Family and friends in Redding, Santa Rosa and Redwood City

REDDING, CA.

After our visit to the Redwoods, we cut across the mountains to the east and headed to Redding to visit Deane's cousin Ty Cobb and his wife Jeannie.

Ty and Jeannie Cobb

We had a great 2 day visit, but on the way, lost the  dash air conditioning in our RV.  Once parked, we found the air conditioning unit that cools the living area worked (thank goodness, because it was near 100 degrees).  Deane spent about 2 hours calling just about everyone in Redding to try and find someone who could work on it.

Amazingly, there was no one in the local Redding area that could/would do the work.  So he started calling around the  Santa Rosa area where we were headed next.  He finally found Altec in Petaluma that said they would be happy to take a look and work on it.

Sundial Bridge

Only having a day and half to visit Redding, we spent our one available day revisiting Redding's iconic Sundial Bridge before meeting Jeanie and Ty again for dinner.

SANTA ROSA
We arrived in the Santa Rosa area on Thursday September 11th and promptly drove to Altec where we had an appointment the next morning to diagnose our air conditioning problem.  We parked in their lot so we would be available at 8:00am the next morning.

Friday, left the RV in the hands of Altec and headed to Santa Rosa to pick up Deane's sister Karen who had made lunch reservations for us at Francis Ford Copala's winery.

But first stop was Karen's favorite winery "J".   Karen is a great sister-in-law, because she likes champagne as much (if not more) than me.    The tasting was a delightful  experience and because Karen is a member of their wine club, we were treated to tasting a flight of champagnes in the "Bubble Room".  An upscale modern establishment whose tasting room (for the champagne) consisted of comfortable sofas, chairs and coffee tables.

Bubble Room for tasting
champagne

Champagne flight

After making sure we had decided which of the 5 champagnes were the best, we headed off to lunch at Francis Ford Coppala's winery.

Karen and Deane at Coppola's

The Coppola Winery is a beautiful property with a public pool where you can reserve a cabana for a day and enjoy the lovely views, wine and food.

Pool at Coppola's

Saturday, we met up with Karen once again, and this time we headed to Castello di Amorosa (Castle of Love) for a tour

Courtyard

Karen and her knight in shining armour

The castle was built to be as authentic as possible, using only hand made materials, and using the same methods and materials that would have been
used 700-800 years ago.

Two thirds of this castle are underground, and there are 8 levels, 107 rooms, and is 121,000 square feet.  David Satturi, the owner, brought over 200 containers from Europe filled with old materials and furnishings and used more than 8,000 tons of local stone that were hand chiseled, and nearly 1 million antique, hand made bricks.  It has a moat, drawbridge and is surrounded by 171 acres.

The tour was fun and the tasting at the end well worth the walk.  We were brought into a private tasting room just for tours and sampled 8 different delicious wines.

Tasting Room

Prager's Winery

Since we were already in St. Helena, from the castle, we headed about 10 miles down the road to our favorite winery, Pragers Wine and Port Co.




A very small winery and tasting room when you compare it to the Castle or just about any other winery in the area.  But, because it is still a family owned and operated winery, they have stayed true to what they do best.  The small tasting room walls and ceiling is covered with signed dollar bills from just about every country in the world as well as the ribbons they have won in competitions.  The Owners are still in the room pouring and talking to all of their guests.

Inside tasting room, walls
covered with money

I have been coming to Pragers since the 1980's and there is one feature that has remained unchanged....the window over the sink in the tasting room.   It is called the original 'world wide web'.  They have allowed the spiders to have that one area....and the effect from over the years is now looking more like a piece of art.

Original World Wide Web

BEACH BLANKET BABYLON, SAN FRANCISCO, CA

 San Francisco

Our last weekend day with Karen was a trip to San Francisco to see Beach Blanket Babylon.  A musical play that has been playing in North Beach area for over 40 years.

The costumes are incredible, especially the headdresses.  How they players can move around the stage, sing and dance while trying to balance them was unbelievable.

Monday, we headed to Vallejo where our rental house is.  We wanted to see just how it was being taken care of, and to make sure there was no damage from the last earthquake.

Old Faithful blowing

From there we headed north into the Napa Valley and Calistoga.  Did you know there is an Old Faithful geyser there?  Actually it is one of three Old Faithful geysers in the world.  One in Yellowstone we all know about, one in New Zeland and here in Calistoga California.

MT. TAMILPIAS

Looking south to San Francisco and the bay

Tuesday, We headed up Mt. Tamilpias just outside of Mill Valley California.   This is a must see if you get to this area as it offers the most spectacular views of  the San Francisco bay area from its 2571-foot peak.


From the top, on a clear day, you can see the Farallon Islands, 25 miles out to sea, the Marin County hills, San Francisco and the bay, the East Bay to Vallejo and beyond and Mount Diablo (I grew up at the base of this mountain).  They say that on a clear day you can also see the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The day we were there, it was fairly clear, but a thin fog was hanging over San Francisco.  We could see the city, just not as clearly as we would have liked.  But when we looked further east and north, the view was perfect.  Looking past the city, the beaches south of the city were clear and we could see the surf.

Getting to the top of the mountain requires a drive of about 10 miles of very curvy roads.  Once there, you can walk a 3/4 of a mile trail that circles the mountain top to get a 360 degree view.  We stayed for a couple of hours, watching the fog over the city thin then get heavy and then thin out again.



JACK LONDON'S HOUSE

 We also paid a visit to another local historic landmark, Jack London's Wolf House.  Jack London lived in Glen Ellen and was building his dream home The Wolf House, in 1911.  Just before it was completed, it burned to the ground.  He vowed to rebuild it, but did not live long enough to do so.  What is standing today, is the house Charmain London built after Jack's death and the remains of their dream house.

Standing remains of the Wolf House

He wrote after the house burned "all I wanted was a quiet place in the country to write and loaf in, and get out of nature that something which we all need, only the most of us don't know it.  This is to be no summer -residence proposition, but a home all the year round.  I am anchoring good and solid and anchoring for keeps."  - Jack London 1913

House of Happy Walls
Charmain's house and now museum

MISSIONS
Thursday we headed over to Sonoma Calif. to visit another one of the 21 missions.  The mission is located right at the town square and is a State Park.  Mission San Francisco Solono was the last mission established in California, in 1823.  Like the others, it was founded to convert Native Americans to Christianity.

As we were headed to the mission, we passed the best sign I have ever seen.







We saw Karen one more time before we left when she prepared a great meal and we shared one of her good bottles of champagne.  We will miss her.

Karen, Terri and Deane

RV was fixed Thursday and we pulled out Friday morning to drive about 2 hours to Redwood City, south of San Francisco.  Met up with friends Vince and Carole Pepe for dinner and a fun afternoon playing Pegs and Jokers.

Vince and Carole

Saturday, heading a little further south, to San Juan Batista for the week where we will visit Carmel, Monterey and Santa Cruz areas.