I Left My Heart North of San Francisco (Part 3)

What would a trip north of San Francisco be if it didn’t include a trip to wine country? Especially when you’ve got three small kids along for the ride! After all, Napa and small children are a vacation match made in heaven, right? Whatever...

After another down day around the pool we loaded up and hit the road through Sonoma and to Napa. Stacy and I both like wine, but we couldn’t tell a cabernet from a cabaret if you held a gamay to our head. Hiroko, on the other hand, is quite the connoisseur. She had the list of wineries and other Napa establishments of interest mapped out well ahead of time. Tossing apprehension to the wind, we put ourselves in Mrs. Tanaka’s capable hands and headed for the vine-drapped hills.

Our first stop was in Yountville where Hiroko recommended a great bakery, Bouchon, for a mid-morning snack. I got a chocolate croissant and Stacy got an almond one. The kids intuitively found the most sugar-laden things in the display cases and went to town on those. It was pretty good, though my mind was really more focused on what I was going to do with three high-carb kids around a bunch of maître d's and gaunt, blue-haired, facelift victims when we finally hit the wineries.

Sometimes K just gets overcome with emotion like this.

I needn’t have feared. Hiroko is a seasoned professional. She knew exactly the winery to go to – V. Sattui in St. Helena. In addition to being a very nice winery, Hiroko said, it had a fantastic deli and a huge shady picnic area where you can unwind and uncork and not have to worry about the exasperated glares of Orange County expatriots. Perfecto!

We found the winery with no trouble. Lunch was upon us so we attended to that first. The deli really was quite fine. We ordered some sandwiches and a few assorted sides. They had a killer cheese case with hundreds of different varieties, all with “lunch-sized” cuts available. (When you only buy a couple of ounces you can almost forget the double-digit price-per-pound!) Stacy got a hunk of some Swedish cheese of long forgotten memory, and I found an English Blue that promised to curl one’s eyebrows. I was most excited, however, to find an old favorite – Humboldt Fog, a semi-soft cheese kind of like a brie, but having an almost translucent, squishy band around the denser center. Pungent, but not likely to clear a room, Stacy and I had it once on an anniversary night-out and always wanted to try it again. I grabbed the cheese and then snatched a bottle of the house red on the way to the cashier stand.

N was able to snag us the perfect picnic table when we went out into the gardens, under the trees, but right next to the fence overlooking the tracks where the “wine train” would make its scheduled traversals. A couple of yards away a sprinkler system was set up watering the lawn, so it was only a matter of time before the kids abandoned their half-eaten sandwiches for accidental drenchings. It is a testament to the inherent unluckiness of our children that all three of them happened to “accidentally” get soaked in the exact same way within minutes of each other. Wow. Cosmic conjunctions for sure!

After we’d finished our lunch, and the bottle of wine, Stacy turned to me with that big smile and expectant, beseeching look that usually means I’m about to drop a wad of cash. This time, however, it wasn’t my money she was after. It was my body. My body acting as a babysitter, that is. She and Hiroko had conferred and decided that it would be great if I’d watch the kids while the two of them when back into the winery and did some tasting. They would only be a few minutes… Having enjoyed more than my fair third of the lunch bottle, I was in no mood to be contrarian, so I waved them grotesquely on, slurring something about how we would all be fine. They didn’t wait for me to reassess the situation but scurried into the winery leaving me with my charges. I looked around. K was gargling in the sprinkler, L was sleeping face down on the grass and N was eating bark off one of the trees. See? I thought. We would all be just fine!

I assure you, contrary to all appearances, this child had ZERO wine!

The few minutes turned into 30. Then 45. The afternoon was upon us and the temperature, even under the trees, began a slow steady ascent. An hour passed and then a second. Soon it was a day and then a week… (OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a little.)

OK, tell me it isn't just me...

We took to fashionable
accessorizing to kill the time.

The kids were beginning to get antsy when finally Stacy and Hiroko came giggling out of the winery. There was a bit more of a glow to their faces than I remember seeing when they went in. “It was WONDERFUL” praised Stacy, stumbling back a step as a result of the broad sweeping gesture she’d made to accentuate just how wonderful. “There was this guy in there pouring the wine, and you know what? He wasn’t snooty AT ALL!!!” Another sweep of the arms and sideways stagger indicated that indeed, he was not snooty. “I asked him if he got bored pouring wine for tourists all day, and do you know what he told me?” she leaned in to share his wisdom. “He said it ISN’T boring because he gets to talk to pretty women all day!” This brought about another round of the giggles, but I didn’t mind cause I got a kiss from a pretty lady out of it too.

