Road Trip Number Eight--Through San Francisco

Inspecting Megan's roses at Moraga





     Moraga, California, is a beautiful little city, nestled in the mountains a few miles west of Oakland.  My friends, Jon and Megan, moved there as he planned for retirement.  Their chosen part of the world is more like I imagine Camelot than any other place I’ve ever been.  The weather must always be perfect there—Jon has a vineyard and Megan has every flowering plant that can be imagined.  Dozens of roses surround their back yard oasis, along with lemon trees, bougainvillea, hibiscus, oleander and several others I cannot identify.  All of them seem to be constantly in bloom. 

     Jon established a vineyard on the adjacent lot in their Cul-De-Sac and planted twenty-eight rows (six different varieties) of grape vines.  After his retirement from the business world, Jon attended UC Davis and took several viniculture classes to prepare himself for his retirement pastime—making wine.  His private label is “Birchwood Place” and all the varieties I’ve sampled are excellent.



Jon and Wayne with Jon's vineyard in the background



     Saint Mary’s College of California is also located in Moraga, in the valley below Jon’s home.  Saint Mary’s was the first team (of many) to beat Texas Technological College in the Cotton Bowl.  That was in 1939.  Although the school is relatively small and has dropped its football program, it is still prominent in NCAA basketball, baseball, swimming and girl’s volleyball.  The rugby team is always formidable.  If you stand on a little rise in Jon and Megan’s back yard, out past the swimming pool, hot tub, and the two eighty foot palm trees, and look over all the flowers, you can see the white bell tower of the St. Mary’s Chapel down in the valley.  It is an absolutely lovely view.

     In the morning, after a very pleasant evening and a great meal, Wayne and I continued our journey with two cases of assorted Birchwood Place wines tucked in the back of Wayne’s big pickup.  We left by seven am and attacked the San Francisco traffic at morning rush hour.  In thirty minutes we were through Oakland and on the Bay Bridge, going into San Francisco proper.

     San Francisco has a well-deserved reputation for being a bit weird.  Sort of like Austin in California.  They, like Austin, want to be green and smart and permissive and maybe a bit superior all at the same time.  That way, they can be aloof and cool as they drink chardonnay and eat ceviche.  Please don’t try to confuse them with reason—they know how they feel. 

     The Austinites who settled in San Francisco outlawed freeways in their city.  We came off the Bay Bridge and were dumped into the city streets, along with hundreds of other motorists all headed in different directions.  I was as surprised as anyone when I discovered we were still moving—in fact, we were moving pretty fast--too fast to properly check out all the spectacular young ladies on their way to work—or perhaps on their way home.  We crossed through the city and picked up the access road to the Golden Gate Bridge in relatively short order—crossing the Golden Gate was one of our must-dos on the trip---by eight-thirty we were in Sausalito and the fog-shrouded Golden Gate was in our rearview mirror.   Maybe those weird dudes know something—if you don’t build all those freeways, people will figure out some other way to get around and it might actually be just as good---or better.

     North of Sausalito we were back in Wine Country—this time it was billed as “Coastal” wine.   The countryside was beautiful, with low mountains covered with trees and forests and striped with vineyards.  It was like Colorado with grape vines.   Along this road, the wineries were gigantic—I saw a group of buildings as big as a Wal-Mart distribution center and idly wondered what it was—it turned out to be a well-known winery.  A few miles later, I saw another huge building and looked carefully to identify which wine it housed.  It was a Wal-Mart distribution center.

     We stayed on Highway 101 as we went north.  Highway One was closed in places and looked to be more trouble than it was worth because of frequent breaks and irregular spans of good road.  We missed Mendocino, a little city I wanted to see.  It’s an old whaling village.  My understanding is that it was settled in the late 1800’s by sea captains from New England who had migrated here to follow the whales.  Consequently, all the housing and other architecture was copied from New England.  You’ve probably seen Mendocino---it’s portrayed as “Cabot Cove” and was featured in the TV show, “Murder, She Wrote.” 

     Mendocino was the home of an acquaintance of mine, Cammy King, who played Bonnie Blue Butler in the movie, “Gone With The Wind.”  Unfortunately, Cammy, a cancer victim, passed away last year.  She was one of the last surviving members of the cast since she was only about five when the movie was made.   She was a nice lady and was anxious to show me her little whaling town.  I will always be sorry I missed it.

     My dad may have said it best—he said, “Getting old is not so bad.  It does get harder when all your friends start to die.”



Approaching the Bridge