Sonoma

We visited Scott, Caroline and their two year old son Gabriel (Chloe went to college with Caroline) this weekend. Scott and Carloine took us to four great wineries in Sonoma and Healdsburg: J,


which had great hor d'oeuvres and ok wine (but a little overpriced IMO), then across the parking lot to Rodney Strong, which had a very nice 2003 Zinfandel. I should probably point out that I am in no way a wine afficionado; I dont even know what kind of grapes go into Cotes du Rhone or Bourgogne etc. Zinfandels, however are a new taste for us, as are California wines in general. Here are the impressives barrels at Rodney Strong:


Using Gabriel's Bubble Power

We continued on to Christopher Creek

which also had a nice Zinfandel (2003?)

which we bought one bottle of, as well as a kick-you-in-your-teeth petite syrrah (nothing petite about it though!) which we bought a few bottles of as well. As we sped along to beat the 5:00 pm tasting room closing time, Scott told us that a lot of the culverts and ditches in this area were overflowing with rainwater just a week ago.
The bartender told us that excess water was actually bad for the grape vines, but I cant remember why... something about hardship making the vines angry and compelling them to produce better fruit. I'm not sure, because by this point, I was a little drunk and chloe was taunting me in french whispers. Actually, I dont remember what the name of the winery was or how the wine tasted.


The next day, after Scott and Caroline made us an amazing waffle, smoothie and bacon breakfast, we headed out towards Salt Point State Park for some bouldering and climbing. We drove along the Russian River and were amazed at how far out to sea the silt was being deposited at Jenner

We could only find one boulder, and the climbing turned out a little... poorly. From the tops of the cliffs, the climbs looked great:

pocketed sandstone above azure waves.. with the stunted pine trees and breeze it almost felt like we were back in Provence for a few seconds! Anyway, we followed the directions for where to rapell and ended up on a shelf of rock not very far away from the water. During the course of just a few routes, we both managed to get soaked (Chloe got hit by some impressively huge waves), as did all of our gear and jackets. For some reason there wer barnacles up most of the climbs, despite the fact that I dont see how the ocean ever got that high. Barnacles, despite their fortresslike shells, turn out to be pretty weak, and explode under the pressure of say, a climbing shoe shodden foot for example. It also turns out that barnacle guts are very very slippery, so it was game over whenever I stepped on one. After one impressive barnacle slick, I looked down and watched as my jacket, containing digital camera, cell phone and car keys began to gracefully waft out to sea, despite being laden with so much Important Stuff. I screamed, and chloe managed to rescue it. It would have been sad indeed to loose that jacket after all of the places it has kept me warm. Also, lost car keys would have been bad.