After our trip to San Francisco, we loaded up and drove on to Sonoma.  On our way out of town, we stopped by Anchor Steam brewery for a tour.  Once we finally found a parking spot, we spent a few hours on a very informative tour.  Truth be told, they don’t put out any of my favorite brews, but there was a lot of history behind it and they are currently expanding as well.  From there, our itinerary listed Lagunitas brewery as the next stop, who, as it happens, DO put out some of my favorite brews.  I’ve also heard from many that it’s a great place to hang out, with a large outdoor area and a good food menu.  Alas, a quick check of their hours showed they were closed on Mondays, rats.  I guess that’s on the list for another trip, it’s not that far from our house anyway.  Deprived of that destination, we made the quick call to head to Russian River, which was located near our final destination for the day anyway.  They brew what is considered one of the top IPA’s in the country, so it was a suitable substitution to be sure.  We enjoyed a good lunch there, then checked into our hotel.  For dinner we went to a friend’s house who lives in town.  He fixed a great meal for the whole group, and we got to check out his cool gardens.  (Big vegetarian;  He’s got quite the setup.)

The next day, we all met up at his house again and loaded up in a limo for a Sonoma Valley wine tasting trip.  Our first stop of the day was at Coturri, which was quite a drive.  Our friend Steve knew the owner at this place well, so we got quite the hook-up.  I’d never to been to a winery anything like this place, it was interesting.  I’d call it “informal,” he kept grabbing random bottles from his storage building and bringing them out.  He had a table set up outside, and we just kind of enjoyed the weather and some tasty vino.  We stayed there quite a while, then headed off to our next stop at Buena Vista.  This one (and the remaining stops for the day,) were more what I’d experienced before:  Stand at the counter, taste a few glasses, move on.  And move on we did, to Gundlach Bundschu.  This was an interesting stop, as it is actually the oldest winery in the world.  Or maybe it was the oldest in California.  Possibly just Sonoma.  I don’t know, I was losing interest in wine rapidly by this point.  The building was certainly interesting though, and so were the grounds.  We spent some time there, then wrapped the day up with a nice little picnic in the square downtown.  Next stop, Lake Tahoe.

Wow, that was quite a week.  Matter of fact it stretched a bit into this week, necessitating the slightly late update.  It was my birthday week, and I’d say I got considerably more mileage out of it than usual, if perhaps only by sheer coincidence.  We kicked things off by meeting up with several friends in San Francisco for a few days.  While I’d like to think they all came to celebrate my birthday, we were actually there to take part in the 103rd annual Bay To Breakers run.  Several in the group had done it before, but it was our maiden voyage.  And oh, what a voyage.  We had intentionally elected to queue up in the back of the crowd, as we had no plans of actually running.  We just wanted to walk the 7.5 miles and enjoy the show.  And, indeed, a show it was.  Even the veterans in our group proclaimed it quite a bit bawdier than they’d seen before.  Despite many visible notices proclaiming a crack-down on alcohol, nudity, backpacks, strollers, and fun in general, nobody seemed deterred in the slightest.  (I kept all my clothes on, for the record.)  We got some idea of what we were in for when we got stuck in the start gate (with the other 40,000 runners) for a good hour, directly behind a rather chubby fella wearing face paint and flip-flops.  Just face paint and flip-flops.  (OK, he did sport a few other fashion accessories, which shall go unnamed,  mostly because I’m not really sure what they’re called.)  Apparently in an attempt to keep warm in the chilly morning air, he felt the need to constantly jump up and down.  I still wake up screaming.  There were lots of entertaining costumes actually consisting of clothes, too.  There was definitely ample scenery to keep us entertained throughout our leisurely stroll.  It was so freaking crowded we really couldn’t have run even if we wanted to though, so we ended up sort of shuffle-stepping the entire 7.5 mile party.

After the “run,” we managed to navigate the daunting commute back to our rental house.  (Ever seen 40,000+ people, mostly badly impaired, trying to find a ride home at once?  It was nearly as entertaining as the run itself.)  Donette had found the house online, in the Haight Ashbury district.  Personally I’d never even heard of this neighborhood, but apparently it’s generally widely recognized.  It was a great house, and the location was a blast.  It had plenty of room for the group, and we were in walking distance to more places than we could hope to visit in our short trip.  Not remarkably, I was most fond of the brewpub Magnolias, which was conveniently located a mere two doors down from us.  I enjoyed the bar-none best blue cheese burger in recent memory, not to mention a few pints of their Prescription Pale Ale.  (Which I see is no longer available, guess I got lucky.)  It appeared that several thousand people had cut their run considerably short and opted to just party all day, so we plunked down on the front porch and just watched the bizarro’s walk around.  Matter of fact, even on the other days we were there, the front porch provided more than enough people-watching value;  We spent quite a few hours out there.  That pretty much wraps up the San Francisco portion of our trip.  Tune in tomorrow (or the next day…  Or the next…) when we continue our riveting journey to Sonoma!

