Monday, December 11, 2006

We were dumped and on the road precisely at 9 this morning.  Not that that's any great accomplishment because we weren't trying to do it.  We had to stop at the office to turn in our gate card and get our $20 back.  We were now ready for the 6 miles of winding, twisting road back to the Interstate.

The rain hadn't stopped completely for the last few days and it looked like we would endure it for another day on the road.  It at least had the decency to be intermittent.  We stopped for Breakfast about an hour out and Sharon whipped up some Egg, Sausage and Cheese Bagel Sandwiches.

It took about 5 hours for us to roll up in front of the Palestini's House That also included a stop at McDonald's for lunch in Vacaville just a few miles from Fairfield.  We went in and did the house and garden tour and they have some beautiful surroundings.  We sat down for some conversation, mostly about Catalina Spa, before we all left headed toward the Veteran's Home campground in Yountville, 26 miles away.

The Veteran's Home is just that.  A Veteran's Home.  It's a huge facility with all the amenities for living in a small community.  It's several buildings amassed on a single property for the single purpose of providing living and medical facilities for veteran's.  We drove in and registered for the campground which was almost a career in itself.  It took the old guy at the gate at least 25 minutes to register us for 7 days.  After settling into our site, we sat around for a couple of hours just talking and imbibing.  At Dinner Time we went out to a place called Compadres and ate Mexican.  The three of them had a pitcher of Margaritas they said was just fabulous.  I just had beer cause I didn't want to get too fancy on top of the Rum and Cokes I already had.  Jim picked up the check which wasn't necessary but we really appreciated the gesture.  Thanks again guys.

After Dinner they took us on a guided tour of Yountville.  It was lit up like a Christmas Tree with all the shops glistening in the night.  Most of them were closed at this time, including the bakery.  Drat!

We came back home after the tour and tried to get the dish working, to no avail, so we watched TV off the antenna.  There were three lousy stations even though one was CBS.  It was too snowy to watch however.  We'll get the dish producing tomorrow, but for now, it was just as good to just fall into bed. Nite, Nite.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

We got a leisurely start this morning leaving after we had Breakfast.  Sharon whipped up her usual Sausage, Egg and Cheese Bagels for us and they were delish.

We got on the road by 10 headed for Jim and Jackie's to do a couple of tours today.  Our first stop was the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield.  We found out right off that we weren't allowed to take pictures on the tour.  We were on the tour for about 45 minutes and then we went to the café and had lunch.  A Cheeseburger shaped like a Jelly Belly.  It was quite good and we shared some french fries and onion rings.

Next stop was the Budweiser brewery for the tour and again we were prohibited from taking any pictures on the tour.  This is getting to be a regular thing.  The Bud tour took about the same amount of time and then we were ushered into the "tasting room"  We were okayed for 2 glasses of beer and we sat and enjoyed our brew.  We all had pretzels with our beer and we drank different samples.  Except for Jim, he hung in there with regular Bud.

Our next stop for the afternoon was the Wooden Valley Winery in the Suisun Valley.  We were allowed to taste 5 different wines for free.  We actually bought a couple of bottles we liked before we left.  We were soon on the road again headed back to Jim and Jackie's

We had a couple of drinks while Jackie cooked us a delicious supper of Ravioli, Salad, Steamed Zucchini and Garlic Bread.  I had one small glass of wine for supper and then I quit drinking and finished up the evening with coke.  Which turned out later to be a good choice.

We had a very nice day with the Palestini's. And around 9:30 we headed for home.  We promptly got lost for about 15 minutes but then turned around and retraced our steps.  After we got our bearings back and on the right track we got stopped by the Highway Patrol.  Apparently I was weaving in my lane.  A small wonder since we had just found our way again and Sharon was telling me that this wasn't the right way.  When he got up to the car he told us that he could detect a strong odor of alcohol coming out of the car.  He was standing in Sharon's face so what the hell did he expect it to smell like.  After a mini-sobriety test he sent us on our way without further incident.  We got home and thanked our lucky stars I had quit drinking much earlier.

