Thursday, 13 September

We start the day out by  going back to Napa to visit a winery recommended by David. Emily and David have a couple of acres of grapes. They don't work with them; rather this winery takes care of the vines in return for the grapes. They then blend some of the grapes in one of their wines. So we went to see the winery and perhaps buy a bottle of the blended wine. As it turns out, the blended wine is aged in oak barrels, to which Jean's daughter Amanda is allergic. We did buy a bottle of Reisling, which is not aged in oak. It just doesn't have any of Emily and David's grapes in it.

We have a pleasant time at the winery, talking with a person in the tasting room about all manner of things wine. It seems most of the wineries in the valley are not people who have been in the business for generations. In fact, in the early part of the last century Napa Valley was cattle country. My how things have changed.

The one other thing the man told us was how to get to the post office. Jean needed to send out something that should go out today. We followed his directions and got to a shopping center where we also stopped for some lunch. There was an upscale cafe there where we got an expensive meal. Jean's sandwich was good, but Gene was not so lucky. The problems of food on the road in strange places.

We went back to Berkeley. Bruce had a doctor's appointment, so until it was time to meet him we went down to Berkeley Marina and took a walk beside the Bay. 














It was quite warm in Napa, it was downright cold by the Bay. Also very windy. We spotted a man who was kite-surfing, except he was on land using a skateboard. It seemed to work pretty well.












We took YumYum for a walk by the Bay. He didn't seem impressed.











Then we caught up with Bruce and drove in to El Cerrito to a movie house where we had a bad Hawaiian pizza (not too lucky with food today) and watched The Manchurian Candidate. None of us had seen it before and really didn't know what to expect. It was good, almost made up for the bad (and expensive) food. Then back to our little spot in Vallejo.