I’ve been away on vacation for the past week. Got back home around midnight last night after a week in northern California. Even though I took my iPad and had WiFi, it’s taking me a while to get caught up.
While I was away, my latest Storytellers Unplugged essay went live, thanks to the magic of delayed posting. It’s called Where did that story come from? and it’s about how I wrote my most recent story.
The next five weeks look like they’re going to be busy. I have a short story I want to finish by Sunday. I thought I’d have some writing time while on vacation, but I didn’t. Even when I did, I didn’t take advantage of it. It was a total getaway. I have another story to write by the end of July along with two or three essays and a few book reviews. I also have to read three books (for the reviews) and watch four or five movies (for the essays) and conduct an interview.
Fortunately, my forthcoming book is in the hands of the copy editor, so I should be safe from it for a while.
Our vacation was in northern California. My wife’s grandmother’s 99th birthday party was last weekend near Santa Cruz, so we decided to take some extra time and tour the wine district. We stayed in Sonoma, since I’d read it’s less busy than Napa, and rented a convertible—a Mitsubishi Spyder. Fun little car to drive but, as I discovered, seventy degrees and overcast is not proof against the sun. Rental convertibles, I decided, should come standard with sunblock.
We got in on Saturday afternoon and drove up to the wine country from San Francisco. Took it easy, with a nice dinner at a South American restaurant. I had a “stew” that was simply amazing. They served some interesting amuse-bouche and we even managed to share one of their desserts.
Last Sunday we toured Sonoma itself while we figured out what we’d do the rest of the time. It’s a small town, so the tour didn’t take long, but we took in two wine tastings, one at Roche and another at the Two Amigos, with nachos at a Mexican restaurant in between. The guys who hosted the tastings were both characters. It has to be a tedious job, going through much the same patter several times a day. The guy at Roche had a huge personality and seemed to make it up on the go, whereas the guy at Two Amigos was more sedate (though the atmosphere was more gag-oriented, with whoopie cushions and nose-glasses, etc) and repetitive. We sampled seven wines at the first place and ten at the second, which is a pretty hearty dose of alcohol.
On Tuesday, we took the wine trolley, which is a converted San Francisco cable car that runs like an open-air bus. There were fourteen of us aboard, and we visited four wineries in the Sonoma area. We got smarter as the day went along. At the third place we shared a tasting and at the fourth we just listened! With anywhere from five to ten aliquots per stop (some more generous than others), we had to pace ourselves. The tour took about six hours. The first place was the most interesting as they showed us the entire process, from vineyard to crusher to barrel, etc. My big surprise of the trip was how much I like zinfandel. I’d always ignored that wine (for no reason I can justify), and some of the ones that I liked the most were zins. Call me converted.
On Tuesday, we got up very early and drove over to Napa, about 20 miles east, for a hot air balloon ride. I did this once before (Park City, Utah, I think) but my wife never had. I knew the tradition was to go up early in the morning, but I didn’t know that the reason was that the cool air helps protect the canvas of the balloon from the heat. We left from the rendezvous site at around 5:45 a.m. and drove a few miles to the launch site. There were four balloons, each with about 16 passengers. (These balloons hold up to 24.) A little like eggs in a carton: the baskets are divided into four compartments for passengers, with a fifth in the middle for the pilot. Getting in and out is a tad inelegant. It was a nice crisp morning, and we got up to about 2000 feet at times, and moved anywhere from 2 to nearly 20 mph, depending on the current and the altitude. They never know in advance where they’re going to land because they never know where the breezes will take them. One of the other balloons caught a west breeze that took them over to a large open pasture, but by the time we got there that steering breeze was gone. So we came down over a suburban neighborhood, trying to get to a baseball park. We got close, but then some employees on the ground had to drag us about half a block so we could come down in the park and not on someone’s house or driveway! It was a lot of fun and you couldn’t beat the view or the sensation of hanging in the air. The only sound was the occasional burst of flame from the burners, and that was loud and hot.
They served up an excellent buffet breakfast afterward. Then we decided to put the top down and go exploring. We drove the full length of the Napa Valley and then cut across through the petrified forest. From there we went to Point Reyes National Seashore, on the Pacific Coast. Rugged coastline, strong breakers, some beaches, cliffs, etc. Good whale watching earlier in the year, apparently. It was during this drive that we both got a little more sun than anticipated. Mostly in the face.
The next day we drove north along the winding hilly roads to the Avenue of the Giants, a 30-mile stretch of the old Hwy 101 that goes through the Redwood Forest. I’ve seen pictures of these giant trees all my life—my grandmother brought back a set of Viewmaster reels (remember those?) when I was a kid—but being among them is unbelievable. The oldest of them are over 2000 years old, and many of them are over 300 feet tall. With the top down on the convertible (but only in the shady stretches and with lots of sunblock slathered on!) you could tilt your head back and stare up at these massive trees. My wife drove the route north and I drove it back south so we could both experience it fully. Truly amazing. My wife also bought me an Indiana Jones-style hat to protect my face (especially my by-now peeling nose) from the sun and I happen to think it’s quite jaunty.
After all those miles two days in a row, we decided to chill in Sonoma on Thursday before heading down to Santa Cruz on Friday. We had lunch at the wharf. There were sea lions sunning themselves on one pillar of the pier. In another part we could go downstairs to get nearer the water and look beneath the wharf. It was like a flophouse for seals and sea lions. They were draped all over the pilings and cross braces. I have no idea how they got up there. Noisy buggers, too.
Then we drove up to the Ben Lomond area, where we stayed in a rustic cabin with a balcony that looked out among the redwoods. We spent some time touring the local redwood state park—on foot this time instead of by car. Some of the trees are hollow at the base, so you can stand inside them. If you’re interested in photos, I uploaded a representative sampling here.
The rest of the weekend was spent visiting my wife’s relatives, culminating in the birthday party on Saturday afternoon. The guest of honor was in fine fettle and a good time was had by all. We drove up to San Francisco yesterday morning. We got there in time to take an earlier flight, but it was booked. Not so booked that our suitcase couldn’t go, though. We waited for it to come off the carousel last night and no luck. So I went wandering around and spotted it in the bullpen near the lost luggage office. Fortunately we put a neon green belt around it so it was easily identifiable. I saw it from halfway across the baggage claim area.
