formerly floyd speaks: Long, But Not Lost, Weekend

On Thursday, June 14, Greg and I hopped on the train for a short trip down to San Francisco to visit our friends Lisa and Theresa. We were supposed to visit them last February, but then had to postpone because of my work, We rescheduled and then had to postpone it again, and again it was because of my work. I was damned if I was going to postpone it a third time!
On the ride down, we were seated by the world's loudest family. It made for a very long trip.

We arrived in Emeryville 22 hours later, having had about 3 hours of sleep . . . next time we go for the sleeper car

The day before, Lisa had scored about 25 pounds of cherries, so we spent the afternoon helping her, and her friend Tristan, make cherry jam. Greg and I pitted cherries for what seemed like hours. I ate as many cherries as I pitted, yet we still ended up with 36 jars of jam.

The next morning, Lisa and I got up early and went to the farmer's market to purchase picnic provisions for a day trip up to the Anderson Valley for some wine tasting. Tristan and her husband, Tom, joined us - Lisa rented a honking huge minivan for the trip.

A friend of Lisa's had arranged for us to meet one of the winemakers at Navarro Vineyards. Sarah's father started Navarro, and Sarah was working there after graduating from UC Davis. Navarro is a beautiful place, and they make beautiful wine. Their tasting list is very long; Sarah said some of the other wineries would complain that it was too long, but we weren't complaining.

Sunday was spent hiking off Saturday's (over)indulgence. We headed out to some beachfront land owned by the Olympic Club and used a lot by hikers and equestrians. There's a pretty run down looking stable there - I was surprised to see it still had tenants.

Everywhere we looked were HUGE stands off yellow lupine - they were very fragrant, which surprised me. My garden lupine have no scent at all . . .

There was also iceplant. Lots and lots of iceplant.

Down on the beach we came across a dead sea lion. We could see no sign of trauma on it. There was a ribbon tied around its hind flippers. Theresa said that was probably put there by a marine researcher who had come out to check on it, to show it had been catalogued. Even in death it was beautiful, and you could see finger marks on its fur where people had petted it.

We ended the day with Chinese food and ice cream on Clement Street, followed by a tea tasting at the world's strangest tea shop. Good tea, strange owner. He was very theatrical as he gave us different teas to taste - we ended up spending a lot of money there.