SF to Seattle Trip Report (installment plan)

[Clarkmeister]

After much research, input from the 2+2 forum and coordination with friends, the final itinerary shook out as follows (consider this the up-front cliff’s notes):

Day 1 – Arrive in San Jose, hook up with Sucker.
Day 2 – Passport Day for Santa Cruz Mountain wineries with Sucker, Boris, Diablo and friends.
Day 3 – SF touristy spots, Alcatraz, dinner with Tommy, drinks with Diablo.
Day 4 – Brief Napa stop, spa in Calistoga, CA.
Day 5 – Lake Shasta, Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR.
Day 6 – Arrive in Will-AM-ette Valley, have nice dinner, relax and read.
Day 7 – Hot air balloon ride, tour of Willamette Valley wineries.
Day 8 – One last winery stop, dinner in Seattle, night in Anacortes, WA with friend.
Day 9 – Friend gives us a tour of the naval base and Deception Pass state park.
Day 10 – Pike Street Market, fly home from Sea-Tac.

I’m going to keep this as a general trip report, and add in wine detail in a separate thread.

Day 1

So it was with great excitement that Clarkmistress and I hopped on a plane to San Jose.



One of the smarter things I did on the trip was change my car reservation. I use Hertz and like renting Camry’s because they are pretty cheap at usually $45/day or so. But they didn’t have their NeverLost navigation available in a Camry. So I thought it through and changed to a Taurus to get the nav. Good choice. My only comment is that their nav system is decidedly below-average when dealing with efficient on-off of highways and especially bad in downtown areas. That, and my Taurus had a nasty ding on the front left fender. Bah.

Of note is our shuttle bus driver was basically insane. Slammed the door shut on someone, drove super fast, loved to slam on the breaks, and if your stop came up, you best get the eff off the buss if you didn't want to make another lap around the facility.

We arrived at the Sucker’s place around 10:30 without mishap. Sucker’s friend The Count was there with his fiancée. Sucker cracked open a few bottles of Testarossa and we had a had a nice relaxing evening of wine and conversation.

Day 2

The next morning went pretty smoothly. A little breakfast at a cute little place called the Coupa Café. Good stuff.



The plan from there was for Boris to pick us up in a rented van along with about 15 others. Predictably with a group that large, things were running a few minutes late, but things more or less went off without a hitch.

I’ll leave a lot of the winery detail for the wine thread, but we hit the following wineries:

Testarossa
Burrell School
Byington
Savannah-Chanelle
Fellom Ranch
Naumann
Ridge

Hitting 7 wineries out of like 30 looks good until one considers how we accomplished it. Our slightly inefficient path looked something like this:




But, given that Boris was able to score us such an easy to spot vehicle (there are surpsingly few fire engine red passenger vans around), as well as sacrificed his time to drive, it seems a small price to pay. Maybe a larger price than an actual limo driver, but still a small price.

Just a quick comment on the wineries. I wasn’t sure what everyone meant by “that place is too corporate” when talking about the wineries. After Passport Day, I know. Ridge was very disappointing and sterile. Limited tastings, not particularly friendly. The other wineries were all much more warm and welcoming, especially considering that Passport Day brings in more than the normal % of recreational customers. The Winery of the Day was Boris’ selection of Byington.



Lots of selections available, good cheese and fruit spread, and several pretty good Cabs. Their Select cab was really quite nice and not absurdly priced (for Cali cab) at about $50 IIRC. They also had some nice glasses that were worth taking home as a souvenier. Assuming that someone *cough* Diablo *cough* didn't break them in the van later on.

After 5:00 rolled around and we couldn’t stay there anymore, the group went back near Sucker’s place for some dinner at the sportsbar down the street. Some Gordon Biersch really hit the spot. Two Diablo related events. First, on the advice of Haake who had some insider information, Diablo ordered the prime tip sandwhich “off the menu”. When two of them came, Diablo was confused until I pointed out that I ordered the same thing. I explained that it looked tasty based on the description in the menu. Second, Diablo and I had a prop bet on the authenticity of our waitress’s breasts, but it fell apart and as a result we never actually found out if they were real or not. Regardless, there’s little doubt they were impressive. Diablo et al had to catch a train back to S.F. and after a day and night of drinking, Clarkmistress, Sucker and I headed back to his pad and basically crashed while half watching the Rockets-Jazz game.

Day 3 - Day 10 as well as a separate winery report to come in future installments.

[nolanfan34]

Quality report so far.

Which side of the waitress bet did you each have?

Looking forward to the rest of the reports, particularly the pics on the drive.

[Clarkmeister]

There will def be more pictures later on. The prob for Day 1 and Day 2 is most photos had pictures of 2+2ers in them, so it cut down the number of available shots dramatically.

