JC's Traveblog

International House Sitters (Leighton Buzzard) would like to announce the publication of their web photograph album from their recent five week stay in sunny northern California. Digital technology has quite clearly cut album production time by two or three days. For this format of display, there is no beating a collection of reusable pixels as opposed to a piece of celluloid. I do find I miss the occasional dinner party with friends projecting real, tangible photographs onto a big screen, though.

You can find them in our 2008_California section of the photograph albums on our web site.

Betty (Bryan’s cat) seemed oddly unwilling to wish us farewell as, at 8:25 AM, Bets drove us to Petaluma to board the 9:00 AM Airporter bus to San Francisco International airport. Betty was certainly very pleased to have Bryan back but she seemed to have become quite used to us, if not overtly fond of us.

The Airporter ride takes 1½hrs and costs $32 each ($30 each for seniors – huge discount), plus tip, of course. It’s a good service and certainly beats anyone else having to deal with the San Francisco commute traffic southbound through Marin. Our flight wasn’t due to leave until 2:05 PM so we could have caught the later bus but then we’d have been thumb-twiddling in Tomales. We were as well removing any time pressure, leaving Bets and Bryan to return to a normal life, and thumb-twiddling in the American Airlines Admiral’s Club lounge.

At 10:45 AM we arrived at the airport, tipped the jolly driver, then checked in. Flashing our posh first class boarding passes, we invaded the Admiral’s Club lounge to await our first flight and, after a suitable delay for appearances, begin the day’s alcohol intake with, in my case, gin & tonic #1.

At 2:05 PM we took flight AA1472 to Chicago’s O’Hare Field airport. This was, as far as I can remember, the first time I had flown across such a route in clear weather and daylight. We crossed Sacramento and then Lake Tahoe in about the first 30 minutes. That got us out of California after which we seemed to fly over desert landscapes for about two hours as we crossed the apparently very sparsely populated wildernesses of Nevada and Utah.

After 3½ hours and gin & tonics #2, #3, #4 and #5 (terrific stewardess), darkness had fallen and we were putting Carol’s watch on 2 hours for our landing at Chicago. A homeward journey is great ‘cos the bags are checked straight through to London so all we had to do was change gates for our second flight which was due to leave from the same terminal in about 1½ hours. The timing gave us time to invade the Chicago Admiral’s Club lounge so we flashed our posh business class boarding passes and got on with gin & tonic #6.

Our lightly loaded flight AA98 pushed back on time at 9:50 PM Chicago time but then sat twiddling its turbines for about 20 minutes waiting for a take-off slot. For some unexplained reason, O’Hare had decided to use a single runway, interleaving both arriving and departing flights. Curious. Eventually there seemed to be a gap and ‘t was our turn whereupon the twiddling turbines became roaring turbines and we were finally off on the last leg of our journey. Passage was eased by an initial glass of bubbly and gin & tonic #7. I watched a movie (Bonnie and Clyde) and then settled down in the hope that my aforementioned gin & tonics #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7 would combine forces and send me to sleep but, alas, any sleep was fitful, even in my beautifully reclining posh business class seat.

Ignoring Ireland [space for reader's own joke], we made landfall at Anglesey and 30 minutes later were smacking our wheels onto the tarmac at London’s Heathrow airport. Blink and you could easily have missed Wales [space for reader's own joke]. On our previous leg we’d been flying over practically empty desert scenery for two of the 3½ hours between San Francisco and Chicago and here we were having crossed our entire country in a mere 30 minutes, including overshooting London to turn back and land to the west. No surprise, I know, but for some reason this trip seemed to hammer the scale home to me. Maybe it was because I saw more.

Not only did both Betty and Bets and Bryan’s house survive, but we’ve had a most enjoyable trip renewing several old and valued friendships. Mission successful, I think.

Time for some more jet lag.

This was our last day in California before the long trip home. Many years ago I had been keen on cabrito, a San Francisco Mexican restaurant’s rendition of “Petaluma kid goat”, and had been interested in trying to track down some of this elusive delicacy. An Internet search had revealed a goat producer in the area but with an outlet only in San Francisco. Finally, yesterday, Gordon spotted a butcher just outside Point Reyes Station claiming to have goat meat and we were off to get some for our farewell dinner with Bets and Bryan.

