January 16, 2005
Weekend
Had lunch Saturday in Davis with Shachar's former colleague Kabir and his wife and then drove over to Santa Rosa where we were staying over, stopping at a particularly good produce stand to stock up on apples, kiwis, and sour gummy worms on the way. We checked out downtown Pentaluma, including a fruitful stop at Copperfield's Books Petaluma and dinner in a cool Armenian restaurant, Aram's Cafe. Here's Shachar and his mother Shula outside the restaurant. Turns out she's a knitter, so I got to introduce her to the wonderful world of Michael's on the way back from dinner so she could knit something when jetlag hit in the middle of the night.
This morning (after a stop at Starbucks to finally sample the new divine chocolate drink) we went to Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen (near Sonoma) and checked out the grave sites, the ruins of their house and the very nice museum. I guess you can't read this sign that was posted at the start of the trail in the picture, but it really does say: "Keep children close, as mountatin lions seem to be especially drawn to them." Luckily we didn't see any lions, or the rattle snakes that the next sign warned about. Other than that it was a really beautiful place and Jack London was certainly an interesting character. The Wolf House burnt down a month before Jack and Charmian were supposed to move into it and he died before they could rebuild it. In the museum, there were a series of photographs of people who had been strong influences in London's life, and I was pleased to read that one of them was the librarian Ina Coolbrith (someone who looks like an interesting person to learn much more about!)
Then we stopped by the Benziger Family Winery for a tour and tasting. It was a great tour (on a tractor-pulled tram) and they're one of only 9 vineyards in the US certified as using biodynamics, "a wholistic farming approach developed in the 1920s by scientist Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian philosopher who created Waldorf education." (which I thought Doug and Barbi would be interested in hearing!)
We also stopped at the nearby Olive Press where we got to sample different types of olive oils and I bought some really tasty Blood Orange flavored olive oil.
On the way home, we stopped for a late lunch at Saul's Deli in Berkeley and I got to have my diet black cherry doctor brown's, a bowl of matza ball soup, and a black & white cookie, so life is pretty darn good. Shula even tried her very first root beer float.