Six Hours in the Valley
Woke up at 7:00 AM today, and our apartment was freaking hot (and it’s supposedly only going to get worse). I wanted to go back to sleep, but the heat prevented me from doing such. I got up, showered, and surfed the net until 8:45, where I promptly went to Carl’s to make sure everyone was there. As it turns out, we were missing all but one person… Ray. This was a bit of a problem, being as Ray was going to drive some of the people around.
9:00 AM rolled around, and Ray wasn’t there. Then another predicament arose, Chris Thayer showed up. I had talked to him the previous night, and he said he was going to get his friend from SF to stay in Santa Clara, and thus open up another spot in the car. That would have left Sean and his two friends in one car, me, Sam, and Roop in my car, and then Ray, Carl, and Lee in Ray’s car. While we were trying to rearrange people, Ray showed up. Chris also mentioned that two of his friends in Palo Alto needed rides, so we had Ray take Chris, his two friends, and Lee. Therefore Ray and Chris split immediately to pick up the PA guys. Carl was the only one who knew where Craig lived (in San Carlos), and he only knew the directions by sight, so whoever he rode with was picking up Craig. I thought my car might be kinda packed with Sam, Roop, Craig, and Carl in there (and me driving), so Roop and Sam had to split up, with Sam going in Sean’s car. That left Roop, Carl, and I to go pick up Craig.
With the plans set and Ray already on the way, we headed out. Carl told me that Craig lived in San Carlos, which is near PoW. To me, that meant take 101 north. After fifteen minutes of driving, Carl asked when I was going to cut over to the 280… WTF?! Apparently he thought I was just taking 101 north to a point where it was closer to 280. That wasn’t the case. I exited in Sunnyvale and started heading west. We caught the 85 first, so I took that North, and then Carl noticed a sign for southbound traffic saying that it merged with 280. I took the hint, got off the freeway, then got back on 85 going south, until we finally hit 280.
I forgot how nice 280 looks. 101 is all industrial and heavily travelled, where as 280 is foresty, but still heavily travelled. We eventually made our way to Craig’s place, where he was printing coupons for a few vineyards. None of us really had an opinion on where to go, and Craig wanted to go to Sonoma, so we decided to go there. While they were still printing coupons, I took leave and went to pet one of Craig’s roommate’s cats. A few minutes later, we got on our way and headed up to Sonoma.
Before we even got out of San Francisco, we caught Carl sleeping.
That’s okay though, he had a long night, and only got an hour of sleep. We made it through SF traffic on 19th Avenue, and then headed over the Golden Gate Bridge. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever actually been on the bridge. Roop was kind enough to take a few pictures of the bridge for me.
Sean was the first to hit Sonoma, since he didn’t have anywhere else to stop. We were next, but we decided to stop at a gas station first. Sean had actually begun the trek into Sonoma, so he turned around to meet us at the gas station. After calling everyone in Ray’s car about ten times telling them to go different directions, they finally made it to the gas station as well.
Once we were all together, we went to the closest vineyard, which was called Schug. It had a really nice view, and the tasting room was empty on arrival. We fixed that situation immediately. I decided not to partake at this place, primarily because I hate wine in all of its insiduous forms. Everyone else gave it a try though.
Nobody bothered paying for the more expensive tasting at Schug, since the first four wines are free, and none of them were spectacular.
After Schug, we actually made the trek to Sonoma (Schug is on the edge of Sonoma), but got lost very quickly. The map that Craig printed was apparently crap, being as it had turns where no turns existed and vice versa. After making several U-turns, wrong turns, and perhaps some illegal maneuvers, Craig finally got upset enough to toss the map and just go off of memory. We pulled over so Craig could let Sean and Ray what was going on, and Carl fell asleep again.
It was already 12:45 PM when we hit the center of Sonoma, so we parked and got some food. We ate at some place called Maya, which was a mexican restaurant. I had, get this, the Really Good Nachos. They couldn’t just call them nachos and say they were really good, apparently they insisted that people realize how good they were by titling them appropriately. Our food took a while to get out to us, so we enjoyed each others company. We finally got our food, scarfed it down because we were so hungry, then headed out around 2:15 PM.
Our next stop was a vineyard called Ravenwood. The place was tucked away along one of Sonoma’s back roads, but there were plenty of signs up to guide us. We all decided to try the tasting, and the hostess didn’t even card us. Little did we realize until later that it was because they charged even for their introductory tasting. Oh well. I didn’t like any of the wines, and I told the hostess that. She suggested to just keep on trying, which I fully intended to do. Eventually, she pulled out a bottle of muscat for people to taste. I was shocked, both Roop and I really liked it, primarly because it tasted very much like fruit juice and not so much like wine. After the first tasting, several people bought the muscat, and then a few people from our group decided to have a tasting of the darker wines. Once they finished their tasting, we headed back out to the heat and off to the next place.
The next place we decided to go was called Moon Mountain. We were going there entirely for the name. On the way there, we passed a sign that said M-F by appointment only. That made us all a little nervous, and Craig swear a little, since we didn’t know if that meant Saturday and Sunday were open for general admission, or if the place was just closed on the weekends. Regardless, the place was way the heck up this long and winding road that was a pain to drive, though it did provide us a good oppurtunity for beautiful landscape pictures. Oh, and did I mention that Carl fell asleep in the car again?
After the Moon Mountain debacle, we headed down one of the main roads in Sonoma to find some more open vineyards (it was already past 4:00 PM). The next one we found was called Valley of the Moon. I just had a water while everyone else tried the wine.
We took off from the tasting, and headed to the Mayo (like the clinic) winery. There was a huge sign to the left of the road with an arrow pointing left, I figured that meant there was a hill on the left side of the street on which to drive, so I took a left. Right away though, I saw that there was no hill, and that the sign meant to turn left at the next intersection… that was a fun experience.
We got into Mayo and were greeted by a hostess. I decided not to try any of the tastings, since this one was going to cost five bucks each. Luckily for us, a small Shi-Tzu came running out, half drunk from chewing on a wet bar rag. I was kinda bored, and he was cute, so I played with him for a while. Sean’s friends also were playing with him while Sam and Roop were sitting quietly on a table off to the side. People finished up their tasting, and then we headed out for the next place.
Holy crap is this post getting long!
After Mayo, we headed back to a vineyard owned by the manager of the Doobie Brothers, B. R. Cohn. By that time, many people were done with wine, and it just so happened that this place had olive oil tasting as well. A bunch of us decided to do that while other tasted the wine. After Sean and Ray got done tasting, they pulled out their DSes, which prompted an immediate (and well deserved) reaction from Craig. After we were all done, Sean had to split, so we gobbled up Sam, and then decided to go to Sausolito for dinner on the water front (thanks to Carl for the suggestion).
 
Along the way to Sausolito, Carl and Craig both fell asleep… Thanks to Roop for all the snoozing pictures.
 
Once in Sausolito, we drove all the way through downtown, then eventually found a place to park on a hill right on the south side of the downtown area. We got some nice pictures by the water, then headed to a place called Horizons. We put in a reservation for the ten of us, walked around the area for forty-five minutes, then came back and ate. This post is already ridiculously long, so I’ll end it with this: We ate, the waitress was an air-head but the food was good. We headed back to Santa Clara, and I was the only one who didn’t fall asleep in the car (Sam firmly denies she did, so I guess I’ll concede that, but here eyes were closed!