Happy birthday to me.  I’ll be brief, as I’m in the midst of a birthday-week celebration and I don’t want to waste valuable vacation hours.  (And I find the iPad very difficult to type on.)  We are currently in San Francisco, wrapping things up and heading to Sonoma later today.  Yesterday was my actual birthday, which I celebrated by participating in the 103rd annual Bay to Breakers run.  Donette & I walked the whole thing, no running for me.  I just enjoyed the people-watching, which there was certainly ample opportunity for.  I shot a few videos on my phone, I’ll upload them later…  Maybe.  Wow…  Some things just can’t be unseen.  Far more people than I’d expect seem to have a penchant for running in the buff out here.  Didn’t look very comfortable to me, but then again I can’t say I’ve ever tried it.  We were one of the very few people without some kind of costume on, I felt a little un-festive.  I’ll have to come up with some kind of unique costume idea for next time, which will likely be never.  We decided the race would be better enjoyed from the sidelines in a folding chair, so that’s our plan for the next one.

Uhhhh…  I guess I should have been a bit more descriptive on last weekend’s activities, and save the slacker-updates for a weekend when I really needed it, like this past one.  Just not a lot going on the last few days.  Friday, in what could possibly be considered a “rut,” we went to Ruff Haus after work.  After that we were a bit hungry, so we headed to dinner at Los Pinos in Cameron Park.  It’s OK I guess;  The best we’ve found around here so far.  Ever open-minded, I haven’t concluded just yet if A) I have different tastes being from KC, or B) they have really, really marginal restaurants here.  I must say I’m leaning towards the latter.

Saturday I’m not sure we got out of bed.  Oh wait…  Yes, we did go to Target & then Chipotle, and took a quick drive by the new house/lot/dirt-pile.  We spent the better part of lunch debating if the Chipotle burrito was just as good as any we’d found in the local restaurants.  I maintain that yes it is, although I prefer table service.  Geez, that’s a pretty thin margin there, especially given the up-charge for eating out.  Oh well.  We found the house coming along nicely.  They’ve built the forms for the slab, and dug trenches for the sewer and stuff.  (At least I guess that’s what they are for, got me.)  I must be more excited for the new house than I realized, as I drive by it nearly every day after work.  Granted, it’s all of a block off my usual path.

Sunday brought some awesome temps, but it was insanely windy.  After a bit of discussion on our Mother’s Day plans, we decided to go to Villa Toscano winery for lunch.  There were many facets to my thought process on this.  Probably most importantly, I was convinced there would be no crowd.  After all, what kind of cheapskate takes Mom to the free pasta buffet on Mother’s Day?  Additionally, the weather looked great for some outside dining, and the drive there is kind of nice.  In something of an anomaly, our plans actually worked out well.  The tasting room was the most crowded we’d ever seen, but we weren’t going in there so that was fine.  We just hung out on the patio and enjoyed the free grub and some moderately good people-watching.  After that we headed back home, and as we were turning up the hill towards the house we ran right into a big crowd waiting for the Tour of California bike race to come through. We pulled over and watched that, it was pretty entertaining.  After they went by, we went on home and I spent the rest of the afternoon on the patio, listening to baseball and enjoying my annual Mother’s Day cigar.  Donette had to play spoilsport and prattle on about there being no such thing as an “annual Mother’s Day cigar,” since I’d never observed that ritual before, nor does it have anything to do with Mother’s Day.  Always playing Debbie Downer, that girl.  I thought it had a festive ring to it.

We ventured ever so slightly out of our standard circle this weekend, just to mix things up a bit.  Not Friday though;  Friday we just sat on the back patio with the neighbors and enjoyed the sun.  Quiet, but fun.  Not Saturday either…  Saturday we didn’t do much of anything.  I fired up a batch of homebrew, which between getting everything ready and cleaning up afterwards can take the better part of a day.

Sunday, though, we actually left the house.  We met some friends early-ish for a tasty breakfast, then headed to Placer County to check out their “wine trail.”  We mixed in some crafty sort of stops along the way, for the sake of variety.  I think we ended up checking out three wineries in all, although the names escape me already.  Since we’d made the trip anyway, we stopped in Knee Deep Brewing too and played a few rounds of cornhole.  That pretty well killed the day, so we met up with a bunch more people at a Mexican restaurant, scarfed some dinner, and called it a day.  A more thorough blogger would add a stop-by-stop synopsis of the day, with details on the tastings at each winery.  I ain’t got it in me.  Maybe next time I’ll take notes or something.