It was an absolutely perfect day in Point Reyes Station with clear blue skies and 65°F. We had jumped the gun with the butcher a little ‘cos they didn’t open until 11:00 AM but they seemed happy to help anyway and we got our very expensive goat, which was, of course, organic; nearly everything around here, especially at Point Reyes Station, is. After a last fond farewell look around the place that has become our favourite small town in the area, we headed back with our booty.

Bets and Bryan took some time out of catching up on the inevitable backlog of work that a vacation develops to take us for lunch at Bodega Bay. The stunning weather continued up the coast and we sat in a restaurant with panoramic views across the bay made famous by Alfred Hitchcock.

The Birds was set mainly in Bodega a few miles away from Bodega Bay and here there is an Alfred Hitchcock museum which we had never seen. This being our last chance to correct this appalling oversight, our hosts navigated us to see the famous church and school house which are now beautifully kept for diverting tourists. Now I’ve seen the buildings, I’ll have to see try to see the film again; it’s been quite a while.

Now that we are off home, the fog seems to have decided to recede out to sea and Tomales remained fog free for an evening firing-up of the charcoal Weber and our own rendition of barbecued cabrito. It was very good. Bets wondered how we might make it more readily available and more reasonably priced. Spread the word and get more people eating goat. They have to be easy to keep ‘cos they’ll eat just about anything.

Bets and Bryan were due to arrive at San Francisco International at around 6:00 PM from their second vacation this evening. To try and make best use of the day, we had booked a GoCar from their Union Square depôt for two hours between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM. Our plan was to drive into San Francisco parking at Gordon and Kim’s house and take a bus to the downtown area for our GoCar.

The first parts of the plan worked fine. We parked up and the Simpson Hotel allowed us to use the restroom to get comfortable for our ride downtown. The bus was leaving as we arrived at the terminus but waited for us to board and we arrived at Union Square with a little over an hour to spare. Good job, too; having circumperambulated Union Square we had spotted no sign of any GoCar establishment. A phone call to the excellent concierge facilities at the Simpson Hotel revealed that GoCar’s online booking system’s idea of “Union Square” was, in fact a block away on the corner of Mason and O’Farrell. Finally relaxed that we now knew where we were going, we settled down for a sunny picnic in Union Square.

We picked up a GoCar and had an instructional video. It’s actually a 50cc motorcycle unit with handlebar steering and a twist-grip throttle. Much was made in the instructional video of the locking mechanism for the trunk/boot. Our unit was missing any such lock or, indeed, any catch of any description. It won’t open when you’re driving, we were assured, and we weren’t planning to leave any valuables (i.e. two camera bags) unattended so off we set. Well, off we tried to set. I twisted the throttle, the engine revved and we stayed where we were. Second attempt was more successful; I grabbed a fistful of throttle and we were off. You really have to gun these things.

The GPS-controlled guidance and instructional system talks to you when you are on one of the designated routes. In our case, it talks to you until you go over a bump whereupon any current guiding or instructing ceased. There are many such bumps in San Francisco and the minimalist suspension does little to soften them. When you miss a turn due to a skipped instruction, you are off the route and talking ceases until you are back on a route. I thought the GPS unit was perhaps a CD ROM and that it skipped. Carol discovered that the car radio like unit was loose and that holding it in prevented skipping. There was, presumably, a loose connection in our unit. We continued the tour with Carol permanently holding the GPS unit, now codenamed “Skippy”.

San Francisco is very hilly. The instructions tell you that the GoCar can climb all the hills on the designated routes but there some SF hills are just too steep. Our route took us up several hills that were a definite struggle for the game but screaming 50cc engine and automatic gear box. A GoCar struggling up a hill at little more than walking pace followed by a tail back of city traffic busting to overtake but unable to do so is a frustrating experience – at least, it was for me.

We ended up nearly back out at Hotel Simpson and realized we were going to run out of time if we completed our route so we bailed out and scooted back towards downtown in silence (off piste) until we hit a section that was on piste whereupon Skippy stopped sulking and became talkative once again.

Having driven down the famously twisty Lombard Street block and negotiated Stockton Tunnel, we arrived back at the GoCar depôt whence we had started. The GoCar booth was locked with no human presence but a sign saying, “back soon”. Arghh! Shades of attempting to hand back an Avis rental car in Petaluma but now we had a hard stop – Bets and Bryan’s 6:00 PM flight. Fortunately Mr. GoCar returned after about 10 minutes. (No restroom facilities chez GoCar’s booth.) I reported the faulty GPS unit but still paid for our extra 30 minutes.

