We wanted to leave the Mendocino Coast KOA at 8 AM but did not get up to our alarms and slept until 8. We left before 9 AM to head to wineries and San Francisco. The temperature was 53 when we left and extremely foggy.
We drove down the coast and followed highway 1 for most of the trip. It was not quite as close to the coast as our trip yesterday. However, we could still see the ocean most of the time and it was up hills and down hills with very tight turns. Needless to say, Chris drove the whole time today. He would need to be sedated driving with me on this road; I would be a nervous wreck. We stopped for gas and paid the most we've paid-4.50/gallon-steep!
We took 116 over to our campground. We are staying at the Petaluma/North San Francisco KOA. It's a huge KOA campground. We set up the camper, unpacked a bit and left for Healdsburg. Matt Knouse recommended this town and told us it's kind of like a Gettysburg. We parked and found a nice place for lunch. We ate at an awesome Mexican restaurant. The prices were good and the food was excellent. Chris got a burrito with prawns and I had a chimichanga with shrimp----mmmm!
We walked our lunch off as we toured the quaint town. It was between a Middleburg, VA and a Gettysburg. They had some awesome shops and there were wineries everywhere you looked. We decided to stop at Selby first to try some very inexpensive wines. The wines were good and they serve them at the White House! The girl who did our tasting recommended a couple others. We had parked near two she recommended, so we went to both. The first was Willamson. This place was awesome. It was not your typical winery. It was owned by a middle-aged man and his wife but it was all men working there! It was different to see manly men working at a winery doing tastings. They had a different approach, which is why Chris and I enjoyed this one so much. They would not tell us what we “should” taste in the wine until after we tried it. The guy who did our tasting said that was cheating because we would then taste whatever he said-thought that was a great point. We’ve never had an experience like this. Each time we tried a wine with a food, the wine changed the food exactly how he said it would. It was amazing. We tried a horseradish jelly and it wasn’t until you tried the wine that the only flavor left was the horseradish-no more jelly taste. We tried a straight merlot with a piece of brownie that seemed to have a good amount of flour-very cake-like. As soon as we drank a sip of wine, the cocoa powder and liquid ingredients seemed to come forward and the flour was gone…very cool! The wines were expensive here, so we only bought one bottle! The last one we went to was Topel. Topel was the lowest on our list. The server didn’t have a lot of personality and the wines were just okay. We still bought a bottle, one of their summer-sale rose wines. It was decent, just not the best out of the 3. Chris found out about a Hook and Ladder winery. The owner was a San Francisco firefighter for 24 years. We’re going to make the trip before we leave.
We headed back to the campground, made a fire, cooked dinner, and enjoyed the cool evening air.
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