How and where we play

Napa and Sonoma Valley Wineries

When the famed Napa Valley is about an hour and a half away, you get to go wine tasting and shopping pretty much whenever you want. Sonoma isn't much further, and Livermore is an hour or so south. So we go. We've found some pretty amazing wineries in all of these places. The best part (except financially) is that you can load up on lots of wine. When we were just visiting California, we could only come back with what we could carry on a plane, and that was when you could bring it on the plane. That meant three, four, or six bottles in those folding cardboard carriers. Now we can buy entire cases, plural, load them in the trunk, and drive home. Good news for the wine collection, if not the bank account. Partly because of this, you'll notice in the photos of the living room that there is a pair of wine racks there. Each holds 120 bottles. Both are mostly full. We do appreciate wine, and are trying to allow a bunch of it to age appropriately.

Here are some of our Napa and Sonoma Valley favorites:

Peju Province	Hop Kiln	Robert Mondavi	De La Montanya
Rodney Strong	Domaine Chandon	Beaulieu Vineyards	Arista Winery

These are a few of them, all of which we've been to at least once. One is a little different. Domaine Chandon makes sparkling wine, which they cannot call champagne because they're not in that region of France, and they're owned by a French company. Nonetheless, the product is terrific. For any and all of these wineries, it's worth the trip. Sadly, there also used to be a sake maker in the area, Hakusan, but they've gone out of business. So far, none of the wineries has, but it is a brutal industry to be in, with ferocious competition. Then again, that only inspires each of them to turn out the best product that they can. And ultimately, the consumer wins in that environment.

Livermore Valley Wineries

Then, about an hour in the opposite direction, there is Livermore Valley. This, too, has US Department of Agriculture appellation designation, indicating that it is recognized as a specific wine growing area. Well, they sure do have that art mastered. Here are a couple of our Livermore Valley favorites.

Wente	Concannon	Fenestra	Steven Kent

The building that's photographed in the Fenestra image is the tasting room. It's in the basement of an old farm building, and for a funky, aging, agricultural setting, they manage to create some fine wines. All of the wineries listed here create some very good wines, and help us keep the California economy vibrant by spending our money there.

Music

Lest you get the impression that all entertainment out here involves alcohol, there are plenty of other things to do. There's certainly no lack of music in this area.

Here's a list of most of where we've been and what we've seen so far. We'll try to update this regularly. In San Francisco:

• Fillmore Auditorium, the legendary space, which we learned has no seats, just a dance floor. We saw East Mountain South there as the opening act. The main act wasn't all that interesting, so we left and beat the crowds to BART.
• The Warfield Theater, where we saw Guster, a Boston-based band that we've now seen on both coasts.
• The Masonic Center, where we saw Barenaked Ladies (the band, campers, the band...) KFOG, one of the local stations, recorded it for their "Live from the Archives" series that year. We're four of the hands clapping on that recording!

Music is by far not limited to the city. There are plenty of venues in the East Bay area:

• Freight and Salvage, where we've seen John Renbourn, Catie Curtis (Donna saw her; Gerry had a class that night), and David Grisman's Bluegrass Experience.
• In Concord, Chronicle Pavilion is an outdoor venue. We've seen Crosby, Stills and Nash and Steely Dan there.That one can get cold, we learned one fine October evening, but it's still a great place for music.
• Mountain Winery, also an outdoor venue, was where we saw Nickle Creek, a terrific newgrass band. We also recently saw Mark Knopfler, formerly of Dire Straits, in a spectacular concert performance with his new band.

A while back, we saw George Winston at the Majestic Theater in Benicia, a North Bay town. The Majestic is an old vaudeville hall now doing concerts. We've also been up north somewhat to the Palms Playhouse in Winters, an agricultural town mostly in the middle of nowhere. We finally got to see Solas there, a favorite Celtic band. Again, we help keep the California economy working.

Outdoors

There are also outdoor activities, which are easy enough to enjoy when it doesn't rain here for six or more months of the year. There is Mt. Diablo, standing 3,849 feet tall and making a great observation point for the entire Bay Area. When we first moved out here, we barely knew what we were seeing, other than the Bay and the bridges. Now, we're able to name towns as we see them, and get an overview of the entire Bay Area. It also has hiking trails galore, which Gerry swears he will one day learn by hiking them.

One area where he did hit the trails was Las Trampas. One February, it was mild enough to climb to about 1,700 feet on one trail, and watch the fog roll in as afternoon wore on. That doesn't make for great photography, but it's fun to see.

We also really like to go to Half Moon Bay, a town on the Pacific side of the peninsula. There's a brew-pub a little ways up the coastal highway, the suitably named Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, which has live and sometimes very good music. The main street has some marvelous beaches and delightfully quirky shops. It's usually a package deal: hit the beach relatively early, if possible, watch the sun sink into the ocean, walk around HMB and cruise shops for a while, and then eat sushi.

Restaurants

And about that sushi: One of our all time favorite sushi restaurants is in Half Moon Bay, Sushi on Main Street. It has decor from Indonesia, which is odd for a Japanese restaurant. In addition to the usual array of sushi rolls and sashima, they also have wasabi dumplings that are best eaten with care. They are hot, and that's not just in temperature! Everything there is delicious, so we try to find reasons to go whenever we can.

Additional places we've enjoyed just sushi include San Ramon's Miraku, with its very lavendar interior, Sozo Sushi, which we went to more often when we lived in San Ramon, and Okawa in Antioch. On the more upscale side, there is Kyo-Ya in the city. We've only eaten there twice, but both times were memorable, even for regular sushi eaters. Right across from where Gerry works, there is Yotaka, pretty good and handy when he wants sashimi, or other Japanese food, for lunch. Nor is this a complete list. Obviously, we are very interested in sushi and sashimi.