[Clarkmeister]

Day 3

Early bed in this case meant early rise. Which worked well since we wanted to spend some time knocking around San Francisco prior to our 12:45 Alcatraz cruise. In what would be a phenomenal trend, we had no hangover from our Passport Day exploits. We had breakfast at a greasy spoon recommended by Haakee called Penninsula a few blocks from Suckers place in the heart of Palo Alto. Tasty stuff.



After breakfast it was with sadness that we said goodbye to the very hospitable Sucker and his sweet pad and went on our way.

As opposed to Day 2, where the weather was good but we had some spotty showers, Day 3 was essentially perfect. Sunny, 60 and a nice little breeze. We arrived at Hotel Vitale around 11am. Our room was really nice and had a phenomenal view of the Bay Bridge. Here was where I really started to apprciate finally buying a digital camera prior to the trip starting (Canon SD800 IS).





We then took a little walk to the Ferry Building across the street. They had lots of neat boutique shops. We also scouted out the dinner menu at The Slanted Door, which is where we were to meet Tommy and his wife for dinner at 5:45. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend as much time as we would have liked here, as there were several really neat shops to spend time in.

After a little rest in the room, we walked down to Pier 33 where the Alcatraz boat departed. The view from the boat was beautiful in all directions. The City behind, the Bay Bridge to the other side, the Golden Gate Bridge just to the front left and Alcatraz sitting dead ahead.






The tour was really neat. They basically give you free run of the island with several seminars and a radio tour of the actual penitentiary. We really really enjoyed it. There’s all sorts of cool shortcuts and little tunnels around too. I’m reminded of the penitentiary in Jean, NV just outside of the casinos. The only thing close to being in Jail and looking at a casino every day has got to be looking over the bay to San Francisco every day.



We then hopped on one of those bike taxis and went to Pier 39 just to knock around for a bit and grab a quick bite to tide us over til dinner. Insert obligatory sea lion photo.



So a cab ride back to the hotel, a nap and a shower had us ready for dinner with Tommy and his wife. We absolutely love them both and really enjoy when we are able to spend time together. Dinner was great, especially the shaking beef. We ordered some Ponzi Pinot Noir and loved it, an opinion that would be validated later on in the trip. Also of note, their special ice creams of the day included a mint ice cream that was disgustingly good, and I’m no fan of mint ice cream. Thanks Tommy for a great time.

Feeling good after dinner with plenty of wine down the hatch, Clarkmistress and I headed back to the hotel to meet The Diablo for a few cocktails. The missus simply loves him and we really had a good time. The only awkward thing is that Diablo and I were sharing a barstool bench at the bar and I had a heck of a time getting comfortable. Of note was a particularly good Diablo anecdote regarding the wine party they went to after the wine tasting on Day 2. Cliffs notes: they pick an obscure cheap wine so as to not look like they were bringing in Beringer, but the plan works too well when another friend picks that exact bottle for them to drink citing "it was the only one I’d never heard of so I figured it couldn’t be that bad relative to the other swill that was available".

Dinner and drinks down the hatch, we called it a night and prepared to leave the San Francisco and start heading north.

[john voight]

Looks like you lucked out and came here on a nice clear day.

I was the one who first suggested arriving @ SJ. ty ty

You have any pictures of downtown, or Lombard street, or anything else in SF before you move on to the next section of your TR?

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
Looks like you lucked out and came here on a nice clear day.

I was the one who first suggested arriving @ SJ. ty ty

You have any pictures of downtown, or Lombard street, or anything else in SF before you move on to the next section of your TR?

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's what I've got that turned out decent enough to bother posting.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
Quality report so far.

Which side of the waitress bet did you each have?

Looking forward to the rest of the reports, particularly the pics on the drive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had the "real" side of the bet.

In a nutshell, Sucker made the line +600 on fake, I wanted some of that. Diablo made it +1000 on real, and I wanted some of that, too. Nothing ended up going down, however. FWIW, I figured the true line for real was about +250.

[ThaSaltCracka]

Clark, those are some nice pics. SF reminds me a lot of Seattle with better weather.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
Clark, those are some nice pics. SF reminds me a lot of Seattle with better weather.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seattle seemed more like Oakland in the back bay with all the shipyards than SF. SF to me is more cosmopolitan and touristy while in Seattle its like there's actually work and stuff going on. But that's from a guy who has now been to SF twice and Seattle once, so obviously my opinion is a little suspect.

[offTopic]

Peninsula Creamery...sweet. Never actually been to the one downtown, but my wife and I have gone to the one in Stanford Shopping Center several times. Love their breakfasts...