Our bus ride back to Hotel Simpson was uneventful where the concierge facilities came up trumps again with a printed route to SF airport. Bet’s and Bryan returned on time and were soon yawning at home in Tomales.

Summary:

In my opinion GoCars are an almost wonderful idea that nearly work. We did have fun but I have to say that stopping after 2½ hours was something of a relief. Would I do it again? No, but I am glad we’ve done it once. They are undoubtedly great fun once moving on the flat.

Our unit was quite clearly suffering from a woeful lack of maintenance after a hard season’s rental. Missing instructions due to a loose GPS is very nerve-wracking in a busy city. A map is provided but reading it in said busy city ain’t the easiest and that definitely ain’t what you’re paying for.

Carol has neck pain from constantly holding in Skippy to maintain instruction. Grabbing fistfuls of throttle to try and squeeze 11 mph out of a GoCar crawling uphill at 10 mph can also lead to a some wrist discomfort. The screaming engine can get quite tiring, too.

With several sections at 10 mph, the routes take considerably longer than one might think so avoid any pressing subsequent engagements and book enough time (not that they seem too concerned about return time, though your credit card might).

Gordon had very kindly volunteered his services as designated driver so we “guests of honour” could drink with gay abandon at the Walker reunion yesterday. We had arranged for them to stay over with us at Tomales to minimize their late night driving.

Once everyone had surfaced we popped into Tomales to raid the local bakery and buy a selection of items designed to demonstrate how inventive mankind can be with sugar and chocolate. These, accompanied by lashings of coffee, constituted breakfast.

Gordon, Kim and Carol amused themselves wandering around the property armed with a camera before we went back to Lorraine and Fred’s house to collect our abandoned car. More profuse thanks for an excellent party very smoothly organized.

We had plans of driving down the twisting, winding coast road to Muir Beach before eating at the Pelican Inn. This would get Gordon and Kim half way home and we could then return, probably via the non-twisting, non-winding US 101. Muir Beach was, well, a beach with people doing beachy things. (Your author doesn’t really do beaches.) One idiot had a wet suit and surf board and dove into the surf. More surprisingly, two horses in the company of riders turned up to watch. Let’s be careful where we step on the way back.

The Pelican Inn was absolutely heaving with humanity. Shelling out $25 a head for a buffet in crowded conditions didn’t appeal so we drove back north on the twisting, winding coast road to Stinson Beach and found a much more pleasant grill. All four of us seemed to be gagging for a hamburger and they proved to be an excellent choice.

Now we weren’t near US 101 so we hit the remainder of the twisting, turning coast road back north while Gordon and Kim chose between the twisting, turning coast road south and the twisting, turning climb over Mount Tamalpais.

It is the last weekend of our trip; we fly back to the UK on Wednesday. Lorraine and Fred Webster and Kathy and Steve Delman had been planning a Walker reunion party. Kick-off was at 5:00 PM at Fred and Lorraine’s house in Petaluma and, when Carol and I arrived at about 3:30 PM, ostensibly to help, preparations were faultless and well advanced. Everything was well in-hand and all I was likely to do was get in the way.

I am sure everybody had a great time; I know I did. It was fabulous to see so many fondly remembered colleagues after so long. I’ll let a few pictures speak for themselves.

It is a testament to the four organizers that everything went so smoothly. It is a testament to the bonds that exist between Walker employees that, after 10 years or so, they get back together and the years dissolve.

Lorraine, Kathy, Fred and Steve: you did a magnificent job. I cannot express how honored/honoured and grateful we are for all your hard work. We are fortunate, indeed, to have so many good friends.

What a send-off!

The weather forecasters were “calling for” (as they say in Amerispeak) rain with some windy conditions on Friday and Saturday. We awoke to gloomy, though still dry conditions and it wasn’t too long before we joined in the gloominess ourselves.

Being a weekday, albeit a Friday, I thought we might drive over to Napa Valley with ideas of its being a little quieter, perhaps for some lunch in St. Helena. Rather than the twisting and turning over the hills into the valley, we chose a more main roads route and softly-spoken Sue got us to downtown Napa itself where we stopped for a couple of espressos, largely to avail ourselves of their restroom. Napa was OK but unscintillating so we returned to the car to head up to St. Helena.

I suppose that the Napa Valley might be considered a natural habitat for a bottleneck. St. Helena is at least a bottleneck and may actually be a cork. Heading north into St. Helena, about two miles out, the traffic began a stop-start crawl. As we finally entered the town itself we spotted a parking lot with some spaces and swung over the southbound traffic stream only to discover that the car park was for “customers only” of something or other. There had to be a catch somewhere. Driving over the hills and dropping down into St. Helena missed all these traffic flow problems; that is clearly the better way to do it.

