I left my heart in San Francisco

Well, not really... but we had a great time there. Tim and I left Maddie at our place with his parents and went to San Francisco for 4 nights. We were blessed with incredible weather. It was mostly in the mid 60s and even hit the 70s. It was hard getting on the plane to come home and hearing the pilot say the temperature in Chicago was 0 degrees. Yuck! But we were excited to get home and see Maddie.

We spent the first day in the Napa Valley area wine tasting. So beautiful! The first winery we went to was Robert Mondavi. We were the only ones that were there for the tour at 10:00 am so it was like our own private tour. The tour guide was from the Chicago area too. Small world. Anyway, the grapes were obviously not on the vines, but it was still gorgeous. It was interesting to learn about the wine making process as well as the tasting.





After Mondavi, we were on our way to Frog's Leap. This place was recommended by my friend Judy. Props to you girl! :o) They are a certified organic winery. It was neat to see how differently they did things and to hear about how they got started. We thought the wine wasn't as good as Mondavi or Sterling but it was nice to know that the grapes they used weren't sprayed with all kinds of pesticides. They bring in predator bugs instead to eat the other bugs that would normally destroy their grapes. Fascinating. They use solar panels to operate their entire site too and their office building, which is the beautiful house shown below, was made of "green" materials.





Then we were off to one more tasting at Sterling Vineyards. GORGEOUS! You take an air tram ride up this hill to their building and the view is amazing. The view alone was worth the price of admission. By the way, Sterling is the official wine of the Academy Awards. Anyway, it was so relaxing to sit back and take in the view while enjoying a nice glass of wine. Tim and I talked about how wonderful it would be to live in Napa, as if we would ever be able to afford to. :o) One can dream...





The next couple of days were spent in the city of San Francisco. They have a ginormous China Town and a huge Chinese population. It was strange seeing so many Asians everywhere. One of our tour guides said that 30% of the population is Asian. Anyway, we got some yummy freshly made fortune cookies at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. We also had dim sum at a place called Yank Sing, which was voted as the best dim sum in San Francisco. They were located outside of China Town though. It was a nice restaurant with really good food but WAY overpriced. By the time we had a little of this and a little of that, we got the check and almost passed out. It was $80! We didn't even eat that much! The sea bass, which was really good, was $15.50 for a tiny piece! Unbelievable.




We visited Alcatraz. It was interesting to see "The Rock", especially after watching so many movies about it. The tour was really good considering that it was self guided. But our biggest problem with the island and the boat ride there were the freaking seagulls. One flew over us and pooped on my sleeve. Actually, it pooped on Tim's fleece jacket that I was wearing. Gross! Thankfully, it didn't land on my head or face. Ewww! But I was able to take a few cool shots of them on the boat.




We, of course, saw the Golden Gate Bridge but we didn't drive over it or walk across it. We did get to take lots of photos of it though on our sightseeing tour.




We also got to see "The Painted Ladies" and the park that are shown in the beginning of Full House. I am ashamed to say that I used to love that show. :o) "The Painted Ladies" are what they call the row of Victorian homes shown below.



I could go on and on about all the other things we did and saw but I am tired of posting on this blog. :o)