So after a couple of days chilling in San Fran after Charlotte’s latest little adventure, it’s time to get back on the road again.
I must give a quick shout out to Drake’s brewing in San Leandro Oakland – a funky place in an industrial building behind the local Walmart. 30 odd beers on tap, available in sizes ranging from 4 oz/120 ml tasting nips for $1.25 all the way up to $64 oz/2 liter “growlers”, and even up to kegs if you so desire.
Spent a pleasant afternoon sampling their wares, before heading back to sleep them off in Charlotte – who was parked in the nearby Hospital Car Park. A little tip – Hospital car parks are great places to park overnight, particularly when Walmart has a no parking policy.
But I digress.
I’m not keen on heading further north as the weather is starting to cool down, so Portland and Seattle will get a miss for now. Hopefully I can get back up there some time next year after winter eases
So I decide to head East – towards Sacramento. Of course that takes me right past Napa and Sonoma – so a few days dawdling through wine country are mandatory.
Getting from San Leandro back to San Fran involves a trip across the 7 mile San Mateo-Hayward bridge, and then some backstreet driving (to avoid the weekend traffic).
That means I pass right by a Costco, so I pull in to check it out. Next thing you know I’ve become a member and Charlotte is stocked with all sorts of food. I haven’t mentioned it before but you can’t seem to buy canned lentils at Safeway and Walmart – and at specialty stores they can be as much as $3 or $4 a can – not the 80 cent price tag I’m used to back home. At Costco I manage to get hold of some at around $1 a can so I stock up along with other easy heat over a campstove favourites like beans and chickpeas. Here’s hoping I don’t fart too much at night and suffocate!
The trip over the Golden Gate bridge is done Sunday afternoon in bright sunshine, and the tourist traffic is ridiculous. Not only are there hordes walking on the bridge, the traffic trying to exit the car park at the Northern end is at least 500 m long bumper to bumper. It must be taking people 30 mins to get out on to the highway.
It forces me to miss the turn off to Sausolito, so I take the next exit which ends up being the local narrow winding road serving all the cliffside houses that is barely wide enough for Charlotte. We make it on down and check out the harbour (think boats boats and more boats) before cruising off highway for a while. Eventually we join back up with the Route 101, before turning East on 37 and then 121 to get to Napa.
I’m arriving just as everyone is leaving after the weekend so traffic is light in my direction, and parking is a breeze. Walmart allows overnight parking here, so I find a spot for Charlotte, before heading into Bounty Hunter Wine Bar and BBQ for a first sip.
So there I am minding my business at the bar, working my way through a flight of Pinots, when the couple next to me start chatting. It seems my accent might have prompted it – Sian is a Melbourne girl who now lives in New York with her guy Tim, and they’ve made a little trip out to Napa to celebrate her birthday which is today. They are heaps of fun, really friendly and very engaging – they insist on including me in the celebrations rather than taking off for a private table and we end up spending a couple of hours eating, drinking and chatting. They even pour me some of their wine, and when the Beer can Chicken arrives make sure I get some of that too. Such generosity!
We swap emails, they subscribe to the blog, and insist that when I get to New York I get in touch and they’ll make sure to (a) give me a place to stay and (b) show me around town. I’m blessed to have run into them and can’t wait for NY!
Hi guys (if you are reading this!) I just realised we never took photos so I can’t immortalise you in these pages. Send me a pic and I’ll update the post with your beaming smiles!
Eventually the night has to end, an uber is called, and we part ways. I hope the hangovers pass quietly in the morning and their flight back to New York the next day is smooth and uneventful.
For me it’s time to slip into Charlotte’s warm embrace, and I fall asleep pretty quickly.
More on Napa next time
