Tuesday, Sep 14, 2010

Morning started with Lynn and David picking up some Burger King take out for Wells, Coulsons and Rays.  We are not sure what the Masons had for breakfast - they were not discussing beyond Karen having a breakfast bar.  We met early in hotel lobby to make some decisions about the van pick up and plans for Yosemite.   Paul and Lynn will catch the airport shuttle and bring van back to hotel to pick everyone up.  Sandra got a call - Terrific Tours was stuck in traffic and would be late (either Trevor or DJ - she got a call from each).  We boarded the Terrific Tours van at 10:00 and headed towards Sonoma, going over the Golden Gate. We made a stop at Muir Woods National Monument and took a short walk to see some 1,000 year old Redwoods, deer and chipmunks (I assume the deer and chipmunks were not that old, only the Redwoods). Getting back on the van we went past Infineon Raceway, one of NASCAR's famous road courses and through Marin County (San Rafael), home of  San Quentin penitentiary.  It is also the town where Lucas Films is doing the special effects for the new Star Wars movie. George Lucas lives on Lucas Valley road on Skywalker Ranch (just saying).  We arrived at the small town of Sonoma around 1:00 and had lunch at the Sonoma Cheese Factory.  After lunch some visited the Sonoma mission.  We boarded the van and drove to Benziger winery, took a wine tour and learned how they used Biodynamics to grow their grapes without any chemicals and about the multiple layers of soil laid down by a now-inactive volcano.  We also learned about growing grapes on hillsides and how the heat gets trapped during the day and then valley is cooled at night by the fog being blown in by the Pacific ocean.  We visiting B. R. Cohn winery, home of the manager of the Doobie Brothers.  They had some cool looking cars (46 Willys, 41 Woody and a hot rod – David got pictures – Lynn’s camera battery died so he only got one pic).  We drove back to hotel, arriving around 5:30. After a short break we headed down to In-n-Out Burgers (highly suggested by DJ from Terrific Tours) for some double cheeseburgers and fries (animal style with cheese, onions, ground beef and thousand island dressing). I don’t think they use mayonnaise or mustard in California on burgers, just thousand island.   Although bloatated, Karen forced us all to walk up 2 more hills in the blowing, cold wind to Ghiradelli square to get some chocolate. It was so cold, the girls sopped at a store on the way and bought 4 matching fleece jackets ($11 each).  We walked back to hotel.  Lynn, Paul and David stopped in and had a quick beer in Vintner's (hotel bar).  It was the time to pack - Wednesday will be a travel day to Fish Camp's Tenaya Lodge, just outside Yosemite's southern entrance.