The Morning of the Third Day...
12/14/2009
This morning finds me in the beautifully appointed lobby of the Embassy Suites Hotel in Napa, California. It, as was The Wharf Hilton’s lobby, is very quiet. Just me, a very large Christmas, a bunch of over stuffed chairs and a clock letting me know it is just 5:33am and I should still be in bed. We drove here from San Francisco yesterday to see the Napa Valley and the Sonoma Valley and perhaps, though I am not an aficionado, visit a winery or two.
As noted yesterday the weather here has not been the best. Rain is moving through the region in bands of showers; some of them are nothing more than mist, others come in buckets allowing us to make very good use of the umbrellas we brought “just in case.”
We began this sojourn yesterday with a quick dash across the Golden Gate Bridge and a misty walk through the ancient forest at Muir Woods. There is something very humbling looking up at 250 foot tall, 1000-year old trees. My mind kept thinking about Robert Redfield’s best seller “The Celestine Prophecy” and the part of the story that takes place in ancient forest among the old growth trees. If it weren’t for the mist and the chill in the air, I would have stayed longer to take in the ambience of the woods and the feeling of the presence of a power much greater than myself.
It wasn’t but an hour or so into our trip before we began to see vineyards dotting the hillsides with what seemed to be miles and miles of grape arbors. The further we drove the more we saw as the countryside began to look as if someone had drawn lines on the earth. We did stop at one winery and walked inside to see couples seated at little round tables filled with glasses and someone apparently pouring different wines for them to taste and ultimately purchase. Not exactly my cup of tea, as my wine knowledge goes only as far as red or white, so we just looked around a little, used the restrooms and made our way back to our rented Chevy parked amid the Caddies and Mercedes. I had another search in mind.
We checked into our hotel upon arrival in Napa, dropped off our crap and located the local brew pub – a couple of IPA’s and a pizza and pork sandwich later, The Nancy and I came back to the room for a nap. We are not the venerate explorers we thought we are. We are just beer drinkers in wine country. To us little is more enjoyable than sitting at a bar with a good beer making new acquaintances and adding to the cast of thousands that makes up our lives. We talked and laughed with a mom and daughter teacher duo, a vintner beer drinker, a dude with a bald head and a ponytail wearing a 49ers’ jacket that likes blue cheese, but not cheddar, and kidded around with the bartenders. We had created a Napa family in a little over two hours and had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.
After a comfortable two-hour wine country snooze we awoke refreshed and hungry and in search of a good, light meal. Downtown Joe’s, the scene of the earlier repast seemed ideal for another round, so that is where we dined as the Eagles whooped up on the Giants and we managed to add on a few cousins to our ever growing California clan.
This morning, once the sun comes up, and also The Nancy, we will probably head back to San Francisco. It’s not that I don’t like it here, wine country is okay, but I am a beer guy and this place, other than incredible scenery, doesn’t hold the mystique for me that it does for wine people, and besides The Nancy and I have a date this evening with the San Francisco 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals.
And that is all I have to say about that…