Time was marching on (it was now approaching 2:00PM) and we were unwilling to fight our way back into the slow-moving traffic to crawl deeper into St. Helena in search of another parking space so we went south and returned to good ol’ V. Sattui winery and its deli for another picnic, this time a chicken pesto sandwich with roasted vegetables but without the sunshine accompaniment.

Lunch over, we thought we’d try a tasting at Grgich Hills which we had spotted on our way up from Napa. Grgich Hills supposedly made president Ronnie Reagan’s favourite chardonnay, I had been told many years ago. The traffic heading north was still a nose to tail crawl as we headed south and into Grgich Hills. There was space for the car in the car park but there didn’t seem to be any space for us at the tasting counters which were crawling with pretty people.

We went down a little further to Rutherford Winery, a Robert Mondavi establishment, which looked bigger but where there were even more pretty people’s cars. We were met by a host who explained that there were two tasting rooms, one offering a tasting of “a flight” of three wines for $15 and the reserve room offering individual tastings at, if I understood correctly, $5 a glass. Hmm – and the difference is …? I didn’t ask. We had a nose around the gift shop where I overheard some pretentious prattle about Robert Mondavi having single-handedly changed America’s approach to sauvignon blanc, or some such. Then we left the pretty people to their fun and games.

We returned over Oakville Grade pausing for a wander around the square in Sonoma in an attempt to refresh our flagging spirits a little. The “called for” rain responded to the call and began. We headed back home via Whole Foods to pick up some of their crab cakes and salad before murdering two bottles of white without a single pretentious pretty person in sight. Personally, I only needed the wine.

It is quite incredible what has happened to the Napa Valley since I was travelling to San Francisco on a regular basis working. We used to drive out there at weekends and find plenty of space to spare both on the roads and in the tasting rooms. Now you can’t move on a weekday.

FF to tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Napa Valley,St Helena

Normal service was resumed this morning as we awoke to fog. Yesterday, Keith had been a little skeptical since, weather-wise at least, their first morning here had been clear. The skeptical one’s head, on the other hand, had been far from clear. This morning it was agreed that Tomales did, indeed, have fog. The skeptical one’s head was also, this morning, declared to be 98% fit as a result of a little more restraint having been wisely exercised yesterday evening; wise because today was departure day for Keith and Marlene who were beginning their trek back east.

The first take-off slot was missed when there seemed to be a slight delay in the cockpit checks and programming of the flight guidance system. Maybe the 2% fit that was missing was a critical 2%. Nonetheless, eventually the guidance system was successfully programmed and happy, the Tomales-Petaluma road is far from busy and our friends were soon taxiing out and on their way. It had been great to have their company for a couple of nights but now we were back to amusing ourselves.

Amusement today was hard to come by. Firstly, instead of the fog clearing to sun by late morning, rain had begun during departure operations and was attempting to wash the fog away. Secondly, Carol had ordered a package that was supposedly to be delivered by UPS today and was not keen on its arriving and being left out in the damp, so we stayed in until it arrived.

We were eventually released at about 4:00 PM and the highlight that saved the day was destined to be dinner in a Puerto Rican restaurant down in San Rafael with Steve and Kathy Delman and Fred and Lorraine Webster. We dawdled our way down to dinner via Petaluma calling in at an unexciting marina and, from this writer’s point of view, at least, an even more unexciting bead shop.

The restaurant, Sol Food, was a very different experience, not so much because of the food but rather because of the way the restaurant was organized. Firstly, upon entry we were presented with a menu and asked to place our order before going to sit down. Secondly, this was a dry restaurant in that no alcohol was available (though the substitute freshly made limeade, served in a large jam jar, was excellent). Thirdly, many of the tables were large refectory-style tables shared with other diners (we haven’t seen that since a trip to Heidelberg many years ago).

Plate loads of food were soon delivered to our communal table and, other than the salad dressing being a little salty, the food was very good. From what I could make out, the definition of Puerto Rican cuisine is “contains plantains”, which seemed to be prepared in two varieties, garlic and sweet.

After dinner we sauntered around downtown San Rafael, both to assist digestion and to get ice creams as dessert for those who still had room. The main street was cordoned off and a street market was still bustling together with some of the now expected street musicians. The street market did, of course, delay our ladies who seemed in no rush to make it to the ice cream parlour. Personally, being full of Puerto Rican plantains, I skipped the ice cream and could manage only a double espresso.

