Wine Country and Fog City

Wine Country and Fog City

On our way to Napa we made a pit stop at the Jelly Belly factory and took a tour which is a great stop if you do the drive from San Fran to Tahoe. It was cool to see how jelly beans are made, plus the samples are fantastic!

We got to Napa having just secured a place to stay late the night before arriving with our couchsurfing host – Daniel. We chose Napa a little bit on a whim so we had no idea what to do, where to go or how to get there and of course we had no phone service. We finally came across a visitors center where we basically need to find out how do we get the most wine for the least amount of cash? 🙂 We started off at Priest Ranch taste room for a few delicious wines and then we were on the search for a vineyard tour. Andretti’s was recommended to us by the info center so off we went. As we pulled up – so did a tour bus. Perfect, I thought at least they are still doing vineyard tours! We walked into the tasting room with the group and were handed a couple of glasses, assumed to be with the tour. Rob and I looked at exchanged a look that said ‘Are we really going to get in here for free because they think we are with this group?’ Low and behold… We did! Free wine and we got to explore the place a little. We scooted out early as to not draw attraction to ourselves and headed to our hosts house. Daniel is a chef in Napa and has an INSANE garden in his backyard with every veggie and spice you could ever want. Within moments of walking in, we felt welcomed and as new old friends. Daniel was nice enough to cook dinner for us and he wouldn’t even let us lift a finger to help. He finished cooking and laid out a feast for us. We hadn’t eaten food that good all trip. Man…even just writing about it, I am salivating. After dinner, he took us to a local spot that he likes to go to for drinks. They had XX beers on tap, mostly Cali native. We hung out, tried new brews, shared travel stories, it was an awesome time…so good that we shut the bar down. Typical style for Rob and I, but definitely something we haven’t done in a while. Now it was time for food. We picked up one of Daniel’s roommates and went on the search. No WaHo here so we went to In-and-Out Burger! Yum! This was not enough to satisfy our glutinous selves so we then went to Jack-in-the-Box for round two. From gourmet meal for dinner to double greasy fast food for late night snack….just awful, yet delish. We left in the morning for San Fran but we had an amazing time in Napa thanks to Daniel. He was a great host and hopefully our paths will cross again along our travels!

San Fran is a short drive from Napa so we got there and started walking around the city – checking all the major sites. Lombard Street, Ghirardelli Square, Fisherman’s Wharf – where we came across an arcade filled with some really old school games, we had a lot of fun playing around in there. Eventually walking got tiring we rented bikes and headed to China town where we did some shopping and eventually ate a very tasty sushi dinner. We were pretty beat from going non stop so we were happy to have a hotel bed and a somewhat chill day.

Our second day we decided to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge…. It was a few miles to get to the base which was pretty leisurely with a few sites along the way. Once we got to the bridge, we realized it was PACKED with people and the pathway was quite narrow so maneuvering across was a bit difficult but we made it there and back and rewarded ourselves with a steak dinner.

Our last day was Alcatraz. I had been looking forward to this tour since I had done it once before, I knew Rob would really enjoy it. We took the morning ferry over and took the audio tour around the prison. It is a really fascinating tour to do if you are ever in the San Fran area. They also have a surprisingly beautiful garden on the island as well…. make sure to leave time to check it out if you are ever there.

We finished up our days in SF with a trip to Little Italy for a tasty lunch and then headed to Yosemite.

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