San Francisco into Napa

We left the Marin Headlands, once again taking the scenic route and headed into San Francisco. Our first stop were the Painted Ladies, which, apart from being very pretty houses, were featured in the opening credits of Full House. Very exciting, I know. We then went to Pier 33 to get tickets to Alcatraz. Amazingly enough, they were sold out until August 9. Turns out the show Alcatraz was good enough to make the prison more popular was wasn’t able to keep itself on the air. Jaimie and I are still bummed about that. Since we couldn’t get to Alcatraz, we went to Cioppino’s, an Italian restaurant, for lunch. The food was good; the pizza – well, not as good as New York, but hey, I’m spoiled.

After walking off lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf, we got in the car and headed for Haight- Ashbury, center of the hippie movement. 

We deemed it impossible to find parking as it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, so we settled on driving through. As Jaimie was figuring out sleeping arrangements for tonight, I decided to take us on one more adventure in San Francisco. 

As cool as seeing the Painted Ladies was, I wanted to find the house they used for all of the exterior shots in Full House. It wasn’t long until we found it. We took some pictures, I contemplated knocking on the door and asking if Danny Tanner was home and we shoved off to Napa Valley.

Once we got into Napa valley I was surprised to see just how many vineyards there are here. I guess I never really thought about it. Also neat was the fact that they grow their grapes right up to the road; no walls, fences or anything. We passed sign after sign of well known vineyards, each with their own classy villa behind. Unfortunately we arrived shortly after 5, which as it turns out, is when just about all of the vineyards close. Bummed, we headed to our campsite (which is surrounded by redwoods), set up camp, and ventured into town for dinner. We found the Silverado Brewing Co. not far away. We had some wine, some cider and some pretty good beef and lamb burgers. Upon returning to the campsite we bought firewood at Lot 13 (our tent was in Lot 1). 

The host was kind enough to let us haul our combustibles in a rusty old Radio Flyer. I’m glad we decided to buy the wood while it was still light out because it was a loud 5 minute walk to and from our tent site. But really; she could’ve let us use the golf cart. Tomorrow we check out the vineyards and head to visit my family in San Jose.