Day 22 - Monday 8/19/13 San Francisco, CA (0 Miles)

Lunch at Des Amis

Dropped the Mini off at the dealer for servicing this morning and walked over to the wharfs.  On the way, we passed Des Amis, one of the neatest bistros I've seen outside of Paris.  So, we couldn't resist enjoying lunch there:

• Butter lettuce salad w/dijon tarragon vinaigrette
• Moules Marinieres
• Frites with homemade mayo & katsup
• Brie omelette with fine herbs
• A Pichet of rose

We explored the waterfront between piers 39 and 47 including Ghiradelli Square where we may have had some ice cream.  We stumbled upon the Musee Mecanique, which housed hundreds of historic coin operated arcade machines.  This was an incredible collection of treasures that visitors could still use.  I stuck a quarter in the fortune tellers machine and she said that November was my lucky month and that if I'm starting a new venture that I should do it in November...AND that I have a fine taste in clothes!!!  (ha ha ha ha ha)

Because the Italians really held the market on seafood (both fishing for it, cooking it and selling it), we had to try Cioppino before leaving the city.  So, we tried the classic wharf-side 1950's throw back, Scoma's.  Rick ordered the Cioppina and was served a bucket of the stuff, enough that could have fed a family of four.  He happily trudged through half of it though with a little help from some sourdough bread. De-Lish!

Bellies full and bodies tired, we caught a trolly car for the first half of our hilly journey back to the inn.  What a great day!

Musee Mecanique
"Execution Machine"

Rick watching images from the 1915 World's Fair

Rick's bucket of Cioppino

Day 21 - Sunday 8/18/13 Yosemite - San Francisco, CA (187 Miles)

I'll have 3 Taco dinners  and an apple please....

Because our campground neighbors decided to invite 9 more friends (with kids) to join their site of four, we decided to break camp at the crack of dawn and head out early to San Francisco.  Our trip out the west side of the park was so smokey from a forest fire burning nearby that it was difficult to see the surrounding mountains.  Breakfast as a locals-only place in Groveland, CA was followed by a stroll down Main Street and into the town's two historic hotels.

Laundry duty in Oakdale brought a curious site.  Check out the picture of the family on horseback going through the burger joint drive thru.  Made it to Frisco with 3 days of camping dirt on everything including us.

Our fantastic room at Jackson Court,
San Francisco, CA

We checked into the Jackson Court, a B&B and time share in an historic brownstone, and proceeded to empty the car...completely.  The staff there must have thought we were nuts carrying our huge Rubbermaid totes, tent, camp chairs & dozens of small parcels up to our third floor room.  What a great location though, right atop a hill in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, within walking distance of the wharfs, parks, cable cars & light rail.

Their light rail system still includes the neatest electric buses from the 40s.


Parking starts at $31/day in the city, and the Inn did not have any.  So, we thought we were pretty clever to schedule our 10,000 Mini service appointment for our time in S.F.  So, while we were waiting in their showroom, we had to browse the merchandize.....

Old Bay Bridge into the city

Dinner at Baker & Banker restaurant was nice, but we really went there because the building was an old apothecary.  Their smoked trout on latke with shaved fennel, pickled beets and beet juice reduction was sublime!  As it turns out, Mini Coopers are VERY popular in the city.  On our 8 block walk to dinner we saw19, 20 counting ours.

Light rail "busses" at Fisherman's Wharf

Shopping, Julie style

More light rail

A Mini Solution

Day 20 - Saturday 8/17/13 Yosemite-Oakhurst-Mariposa-Yosemite, CA (157 miles)

Pioneer Yosemite History Center
A home moved from elsewhere in the park.

Because of the high traffic that builds throughout the day, we opted for an early morning adventure that began at the "Pioneer Yosemite History Center" where in the 1950s, the park service moved about a dozen buildings, that were scattered across the park, down to the southern end.  How they accomplished that feat is a mystery to us given the wild terrain, windy & narrow steep roads and frail structures, but they did.  The entire park service has 1, ONE stagecoach driver employed (named Buckeye) and he's here in Yosemite at the center, driving the coach.  It's quite cool to see and he's a character.

After that, we walked over to one of the two historic hotels in the park, Hotel Wawona.  Just roll back the hands of time if you ever visit here; it's that cool!

Buckeye & his team.

Temperatures built, gaining speed as the dial approached the 100's again today while we ventured down out of the south side of the park on Rt. 41 (weavey windy fun) through the Sierra National Forest and on to some small former mining towns. We took the local's advice and visited many places including the State of California Mining and Mineral Museum at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds.  For any rock hounds out there, it was a very interesting visit.

We ventured up the west side of the park, following the Merced River along Rt. 140.  On the opposite side of the river, you could see the abandoned RR bed, as it curved along for miles. Several areas of the former RR track had succumbed to mud slides and slump into the river.  We were very surprised when the road took an official detour over the river on a temporary bridge to the old RR bed.  Well!..come to realize our the road, our road, had been totally obliterated by a huge landslide sometime recently.  Good thing we delayed our trip by a few weeks - who knows what may have happened!

Historic Wawona Hotel

We made it back to the road side of the river by the time we re-entered the park.  Following that river upstream into Yosemite Valley was magnificent.  The beauty of the rock formations and cliffs will take your breath away.  We saw Half Dome and El Capitan, fox, coyote, and a deer with her fawn.

The abandoned RR bed.

While in the valley, we stopped for a beverage ($23 for 1 beer and 1 margarita) at the historic Yosemite hotel, Ahwahnee.  We didn't enjoy the price, but we did enjoy strolling through the hotel's grand public spaces.  This, we're told, was the first grand national park hotel, and the one which all others were modeled after.

