Ashbury Street the flowers were very pretty.

Two old hippies come back to Haight Ashbury intersection

Another look at Haight Asbury intersection

At the Golden Gate Park we listened to music performed by Goo Goo Dolls

How many Dougs do you count?

The view of the park from De Young Museum tower.

View from our condo at night, it is like you are on an airplane.

Sept 28 San Francisco Bay

Today we made our way down to Pier 39. Our condo is high on the hill so we had to walk down a lot of steps and slanted streets.

The trail down the hill had many flowers.

The view at Pier 39 was fantastic.

As we sat at the restaurant the sailboats are right outside our window. The wind built up during the day and the sailboats were flying.

 At Pier 39 they have barges for the sea lions to bask in the sun. They are a lot of fun to watch.

Pam and Don watching the sea lions.

We walked up to Coit tower from the pier, it was hundreds up steps up.

The we walked down and back up to Lombard street.

The area is beautiful and there is a constant flow of traffic down the crookedest street in the world.

We rode down the cable car, Don ad I are hanging on the side. We hope to ride it again during the week when it is not so busy. We are beginning to understand the mass transit system, but we still have a lot of steps to get home.

Septermber 27 on the road to San Francisco

 We planned to hike Muir Woods, but there were so many people there we decided to go somewhere else. Not sure where to go, we started down a road and came to Muir Woods overlook. Wow, what a view, those little specks are fishing boats way down from the cliff where we are located.

 Picture from the overlook.

 Great lunch looking over the Pacific ocean.

Another view from Muir Woods overlook.

 

 Becky is enjoying the gourmet kitchen in our condo at 140 Everson St.

 The view from the front of the condo, we are at the very top of a hill. This view is looking toward the west and the Pacific ocean.

 View toward the west at sunset.

 Sunrise to the east of the condo and the bay is below.

Last Full day in Napa Valley

Today we decided to stay in St. Helena and visit the wine tasting places in town. Many of these are not real wineries and actually not as good as some of the places we visited before. The first place we walked was a real winery, but we found out that we need an appointment. So on the walk back to town we cut through their vineyard.

We had lunch at Gott's roadside restaurant. It was very good.

For dinner we bought some figs to roast. This is one of the great finds that we have experienced here besides some of the wines.

Sept 25 more of Napa

We have been going by this sign and decided it was time to get our picture with it today.

We stopped at Summers winery and it was good, we actually bought a case ourselves to ship to Florida.  We then went to Lava Vine and bought a port.

We stopped at Calistoga a small town north of St Helena. Had oysters and grilled figs with blue cheese, really good at a restaurant on the corner called Brannan's.

We made one more stop before coming home and that was to Benessere winery. It was almost closing time for them and after we did a wine tasting  he boxed up all of the partial bottles and gave them to us.

We had a great dinner with sockeye salmon.

Notice all of the partial bottles given to us for our wonderful dinner. Good way to end our day.

Sept 24 on up Napa Valley

Today the first winery that we visited was Vincent Arroyo, it was our kind of place. Not real fancy, but the wine were some of the best. Our host was Ted and he did a great job explaining how they make the wines. They were making Merlot and Cabernet with the grapes just picked last night. The grapes were sweet to eat.

Each bin had a half ton of grapes.

Had to test the grapes to see if they were good.

They dump each bin into a machine that removes the grapes from the vines. And then because this was a Merlot they gently squeeze the grapes to break the skin. The result is pumped into big stainless steel tanks.

Vincent the owner posed for a picture with us. He was a mechanical engineer that just wanted to make wine. Forty years later he is still doing it.
Their tasting room was filled with wines and we could taste all we wanted. We ate lunch under the grape arbor and Ted gave us a glass of wine to enjoy.

The arbor was full of grapes.

Becky is tasting the grapes. We visited two other wineries, but Vincent Arroyo was our favorite and the only place we took pictures.

Sept 23 2013 St. Helena in Napa Valley

Day two at Napa Valley we visited St. Clement winery and Berringer Winery.

The view from St. Clements was nice, weather was perfect.

It does not get any better.

Does Pam and Don look happy or what?

At Berringer Winery we had a wine pairing.

Berringer had caves in the mountain where they store the wine in Oak barrels.

 Becky tasting some wine right out of the oak barrel.

 Some old wine stored in the cave that they did not label and had to open to see what they had.

Becky and Pam enjoying the tour.

Perfect end to a perfect day in our back yard of the house we have rented.