We checked e-mail and Sharon read her newspaper online, and then we headed off to bed.  This had been quite the day all things considered.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

We were Breakfasted and up and rolling this morning with a mission well in hand.  We headed toward Golden Gate National Recreation Area on the Northern side of the Golden Gate Bridge for our first stop.  The weather was foggy and not cooperating this morning but we hoped that it would change before we got to Golden Gate.  It didn't and as a matter of fact probably got worse.  We entered he park amidst mountains and rolling hills and couldn't see a thing.  We saw the park movie and then opted to just go to our next park.

John Muir Woods National Monument was our next on the list.  But with construction, detours and closed roads we were pretty much lost for the rest of the day.  We did manage to get to John Muir but it was also raining and foggy during our visit so it didn't make for a pleasant day to walk around the park.  We did take in the trees close to the Visitor's Center and took pictures before we left.

The last stop for us today was Point Reyes National Seashore.  Leaving Muir Woods and going to Point Reyes it's possible to take Rt. 1 because it's the connector road between the two.  We ended up going the wrong way on Rt. 1 and ended up back in the town where we started.  It wasn't a problem this time as we just stopped for lunch while we were there.  We found another way into Point Reyes further north and continued on after lunch.  We found our way in without any difficulty but the way out was another story.  We got on our road out going the wrong direction (without realizing it) and finally stopped for directions from the Post Office in Inverness.  Needless to say by being lost all day it was during the rush hour that we were now trying to get home.  We finally found our highway to get back to Yountville and ended up in a bumper to bumper traffic jam.  We took another road around that and when we were in a position to make our final turn north, we were in the lane to only make a south turn.  We went up the road the wrong way for a few miles before we could find an exit to get turned around and headed home.  We finally got home around 6pm.  We were just glad that we hadn't gotten stopped by the police again.

This day had certainly been a doozy since we had never had so much trouble finding National Parks before.  But I've had issues with the signage and highways before.  This was not the first time we've had problem negotiating the California Highways. And apparently won't be the last.

I fiddled with the dish tonight and we finally got it to come in.  So at least one thing was working like it was supposed to.  There was only one good show on tonight and after that we were both ready for a long rest.  It was 10 o'clock by that time and we weren't concerned about staying up for anything at that time anyway.  You could hear the crash of our bodies hitting the bed from miles away

Thursday, December 14, 2006

We were off at our scheduled time this morning rolling right along when we zoomed into what appeared to be a traffic jam just before the Oakland Bay Bridge.  Thousands of cars lined up in about 10-12 lanes waiting to pay their tolls.($3) We found out later that this was normal for this toll gate.  We figured by coming around 10:30 we would avoid the traffic snarl.  WRONG.  After the toll gate we had smooth sailing into San Francisco. The only trouble we had after that was that the City was blanketed in fog for most of the day.

Our first stop was San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.  We found it so easily that we would driven into the sign if we hadn't seen it first.  It was at the end of Hyde Street at the terminus of the Cable Cars. We went into the Visitor's Center, watched the movie and then outside for pictures.  It had started raining in the meantime and the rest of the park was outdoors.  We took some quick pictures, bought some souvenirs and then decided to find something for lunch.

We found a place called Fiddler's Green which was an Irish Pub and then ordered a couple of Gaelic Burgers and Fries.  We don't know what made them Gaelic but they were very good none-the-less.

After lunch we set out looking for The Presidio and Fort Point National Historic Site.  Having directions from the maritime Visitor's Center we managed to find The Presidio without any trouble.  From there it was just a short jaunt across the Presidio to get to the Visitor's Center for Fort Point.  The Fort was closed today so we quickly got my cancellation stamp from the Warming Hut and got the directions to get on the Golden Gate Bridge for a quick exit out of the city.  Jim was right about the Northbound traffic not having to pay the toll for the bridge.  It was quite disappointing that we couldn't see the bridge even as we were crossing it.  The fog was just too thick for any kind of viewing on this occasion.  We saw the bridge in 1990 when we were here, but we never crossed it then.  Today we made the loop and got back out of the city and on our way back home to the Napa Valley without any trouble.

