Welconk!

As a means of introduction, and an excuse to make you look at more shit, here's a nice picture of me in a cowboy hat.  This is the story of the time a group of us went to wine country.  There's some nice pictures, too.

Now, for photos of my excursions to wine country.  The first trip was on a Sunday, and Emily was learning how to drive.  Sara was along for the ride, prob'ly just to get out of her house and the city in general.  First, we stopped in Sausalito for brunch and a bloody mary, but that's not really what this page is about.  Suffice to say, it was pleasant.  We drove north to Viansa wineries, and some nice tourists photographed us.  We later went to the Champaign Caves, but they were in a hurry to close, so we didn't take any photos.  Thereafter, we returned to the city.

This inspired a second visit, much later.  The plan was to take a Monday and tour some new wineries.  Dave knew of some other wineries that were quite nice.  I called work and told them I was having some emotional problems, and wouldn't be coming in today.  This was more or less true.  I drove over to Emily's place, and we were working out the lineup.  Dave was thinking he might not want to go.  Gabe was now going, as was Emily, Sara, and their friend Alicia.  Dave was talking about a book he thought I might have read, entitled The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.  I hadn't read it.  It sounded fairly interesting, though.  It's a book about three fellows in a psycho ward in Ypsilanti, Michican who all believe they are Christ.  Finally, Emily, Sara, Gabe and I were ready to go.  Dave agreed to at least ride until the car contained all the occupants.  We drove over to pick up Alicia, and she and Emily crowded into the front passenger seat.  Dave decided he was game for going to wine country after all, but we needed to stop by his apartment so he could pick up some tapes.  When I pulled in front of his buidling, a man was urinating into the corner of the garage door.  We let him go about his business, Dave returned to the car, and we were on our way to wine country.

On the drive, we listened to Dave's tapes, which had a wide variety of music on them.  It was a tape his girlfriend of the time had made for him several years back.  Popular favorites were the excerpts from the Muppet Movie, and two Liz Phair songs.  Emily was rubbing against me, sitting more or less on the parking brake.  Gabe had brought a book on sexual tarot.  He read off various statements for various signs in the car.  I was the only Gemeni, and it turns out, Gemenis aren't that popular in general.  Being a cusp, I was able to switch teams to Cancer, which were more acceptable.  I think two other people in the car were Cancers, also.  Throughout the drive, Sara's head was in the rear view mirror.  It became like television, where I felt I had to watch simply because the face was there.  We had to stop once across the Golden Gate bridge, because some of the party needed to use the restroom, and others were quite hungry.  Several passengers in the back seemed to know where we were, and made suggestions as to where I should go, and what exit to get off on.  Dave commented that mine was one of the few cars he felt comfortable riding in.  He made this statement shortly after directing me into the lane I had to be in.  He liked the way I changed lanes, I guess.

Once off the interstate, we found a Taco Bell next to a strip mall and a Whole Foods or some such.  When making the U turn to get to our desired location, we passed some police officers talking to what appeared to be a homeless man.  We looked pretty suspiscious ourselves, obviously in violation of the seat belt law.  I gave Emily a pen I had, which was in the shape of a syringe.  I suggested she hold it up to her arm as we drove past.  The transgression went without incident.  We found some street parking, and got out.  Emily and Sara went to the grocery store, Gabe went into T Bell, and Alicia got some sort of lunch dish from a Chinese restaurant / store in the mall.  Dave and I hung out on the corner near the car.  We tried to sit comfortably on the curb, but it wasn't working out.  When Alicia came back out, we stood to help block the sun from her face while she ate.  She had acquired some sort of sesame snack cake item, too, and she shared parts of this with us.  Eventually we all reconvene.  We're all curious as to why Gabe ate T Bell.  He wasn't sure himself.  Dave said he was cold, so I gave him my jacket.  He was pretty sure it wouldn't fit him, as he was much bigger than I was, but I knew my jacket was oversized, and it fit him nicely.  It's black plastic, so it gets warm quickly in the sun, and it was certainly sunny.  Dave's explaining to me what a taxi medallion is, and what rights it gets you as a cabbie.  Apparently, the wait is years and years.  About twenty.  After the appropriate ammount of leg stretching and eating, we all piled back into the car, same arrangement as before, and proceded on to the winery.  We had some trouble getting back on the interstate, but eventually we figured it out.

The last stretch of the drive went as smoothly as the rest.  Gabe and Dave shared a cigarette and ashed out the window.  Finally, we arrived at our destination, and we all got out of the car.  This is more or less when I began taking photos.  Dave was the first victim.  We toured the gift shop, and found everything to our liking.  Emily, Dave and I settled in for the business of wine tasting.  Our server was one Linda Lipps.  As we tried their selection of reds, Sara, Gabe and Alicia metriculated over.  Soon we were all deciding on the wines we couldn't leave without.  One wine we all seemed to like was a spicy red that was being bottled and sold to raise funds for the preservation of some ducks.  The name actually meant "duck" something in French, but I think we all had to take Ms. Lipp's word on that.  We got the bright idea to buy a bottle of wine and drink it out on the picnic tables.  Dave was insistent on paying.  We acquired some glasses, and made for the back terrace, where we found a nice spot in the sun and drank wine.

