July 1, Saturday - Day 7
After lolling at the Starbucks near our motel in Santa Rosa for an unconscionably long time, we decided to see a select few wineries after all, plus make a pilgrimage to the Jack London State Park and the gravesite of the Man himself. This would place us a few miles south of Santa Rosa, in Glen Ellen, aka "The Valley of the Moon".
First stop in Glen Ellen, a French Normandy chateau of Ledson Winery. Another imposing gate at the entrance - ironworks gate fabricators owe their existence to wineries.
"And it's all mine as far as the eye can see", sayeth the little old winemaker humbly.
Both Norm and Pam, channeling Linda Evans and John Forsyth of "Dynasty" on the grand staircase of Chateau Ledson. Okay, so we were carrying on like rube tourists...just perhaps, we are.
Very light traffic this day at the winery (as well as the others we visited), so the gentleman pouring the tasting for us from the $20 list, for which we paid, also poured us the tastings from the $30 list. A true twofer!!
Each set of tastings is called a flight. Here's the wine taster and her pet monkey, flyin' high already.
These Library wine selections too ho-hum for you....?
...then move up a notch to slightly more rarified grape juice.
Isn't that nice and "easy", just the right size for about ten bottles of yum yum. And these bottles are NOT cheaper by the dozen.
We only realized later that this perfect entrance shot includes a fellow in the flower bed practically showing us his own valley of the moon. A bit of cinema verite.
Chateau St. Jean certainly gives off a homier vibe than Ledson, at least at the entrance.
Entering the main building is a no-no...perhaps if we weren't so rube-ish??
It only takes the cheery bubbling of a fountain on a hot day to sooth a fevered brow.
A winery's highest profit margin by far is when it manages to sell a bottle of its wine retail direct to a customer on its premises. Selling through Costco is a stinker.
More flights, please! The pet monkey just wants go home. Sad.
This is painted on a store wall in the center of what passes for downtown Glen Ellen.
The third and final winery we'll see in Glen Ellen, quite different from the previous two in so many ways. Another sign not shown says "Rubes Welcome!"
Not bad for a laid back entry.
Ah, a structure built to human scale, at last. Bide-a-Wee.
Oh Lordy, say it ain't so! Disneyfied viticulture. And just how many people are they expecting at max turnout, anyway? There's everything but the New York subway's turnstiles. What could be worse ??
Never ask what you don't want answered.
Really, is everyone off watching fireworks or summer skiing?
For $59 (reduced today only from $83) get two bottles of vino thrown in if you bite for the tram ride, during which you can watch field hands pulling weeds and peering at you out of the corners of their eyes with a look you can't quite get a handle on.
Jack London and Charles Schulz, two wildly different personas yet each communicated intimately with millions worldwide through their immense abilities with pen, ink and paper. A breed apart.
Today the park is 1,400 acres, including 20 miles of walking trails.
A short walk from the parking lot to the museum.
This is the House of Happy Walls built by Jack London's wife after he died in 1916 age 40. The house is now the House of Happy Walls Museum.
More first floor.
The second floor has the "good" stuff. If life were a candle with four ends, Jack London would have been burning all four of them at once.
A "pan" shot of one of the smaller rooms on the second floor (above).
A "pan" shot of the main room on the second floor. So much interesting detail about the man and his life.
This little bitty walk is not so bitty when all is said and done. Norm used to race the quarter mile in high school track. He used to do "twin centuries" over a weekend (100 miles each day) with the Marin Cyclists in the '70's. "Buck up man, you're only walking to a grave - and somebody else's, at that." Let's call it insufficient hydration.
And this where it ends. He wanted a boulder to cover his ashes on the top of this hill and there the boulder is, behind a weathered, lichen covered picket fence. No engraved words of majestic gravity. It's more, "Let his works speak for him". If melancholia can be peaceful, then it is here.
Wolf House was nearly completed when it burned down in suspect circumstances. There were those that did not like his political philosophy. What a majestic home it would have been.
We could not let Benziger be the winery that left its outhouse most memorable in our minds. To that end we drove to the Silverado Trail in Napa to see the Persian splendors of the Darioush Winery.
Gypsy Rose Lee said it, "Ya gotta have a gimmick". And this is some gimmick - Persia meets Napa. What could be more natural than that? Dorothy and Toto standing by the eternal flame (granted, in the photo the copious flames on top of this device are hard to see) certainly know they aren't in Kansas anymore.
Those are real lily pads, not plastic. Norm touched one. Such extravagance.
"Refined" comes to mind.
Is this an archeological dig, or what? The room beyond the fireplace was marked "private". We took that to mean "no rubes",
What appear to be white threads are actually "lines" of water.
This wine is definitely NOT "two buck Chuck".
From the front entrance looking out.
Looks like the Middle East, but lots safer by a long shot. This is the new Palmyra.
674 miles later and it's back in the bosom of Gold River, so to speak. We sure had a good time and hope anyone else who followed the blog saw some things of interest. Norm thinks he hears Pam in her "bead room" furiously beading away to meet popular demand. Quotas will be met!!
The Traveling Twosome (plus Cricket the Dog) over and out.