We intended to stop at Camping World on the way home but never could figure out how to get to it and just drove by.  We stopped at Jim and Jackie Palestini's and went out for Pizza to Pietro's.  The pizza was fabulous and they said it was their favorite.  After we got back to their house we just got in our car and came the 26 miles back to home sweet home.  We were pooped even though it was seemingly a short day.

We watched TV until 10 and then just caved.  It didn't take long for the "log sawing" noises to emit from the feathery kingdom.

Friday, December 15, 2006

We were off about 10 am this morning on our way to the Eugene O'Neil National Historic Site in Danville, California.  We needed to make sure we had enough time to get there so we built in an extra hour so that we wouldn't miss our reservation for 12:30.  We stopped at Camping World on the way to pick up some Christmas cards.  It only took us a couple of minutes to get the cards and then we were on our way again.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare and decided to find a place to eat Breakfast before our scheduled time to report for the reservation.  There was a Denny's just down the street so we went there for Breakfast.  We were finished in plenty of time and when we left we drove to the Park and Ride and waited for the National Park shuttle.  It showed up about 15 minutes later and we were on our way up to the house.

The tour of the house took about 2 hours and was very informative.  We enjoyed the visit very much and learned a lot about Eugene O'Neil.  When we got our ride back to the Park and Ride we headed north to Phil and Joyce Bach's house in Martinez.  We would be spending the night with them.  Dick and Linda Smith would also stop over while we're there to see us all.

Joyce cooked a lovely Dinner called a Tamale Pie and the six of us sat down and feasted.  Later Linda was going to a play and left and Dick was on his way shortly after that.  It was nice to see both of them again.

Later the four of us played a couple games of Chinese Checkers and Joyce beat the hell out of the three of us.  We soon retired after the shellacking.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

We went out for Breakfast this morning after we got our stuff together.  We found a little restaurant downtown called Victoria's Café.  The inside of the place was cold but the food was really good.  By the time we got done eating it was time for us to head toward home.  We dropped Phil and Joyce and headed north back to Yountville.

We called Jim and Jackie on the way because they were supposed to pick us up and do a tour of the Napa Valley.  We got home in plenty of time and the Palestini's picked us up at noon for an afternoon of wine tasting.  Our first stop was the winery of Mario Andretti.  Jackie was a member there so we tasted almost everything we could.  I got a t-shirt also.  We continued our tour through the Valley stopping and tasting along the way.  We took a ride through Calistoga which is a quaint little town with tiny old storefronts and unique decorative facades.  We only stopped at a candle store there and the moved quickly on to other things.  Our last winery stop was at the Beringer Winery which was huge with many old buildings.  We also saw the Rhine and Hudson Houses which were built in the 1860's.  They were very well kept up and a pleasure to see.  We also climbed a hill road to get an overview of the Napa Valley but the trees around the road were grown up and we were afforded only one partial view.

We came back home and sat and had a couple of drinks before Jim and Jackie decided to head for home.  It had been a very nice day and I didn't have to drive an inch.  We did have to climb in and out Jim's Wrangler which became cumbersome after a while.

We were glad to be home and just be able to sit and relax for the next couple of days, before we head down to Desert Hot Springs.

We'll see if there is anything on TV for the night and then probably just cave later on.  We'll be ready for a vacation when all this ends.  We've definitely had a couple of very busy weeks.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

We had a short day planned for ourselves today.  Sharon was off to church this morning and I took in my Sunday political shows. 

By the time she got back I was getting ready to wash the motorhome.  This would be the first washing since we left.  The weather has been prohibitive for such activities so I just didn't do them.  Sharon came out and gave me a hand after she changed out of her "Sunday go to meeting" clothes.  It took us about an hour to finish up the whole job.

Sharon decided to catch up on the laundry as I went out and dumped our tanks and refilled our fresh water.  I was done before she was which is always the case.  We fended for ourselves for lunch.  I had leftover Shrimp Creole and she had a salad.

By mid-afternoon we were both caught up on our individual jobs and started watching TV.  We saw the flash for the Packer game and they beat Detroit today.

We watched mostly Discovery and History channel shows today since nothing we were interested in was on today.

We'll catch a movie tonight before we finally call it a day.  It won't be a late night in any event.