Soft does not mean comfortable; I was up all night. This did however afford me hours of conversation with the owner of the B&B once I left the room. She was a nice enough gal. After a couple of hours, some of the other guests began to make their way downstairs and then breakfast was served. The food was good, and we had been paired-up with a couple from somewhere in North Yorkshire, England (though they had grown up and met in Newcastle). They were fascinating people to talk to. He was a paramedic on an oil rig off the coast of England, and she was a science teacher for what we would call 9th and 10th grades. We talked about the Olympics, the state of US and English schools, the French, football (soccer), and our two fancy cars (they had borrowed her brother’s BMW Z3. He lives in Reno). None of us wanted to leave the table! Eventually we had to though – they had an organized wine tour today, and we wanted to hit the wine trail ourselves. Upon exiting, the owner of the place asked us to come back soon. She said that having the Porsche parked right in front really classed-up the place.
At the B&B
Our first stop was to the Jacuzzi Winery; not that we wanted to drink wine at 10AM, but because there was a highly-rated olive oil place in the same building. We love fancy olive oils, and this place, The Olive Press, did not disappoint. Since we were there, I also did a wine tasting and found one wine that I absolutely adored, so I bought a bottle. The grounds of this winery were beautiful as well, so we lingered a while before heading back to Sonoma’s downtown.
Jacuzzi Winery
We found the free parking behind the Mission just fine and opted to simply keep the car there all day and walk everywhere. Our first stop was to the “Depot Museum,” a turn of the century train depot. It was closed on Tuesdays, so we walked around the perimeter then left. We took the bike path down to our next site: Vella Cheese. Of the three cheese shops in Sonoma, this was the highest rated. The last time we were here… about 25 years ago, we had ventured into the 3rd best cheese shop. I recalled that Barbara was really impressed with the cheese back then; me, less so. The Vella Cheese shop did not disappoint. The gal who gave us samples was wonderful. We were able to try as many cheeses as we would like. We fell in love with many but chose to buy three… later, on our way out. No sense in carrying cheese around all day or storing it in a hot car (even though we had the foresight to bring a cooler with ice). We told the gal we’d be back.
The bike path led us further out of the city center to the Sebastiani Winery. 25 years ago, we had taken their tour and loved it. We got there at 12:10. Tours were at 11, 1 & 3. We didn’t want to wait 50 minutes, so we simply shopped and hung out in their wine cellar, which was cool on this 90 degree day. I got both chocolate and oil samples on my shirt. The provided crackers had holes in them – perfect for dripping; not so much for dipping.
It took a while to get back to “civilization.” On the way, I called my service provider to get the messaging fixed on my phone, which had stopped working during our East Coast trip. Barb and Ray (currently vacationing with the Woos at Disney World), were having a rousing text conversation about whose daily activities were better and I wanted in on the conversation! (Since we had been at Disney World last month, they were also texting to ask me where the “cool” spots were, since it was over 100 degrees where they were. Yesterday, they were at Epcot looking for my recommended “Antarctica Pavilion,” which doesn’t exist. I told them that it was at the center of the lake. Today, they sought the cool and comfort of Pirates of the Caribbean.) Anyway, we reached civilization before AT&T was able to fix my phone, but the gal was a big help and she eventually succeeded.
Barb and I were now hungry, so we went to the place we couldn’t get in to last night: A Taste of the Himalayas. The food was great, though largely Indian. The one authentic Himalaya dish did not impress. Overall, I felt it was a good value for the money.
Since we were now near the Mission, and our car, we decided to stow our purchases then go see the Mission. This particular Mission, San Francisco Sonora, was the last of the 21 California missions to be built. I got the sense that the Spanish money must have been running out by this last mission because it was one of the smallest and least “grand” structures that we had seen (this makes 14 of the 21 missions that Barbara and I have seen – 7 to go!). Still, the mission was nice, and the barracks and slave quarters were larger and better preserved than other mission sites we had seen.
Mission San Francisco Sonora
Kitty corner to these two buildings was the impressive General Vallejo house. I think it was larger than the Mission! These days, the general’s house was a shopping center, so we shopped. As we strolled down the last shopping street, and past the other two cheese shops (we went into one), it was getting really hot outside. It was now 4PM. Our plan had been to shop until the Farmer’s Market opened up in the park/square at 5:30, then shop there and eat dinner there until it closed at 8PM. Now, we just wanted to call it a day and go home. We had one more stop to go: a music store that made hand-made guitars. When we got there, we read the sign on the door that said: “back in 15 minutes.” We just had to laugh. We had been thwarted so many times on this trip! We headed to the car and then drove to Vella Cheese. The gal there welcomed us back and we bought our cheese and a bottle of water for the trip home. We forgot to actually take our bottle of water, so the gal delivered it to us as we were pulling out of the parking lot. Talk about customer service!
The drive home went fine until we hit that predictable slow patch in Berkeley and Oakland. Maybe I should have gone through San Francisco instead! It took us one hour to go four miles. Stop & go traffic is murder in a Porsche with a stick-shift, especially when behind a Prius (as we were), which seemed entirely comfortable with going 2MPH or less most of the time. The Porsche begins to stall at anything below 5MPH unless you ride the clutch (and why would I want to do that?), yet this Prius basically forced me to do just that. When I was finally able, I got around her (and behind a big pickup with no break lights. Hmmm, which is worse?). My foot was so tired by the time we got to normal highway speeds just past the stadium. That Porsche clutch is extremely heavy! Finally, we got home; happy to be in our own house and in our own bed again.