August 12, 2004
San Diego
drove down to SD for the ESRI conference. all maps all the time. this was the 2nd year in a row that I attended. sat in on a couple of workshops in the morning and met up with my co-workers for lunch. we scattered into different presentations after lunch. tim and i went to the Carnival festival after the presentations were done. the food was good and the party was huge. who knew? i tried to get my free tarot card reading and/or palm reading and/or caricature but i was too impatient. ended up going back to my hotel room where miss melodious later met me to catch up on the past year. as we were chatting fireworks from the Carnival went off in the harbor and we had the perfect view from my room.
August 01, 2004
Napa
We checked out of our SF hotel, against our tired bodies' will, at 8:30 am. Drove between blocked-off-because-of-the-SF-marathon streets in the Sunset to arrive at the Crepevine for breakfast. Afterward, we drove back across the Golden Gate Bridge and headed on up to Napa. We checked into the Marriott and I dreamt of the sun creeping out from behind the gray SF skies during a two-hour nap. I awoke to happily see my dream realized, and the three of us hopped back into the rental car to go to Sterling Vineyards, the hilltop winery reached by a scenic gondola ride.
We stopped briefly in St. Helena because it looked like such a quaint street lined with shops. Unfortunately, they were all closed by the time we got there so we headed on down the 29 for dinner at Hurley's in Yountville. I enjoyed an adult dinner: roast chicken. The other gals convinced the server to give them the kids' pasta with just butter and garlic. Not cuz they're cheap or anything, just cuz that's what they had a hankerin' for.
This was followed by a jilted attempt to find a dessert-erie in downtown Napa. We wound up back at the hotel and talked to the front desk guy who directed us to the "real" downtown napa where we wandered around a bit before settling at Joe's Brewery for some warmed peach cobbler and coffee.
Went back to the hotel for real and I tossed and turned til 3:45 am when I had to jump in the car and drive back down to Oakland for my 6 am flight to the O.C.