on august 1st, i took the day off to spend with my good friend from college, mien. she now lives in chicago and was out in sacramento taking the california bar. i went to chicago back in april of 2006 to visit her. oh, the adventures we had together. i started off the day driving to palo alto to pick up mien's friend justin. then we headed off to emeryville to pick up mien at the amtrak train station coming from sacramento. sonoma was our next stop. it was an hour from emeryville minus any traffic. we had brunch and then were on our way. justin fell asleep in the back while mien and i caught up in front. traffic was pretty bad. our first stop was the ledson castle/winery (see picture). this castle stands out from the sonoma highway. before i knew that was the place, i thought, wow, let's go there!
mien & i did some wine tasting while justin (he doesn't drink) shopped around for some food. we made ourself a picnic out in the back. it was gorgeous out there. really spacious and so calming under these great trees. i'd only had 3 hours of sleep and it was the perfect setting after such a long drive. we took our time eating bread with cheese, fig jam and some parmesan dip. we had time for one more winery. so we headed over to the gundlach-bundschu winery about 20 minutes away. it was a long drive for a very short visit. we got there around 4p and they closed at 4:30p so we skipped the wine tasting and enjoyed a view overlooking vineyards as far as i can see and a dried up lake. it was a nice break but too hot to be relaxing.
next stop was san francisco during prime commute time. we went through sonoma, napa, vallejo and fairfield. it was supposed to be an hour but traffic was stop and go. we went around berkeley to oakland and finally to san francisco. it was the longest day ever and i couldn't wait to get to the hotel to nap. mien slept in the back on the way from sonoma. justin fell asleep in the front. but as tired as i was by the time we got to the room, i just couldn't fall asleep. especially with two people trying to sneak around me and eat snacks. they tried staying out in the hallway and eat but other hotel guests kept walking out and looking at them strangely.
it was an hour before we had to go for dinner. and after a nice hot shower, i was refreshed and renewed. for the night anyway. after dinner, i crashed like i hadn't slept in days. wait, i really hadn't slept in days. good times, good times.
