We got a hugely generous offer from my cousin Anne, who lives near Napa, to give us a tour of the Napa Valley wine country and show us the sights and be our designated driver. We got up early and rolled down to the historic Ferry Building to catch a ferry across the bay. Unfortunately, the sunburns and the long bicycle ride from the day before left us feeling less than 100 percent. Neither one of us felt like going on a daylong-wine-drinking spree, so we were pretty low-key.
We hit the winery owned or partially owned or formerly owned by the great movie director Francis Ford Coppola. The place had quite a bit of Hollywood memorabilia on display and a bizarrely huge collection of vintage magic lanterns.
The valley is beautiful and the vineyards are very picturesque, but the sun was straight up, making outdoor photography pretty tough. Besides, I was pretty out of it due to the highly uncomfortable sun burn and I didn’t try very hard. Anne took us to a great little restaurant for lunch and we had a fun visit.
On the way back to the hotel in the mid-afternoon we passed a LEICA camera store and I had to stop in and check out the cameras I will never be able to afford. Wow. I’ve never been in a more customer-unfriendly store. All the merchandise is behind glass and the decor is pretty stark and intimidating. A few LEICA Men™ were standing around discussing how LEICA cameras were on the verge of curing cancer. The sales staff could clearly tell I was out of my element and didn’t even bother to offer any assistance.
One thing I wanted to see on this trip was Pacific Ocean waves crashing on jaggedy black rocks, so we headed down to the imaginatively named Ocean Beach on the west side of the city. It was on the trip out there that we discovered the ride-sharing service Uber™. It was a revelation. No more frustrating mass-transit rides for us. You just use a phone app to request a car and one shows up in less than five minutes. The fare comes straight of your credit card so there’s no hassle of paying the driver. Most drivers even refuse an extra tip, saying the tip is built into the fare. Uber™ was having some kind of sale in which fares were 25% off. On top of that we got a few discounts for being first-time Uber™ users. We took Uber™ cars several times during the next two days and a couple of those trips were totally free.
We wandered around the corner to the south side of the bay where we could see the western side of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had done a poor job of planning and I had it in my mind that the bridge would be closer. There’s a hiking trail that runs all the way to the bridge but it was something like two miles and we just didn’t have that in us.
We made our way down to the water’s edge and I got a few sunset/beachy/rocky photos.
Then we watched the sun sink into the Pacific Ocean. A first for us. We even caught the green flash as the sun slipped out of view.