We wrapped up the day across the street at a gourmet market where we got gelato and large bottles of water for everyone. I perused the cheese section while there and struck gold for a second time that day: They had Red Hawk! (A “fragrant” cheese, Stacy and I had a run-in with Red Hawk before, actually on that same anniversary night-out. We enjoyed it thoroughly back then, but we didn’t make many friends in the process.) I snagged a decent sized brick to take back with us. The ride back to Petaluma was beautiful and the sun was just about to set when we arrived back at the Castle.

I Left My Heart North of San Francisco (Part 2)

Our second day in the north country was scheduled to be an out-and-about day with a road trip to San Francisco. We didn't scramble to get up and out too early, mind you. There would be traffic heading into town, we justified. (It certainly had nothing to do with the beds being too welcoming.) We lolled around and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast on Christine's fantastic fruit before piling in the car and heading to the bright lights and big city.

Petaluma is a hop, skip and a jump from San Fran. Within 30 minutes we were rounding a mountainous corner to see some fairly iconic orange towers rising before us. We pulled off the road to a spot on the Marin Headlands to get our triumphant view of the priceless Golden Gate.

Open up that Golden Gate!...

In theory I was all for the day trip. My one and only hesitation about going to San Fran was my abject fear of trying to drive downtown. An automobile inexplicably called a “minivan” and San Francisco’s petit passageways did not, in my thinking, make for a favorable combo. And I was not at all looking forward to endless roving around trying to find suitable parking. Fortunately GPS was my friend and we were able, with minimal wrong turns or missteps, to get to our primary destination – Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. And parking at a reasonable rip-off of $35 a day was actually quickly found without incident.

Ironically we had already recovered from the primary disappointment that was to color our trip – the night before we’d gone online to get tickets for the tour of Alcatraz to find that they were already sold out. For the entire week! L was particularly devastated. She wanted to see Alcatraz more than anything else in SF. I’m not exactly sure what drives this otherwise sweet and gentle child to her occasional grim fascination with the macabre. T-Rexes and bloodthirsty sharks were the first in a line of obsessions that now includes America’s most notorious prison. The day was crisp and clear and you could see Alcatraz, large and ominous, taunting us in the bay, but try as we might, no act was criminal enough to secure us passage to the Rock. (As a consolation we bought her some black and white stripped socks that said ALCATRAZ on them.)

The Rock denied!

The consolation prize.

We did the touristic ablutions on Pier 39 as required – we poked around the shops; the kids rode the merry-go-round, we climbed the musical stairs. We even had a decent clam chowder at a the Boudin Bakery.

N found a buddy on the merry-go-round

Stacy found a store dedicated to GGPa.

The Bay Bridge from Pier 39

N eschewed the clam chowder for the reliability of good ole salami.

From there we meandered to Fisherman’s Wharf where the U.S.S. Pampanito, a World War II vintage submarine, was docked.  There were a lot of displays and exhibits on the War in the Pacific.  It was especially interesting to read them with Hiroko whose perspective was quite interesting.  L even got a chance to shoot a hull-mounted machine gun.  (In my little fantasy world!)

The U.S.S. Pampanito

WWII torpedo propeller

"And the Oscar for Best Special Effects goes to..."

At Ghirardelli Square we suffered greatly at the chocolatiers and then the ice cream parlor.

As we crossed back over to Aquatic Park beside the square we noticed the long line for the cable cars that climbed Russian Hill on Hyde Street. We debated a while whether or not to endure the line, but decided eventually to do it. After about a 30 to 40 minute wait we were at the front of the line and waved on through. Stacy, Hiroko, K and L all found the steps and stationed themselves inside the cabin. N and I had bigger, more exterior plans....

"You gotta promise me you won't tell Mom about this..."

We took the trolley the full route up through Nob Hill to Washington Street, over to Powell Street and down the other side to the “South of Market” District.

The ride was the destination, so a quick dinner at a surprisingly not bad mall ramen noodle house sufficed for exploration and we were soon back on the cable car heading uphill. Not surprisingly, this time L insisted on riding with me...

As we headed back to Petaluma, which already felt like home, we made another quick stop at the Marin Headlands and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area to see the famous bridge in an evening light. Poor Christine got an earful when we finally tumbled through the door, the kids clanging like cable car bells, recounting their wondrous adventures.