Mark & Connie's San Francisco Vacation 2012

Day 5 - October 14, Sausalito and Wine Country

We left the hotel about 8AM and crossed the Golden Gate to Sausalito. The view from the bridge was very different from the day before. It was a view of fog. When we stopped at Fort Baker, we could clearly hear the horns for the bridge (I could hear it overnight from our hotel room).

In Sausalito there wasn't much happening being a Sunday AM at 8:30. A few joggers on the walks and bikers riding through. We drove through town and headed. North.

The next stop was the Luther Burbank home and gardens in Santa Rosa. Lovely gardens, but I wasn't impressed with Luther as many people were in his day.

Next we headed on up the road through the Sonoma valley to Asti, CA. I was very impressed with the variety of trees and landscapes in the Sonoma Valley. There were places where you would drive through a cedar (I suppose California Redwood) lined section of road and you could smell the trees. And of course vineyards are all around.

Once we were to the upper reaches of the Sonoma Valley we headed over to Calistoga where we toured the Sharpsteen Museum of Calistoga History. Mr. Sharpsteen was an artist who worked for Walt Disney from the early years, and in his later life built this museum. It housed a nice collection artifacts on local history and a few other extraneous displays. We enjoyed the little museum very much, and were happy to make a donation as we exited.

Back on the road we headed down through the Napa valley. The flora is amazing here as well. The wineries seem larger and more elaborate than in the Sonoma Valley, and the road is line with them. Literally one after the other.

We visited Berringer winery. It caught our eye as we dove by. They have a large parking lot that was nearly full and a large ornate mansion in front. They wanted $30 per person for a 30 minute tour of the winery. The tour included two wine samples. Or you could get the two wine samples without the tour for $25. Fortunately my pallet is not cultured enough to have any desire to pay $25 for two samples of wine so we walked through the mansion-turned-gift-shop and then left.

Next we went to the Greystone Culinary Academy just down the road. We checked out the menu and decided it was too highfalutin for us so we walked through the gift shop and again headed down the road.

By this time we were getting fairly hungry. We still had not had a really nice Italian dinner so after checking the AAA guide book we decided on Don Giovani's in Napa. It was good, but we both really would have liked to have a good plate of spaghetti and they didn't have it (an Italian restaurant without spaghetti?!) The meal wasn't bad. The Anchor Steam beer was very good.

We left satiated and headed for the West side of the bay with our next intended destination, Oakland and Berkeley.

As we came down I680 and were about to cross Suisin Bay, we could see a naval ship out in the bay. Then we saw a sign for a "Scenic Overlook" and took the exit. We followed the signs for several miles around winding narrow roads and finally wound up on a hill that was adjacent to the expressway but overlooked Suisin Bay. There we could see a mothballed fleet as well as several oil refineries with ship unloading docks in the bay. It was an impressive sight.

Then back in the car and down I680 and around up into Oakland and the Berkeley. We drove around in Berkeley a little bit visiting the campus and then headed to the bay. At the bay we examined the marina and OCSC Sailing School.

Then we jumped on I80 West and went across SF Bay and back to hotel.