vitis vinifera

I never saw the Golden Gate Bridge during my first and, up until this weekend, only visit to San Francisco. I spent three days in the city in 2003 and the damn thing was hidden in fog every time I made it to the waterfront.

This weekend, I managed to see the bridge every day of the trip. I saw it, I drove over it, I snapped photos from near and far, I've done it.


The one thing left to do is walk across it, but Taures, our host for the weekend, advised against it. (See earlier posting about earthquakes.) I think he's being silly. I'd walk it, given the chance.

Friday night the BF arrived, and he was obviously thrilled to be back in San Francisco, a city he makes no bones about loving. I don't see S.F. the same way he does, though I do find it a fascinating and often beautiful place. Our whole time there, I could tell he was trying for me to see the same city as him, and I'm not sure I ever will.

In our rental car, the BF had wisely paid extra for an onboard navigation system. At long last he's learning to accept that sightless sea slugs have a better sense of direction than his, though it's been a long and hard journey to reach to this point.

The Hertz GPS tool, the "NeverLost," speaks in the nasal monotone of an uppity typing teacher. I quickly dubbed her "NeverRight," because bitch kept putting us on a crazy routes to reach even the most uncomplicated destinations. We also ended up on a lot of one-way streets going the wrong way. Sometimes even the satellites couldn't find us.

You can imagine her consternation when, on Sunday, we decided to drive up to Napa Valley and check out the wine country. Ms. NeverLost insisted that we take the Bay Bridge. I tried to explain that we wanted the scenic route across the Golden Gate, but she just couldn't get it and sulked for most of Marin County.


Having seen Sideways, I thought I knew what such a trip would entail. But that film (which is actually set in Santa Ynez, not Napa) fails to convey the splendor of the region. Napa and Sonoma do not feel like America: They are closer to a Mediterranean climate than anything I've experienced in the States. We spent our afternoon at the Robert Mondavi Winery, touring the grounds with a grey-haired guide named Linda, who the BF disliked from the start. She walked us through the rows of grapes that will someday become Cabernet Sauvignon, and urged us not to sample the fruit for it would spoil our later tasting.

More than a hundred pairs of hands will touch each vine before it completes one season, Linda said, and the plant itself can last for 30 or more years. It doesn't need irrigation to grow, but can find water seven feet below ground via a long and unseen tap root. I thought about the way a person can feel rooted to a particular place, and how that connection remains invisible to everyone else.

Inside the cavernous winery , we walked through the stages of production, the distilling and fermentation, with our guide detailing the precision that goes into the flavor of each bottle.

We went light on the tasting and left the winery without making a purchase. Driving back to the city, Ms. NeverLost got her way. She sent us back home via the opposite route, finally crossing on the Bay Bridge. The water was royal green and dotted with whitecaps; a sizeable bank of fog had shown up in time for dinner.

From the opposite side of the bay, the city appeared to be shrouded in cloud, like a drawing from a book of nursery rhymes. I could imagine Jack climbing the beanstalk to see a scene like this, or Gulliver waking up to a similar skyline. "Could you ever see yourself living here?" the BF asked me. By now the fog had lifted some and the city was starting to reveal itself more. I turned down the volume on the NeverLost and snapped a few more pictures out of the car window.