The temporary bridge over to the abandoned RR bed,
 detouring traffic around the landslide.

The Landslide over our road.
You can see the road (above the date stamp)

Southern entrance into Yosemite

Ahwahnee Hotel grand hall

Ahwahnee Hotel grand hall

Ahwahnee Hotel
A reading room

Ahwahnee's Grand Dining Room

Yosemite Valley

Dramatic Yosemite Valley Scenery

El Capitan,
A mecca for climbers worldwide.

Day 19 - Friday 8/16/13 Yosemite, CA (100 miles)

Ancient, Giant Sequoia

Up early for Rick's infamous Spam Scrabble breakfast of Turkey Spam (from our stop at the Spam Museum), fried potatoes and onions.  Don't knock it until you you've tried it.  That plus French press coffee and we were ready to embark on our daily adventure.  Today, we explored the ancient (thousands of years old!) Giant Sequoias in the Tuolumne Grove.  These trees have survived so many threats over their lives; it's amazing that they've lived so long.

"Fallen Giant" Sequoia

After our 2 mile uphill trek with out-of-shape legs & lungs out of the grove, we took off in the Mini for the Tioga Pass, the highest place in the park at 9,945' elevation.  We saw more Mule Deer here as well as the glacial till and morays left by the, again ancient, 2,000' deep glacier that was once here and that carved out so much of what is seen in the park today.  Simply striking landscape!!!

Path to Tuolumne Grove of Sequoias

Augured out pass through

Tioga Road

Yosemite View

Glacial till atop smoothed rock

Glacial moray

Day 18 - Thursday 8/15/13 Napa, CA - Yosemite, CA (195 miles)

Nut (walnut?) Groves

After a quick inn breakfast and stop at the local shipping office to send some vino east, we picked up some groceries for the camp site and headed back to the eastern part of the state and Yosemite National Park.  The countryside was pretty flat for most of the way and we were surprised by how many olive & nut groves there were.

Nearing the park, we passed through Copperopolis (just saying it is fun - come on, say it out loud...) and encountered road signs saying we should turn off the A/C for the next 8 miles.  We were reluctant given that the temp was 104 degrees, but did as we were instructed...wisely.  The ascent up Rt. 120 along what's called the Golden Chain Highway was a driver's dream with dozens of switchbacks and narrow lanes, and well worth the trip once we entered Stanislaus National Forest, which borders Yosemite.  You know the Smokey The Bear signs that tell you what level of fire danger exists?  Well, on this day, the sign read "EXTREME FIRE DANGER", likely because of the weeks of these high temps, and, oh the fact that there were several big fires burning nearby already.

The Goden Chain Highway (Rt. 120)

The 7,000 ft elevation increase we experienced from between Copperopolis (come on, say it out loud!) and our campsite was dramatic; even the temp dropped 30 degrees.  We set-up camp at Crane Flat Campground in the park after camp security had to remove a tent that had been set up on our tent pad.  Turns out, they didn't think their site was big enough, so they took over ours!

Golden Chain Highway from one of the pullouts

Camp with the bear box.

Cooked our beanie wienies and fresh sweet corn dinner over the fire and enjoyed that with our last bottle of wine from home before settling in for the night.  Short night's sleep when the big creature came through in the middle of the night.  May have been bear since EVERY camp site has a 4'x4'x2' metal bear proof box where we're told EVER food item must be placed.  They mean it too.  You can't have anything in your car/tent/site, including sunscreen (coconut), toothpaste (mint), food & trash (of course), as well as a myriad of other items.  Given the late night wildlife visit sleep came easily.

Day 17 - Wednesday 8/14/13 Napa - Sonoma - Napa (85 miles)

RSV caves

Getting a taste of the "angel's share"

Another glorious weather day (90's sunny, breezy) here in wine country began with our last trade tour at Robert Sinskey Vineyard (RSV).  Wow, what a great experience.  Our morning began again at 10:00.  With a generous pour of Riesling in hand, we set off for a private cave tour with our host and the assistant wine maker.  We were not only shown some behind-the-scenes areas, we were also given a barrel taste from the aging 2012 Merlot vintage (Tom, honestly, you would have loved it!).  They called it the angel's share, which really refers to the amount in each barrel that is lost to evaporation, but who were we to complain about a little extra loss that ended up in our glass?

RSV Library Room

RSV Kitchen - Yes, Rick is drooling.

This vineyard's focus is to make wines that pair well with food - dah!  They serve up marvelous home made creations by their on-site chef, from their tasting room kitchen to prove it.  They served chicken liver pate, apricot mustard, estate grown olives, roasted rosemary almonds, dilly beans, and a variety of local cheese.  Oh, ok, we'll have a bite.  Yep, they succeeded and now we're convinced that you can pair wine with food ;-)  though I was tempted to tell them that I needed some more convincing.  Seriously though, it was the nicest experience of the whole Napa trip.  Had we only toured this one vineyard, we could have stopped thereafter and been perfectly happy.

With half a day left, we decided to drive west over the hills to Sonoma where we stopped for lunch at the Fremont Diner at the recommendation of the vineyard's chef.  This was one cool roadside diner with some tractor stools at the counter, and a dozen picnic tables in a screened room adjacent to the ramshackle looking building.  Watched the owner prepping his beef for smoking while we grazed on a ham biscuit, black & white shake and grilled cheese sandwich.

After lunch we parked at the Sonoma square and browsed the myriad of shops there before heading home on the back roads.

Enjoyed some chili and a dog at Gott's Roadside "Eat" at the Napa Oxbow Public Market before doing a laundromat run then heading back to the inn for the night.

Back roads in Sonoma

Downtown Sonoma Square

 

Gott's Roadside