Through A Glass Darkly - November 6th, 2004

We started Monday bright and early, in order to take the bus tour of Wine Country we had planned. It wasn’t a bad way to go. Next time, I might prefer to drive and have a little more independence, but I didn’t have a particular winery in mind, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Our bus driver chattered inanely throughout the trip, handing out trivia without any real structure to his speech.

The first stop, Kirkland Ranch Winery, seemed to be a pretty big operation. They just showed us the main building, which used to be a house. It was a pretty cool log structure that the family who started the ranch built. Our guide talked about the history of the place and then took us upstairs to do some tastings. We got to try three wines. The first was a chardonnay. It wasn’t bad. The second wine was a mixed wine, similar to a chianti. I really enjoyed that one. The third wine was a lovely sweet wine with a thick, honey and fruit flavor. I picked up two bottles of that for the holidays.

Sunday we wandered around the Union Square area. There was an art show going on in the Square. I especially liked the display of cat paintings by one gentleman. They were very whimsical. We visited the Apple store, for no particular reason, other than to worship at the altar of Steve Jobs. We stopped at the visitor center, pausing to watch the cable car turnaround. The line was huge, so I wasn’t in the mood to wait around to ride one.

We saw a brochure for “the most unpretentious bar”, named Dave’s, so we swung by there. The food was pretty decent bar food. I had a well-prepared BLT and a delicious pear cider. I was a little dubious since I don’t like the pear cider from Woodchuck, but this had a very light, refreshing taste. The owner of the bar was apparently from Massachusetts, so that was cool. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to utilize the high speed internet access. We were planning on meeting a friend for dinner, so we just bummed around the hotel room for the rest of the afternoon.

Dinner was at one of the many taquerias in San Francisco. These all seem to be very casual places serving Mexican food cafeteria style. It was very good and very filling. By 10 o’clock, the time difference had more than caught up with me, so we headed back to the hotel and to bed.