Well fed, we eventually returned to a once again foggy Tomales where I would be needing a dose or two of caffeine antidote before retiring.

Following the reunion excesses of yesterday evening, at least one member of our party wasn’t feeling quite a hundred percent when morning came knocking. Unfortunately, Bets’s cleaner was also due to come knocking at about 8:30 AM so slacking was not an option. Getting out of bed and donning some clothes was necessary. Aren’t vacuum cleaners loud after a night on the sauce?

Other than moving around the house to make way for cleaning efforts, Keith drove me into Tomales, mainly to pick up the mail but also to see just how small it really is.

Keith and Marlene have a new car, a Buick Lucerne. It may not be battery powered and, being a chunky V8, it may not seem to care greatly about burning a reasonable amount of fossil fuel, but, like the Camry hybrid, it does has a disturbing amount of technology. Naturally there is a satellite navigation system. Most people couldn’t find their own backside without one, these days. Not only does it have heated seats (which I personally don’t particularly like them ‘cos they make you feel as if you’ve wet yourself) but this car’s seats are also air-conditioned. Once again, I’d like to live in a country that feels that car seats need to be cooled. It comes with General Motor’s Onstar roadside assistance system which seems to give one-touch warm body assistance whenever required; a sort of personalised, private AA or RAC. If you are unlucky enough to be involved in an accident, Onstar knows and, knowing your GPS coordinates, dispatches the emergency services. This seems like grand use of technology.

The car has a trick I’ve never seen anywhere else: while the car is locked, you can start it remotely. Now there’s useful. Apparently the car will sit there burbling happily to itself, as V8s tend to do, and, depending upon temperature, will fire up the air-conditioning or heating, together with seat temperature adjustment to make things comfortable for you. Once having started it, however, you cannot remotely stop it. It is necessary to open the car, get in and use the key that you didn’t use to start it to turn it off. Weird! Why can’t I turn it off remotely, too?

We didn’t remotely fire up the new Buick but left it to rest after its arduous cross-country journey. Instead we took the hybrid Camry for a relaxing trip down Tomales Bay to let Keith and Marlene visit Point Reyes Station. We had a reviving lunch in an open-air cafe after which, the member of our party that did not feel on top form early in the morning, felt much better.

I must say, Keith and Marlene’s car is very impressively clean for one that has just been driven from Virginia to California. I wonder if the car cleans itself, too. We have self-cleaning ovens; self-cleaning cars would be a real bonus.

Today we were making final preparations for having some visitors. Keith and Marlene Stillman had embarked on another of their road trips touring parts of the United States by car. This time their route had taken them from their home in Virginia, across the more southerly states, through a few desserts and now they were just a relatively short distance from us at Yosemite Valley. They planned to join us in Tomales later in the afternoon and Bets had graciously said they could stay here with us.

What a wonderful plan: we’ll fly 5000 miles to California, you drive 3500 miles to California, and we can meet up for a party. Excellent! Life was made for such things.

Carol set about doing some laundry to change the bed linen so that Keith and Marlene could stay in the downstairs bedroom. We would move up the creaking spiral staircase into the roof space where there are four single beds resembling ship’s berths. They are full size beds but Keith’s a big guy and we fit better. Then it was off to good ol’ Whole Foods to invest part of our lifetime savings in some good-looking chunks of beef to feed the weary travellers.

1:30 PM. After our sunny lunch on the deck we had a phone call from our fellow party animals. They had left Yosemite and were expecting to arrive in our neck of the woods by about 4:00 PM. Great, we’ll have things ready.

3:15 PM. We had a second phone call saying that their car was having trouble. Unfortunately their route was taking them across the southern parts of the Napa Valley wine area and their car kept insisting on pulling off the road into wineries to sample the wares. “We may have some wine with us.” Perfectly understandable and good news.

4:30 PM. A strange but very clean and swish looking car pulled into our driveway. Keith and Marlene had found us. Let hugs and the reunion commence.

4:35 PM. First bottle of refreshment opened. Travellers’ stories commence.

8:00 PM. Weber fired up to the accompaniment of fourth bottle of refreshment.

9:00 PM. Steaks seared and consumed to accompaniment of fifth bottle of refreshment.

10:00 PM. Slightly slurred stories to the accompaniment of a half bottle of port.

12:00 PM. Festivities draw to a close and party animals retire.