Apparently we were drinking that bottle of wine a long time, because we managed to generate several photos of us, sitting drinking.  We speculated the marsh in the background was the duck habitat they were raising money to save.  We took turns with the camera, and some people were new to the world of thirty five millimeter photography.  Emily was keen on getting a photo of Gabe's unusual thumb.  All in all it was a successful photo shoot.  Emily said she wanted to use the camera for a photo shoot she had planned of her knees at some point in the future.  I told her she could use it as soon as I'd finished off the current roll of film.  Breaks were taken by various memebers throughout the bottle of wine.  Sara had to find the rest room, and I went in to get some macaroons.  I'm a big fan of Viansa macaroons.  Eventually, we grew tired of this winery, and headed off in search of this new winery.  An impromptu survey was taken, and no one felt like buying wine from this winery any longer.

We navigated the highways through wine country by memory.  Dave had a good sense for where the winery he was thinking of was, but it was getting late in the day, and we were starting to look for whatever looked open.  At one point, it seemed like we'd picked up a police car behind us, a recent American model car with its lights on before dusk.  White car.  I asked Dave to check, and he confirmed.  Being a glass or two into the wine, and still in glaring violation of the seat belt law, I opted to pull off.  The car didn't pull off, and from the side was clearly discernable as not a cop.  The tape was at "Movin' Right Along" (from the Muppet Movie) as we pulled back on the main road.  We passed a field that had several wooden cut out sheep on some hills.  Shortly thereafter, we came upon a huge mansion looking thing that was apparently a winery.  It looked open, so we went for it.  We'd been on the road about fifteen minutes since the last winery.

This place was enormous.  Emily and Sara both wanted photographs taken of them in front of their house.  Once inside this monstrosity, we found that we'd just missed a tour according to the schedule on the wall, and that we pretty much had run of the place.  The staff was arranging some glasses, and a giant bottle of wine.  We tentatively looked around, not sure if this was where we wanted to be.  This place didn't do tastings per se, but did have a menu for wine by the glass, or by the bottle.  We had a brief conclave after deciding the seating arrangement, and we decided to buy a bottle of ponot noir and split it amongst the six of us.  I believe I was allowed to pay for this one.  Dave did the official tasting, and it was to his satisfaction.  It was fairly dry, but palatable all the same.  Soon, the tour returned and filled out the rest of the tasting area.  Apparently the giant wine bottle was a crank for touristy photos.  We went for it.  As the photo was taken, Dave and Gabe were working out some sort of papal joke, where Dave was blessing Gabe, or the bottle, or something.  I forget.  After awhile, Alicia and Emily had to sojourn off to the bathroom together.  Someone asked the rhetorical funny question of why it was necessary to go in groups.  I suggested that women had been dealing drugs much longer than men had  This joke was well received.  Shortly thereafter, when our relieved companions returned, we decided to pony up and get out of this place.  It was getting a bit stale.  We had a discussion of whether it was appropriate to tip the hostess in this situation.  Eventually we decided a fifteen per cent gratuity was in order, put that money down, and left.

We did some stretching excersizes and some smoking before getting back into the car.  Dave led us the way to this, the long awaited and highly touted winery, with every expectation that it would be closed by the time we got there.  Shadows were getting longer, and people were getting about carred out.  "Car Madness", as Lee calls it.  Emily got fidgety and photographed our backseat contingent as we drove up into the mountains.  I managed to make a wrong turn at some point, and we ended up in a nice church parking lot.  It was briefly discussed whether this would be a good place to stop and take a smoke break.  We'd been in the car about twenty minutes since the last stop.  It was put forth that a church parking lot was not an okay place for a smoke break.  As we rolled around the parking lot, trying to exit with as much dignity in tact as possible, a church vehicle came up the road and pulled in behind us.  The driver smiled and waved, and so did we.  Turns out, the winery was the next driveway down.  We pulled into their parking lot, and found they were, indeed, closed.  We toured the grounds all the same.  It looked fairly impressive, even if we couldn't get in.  It looked like the winery had qute a bit of rain recently, as some of the planters were flooded in their stone enclosures.  I didn't realize it at the time, but this picture upside down looked a bit like a UFO.  I messed with it later, and made it even more space ship like.  After a qick turn of the grounds, we started to walk out again. This gaggle looked like a rock band photo.  I told Sara she could be the next Garbage girl.  As we got back in the car I noticed a lone tree on a hill in the distance, framed by a stop sign and a power line.  That was the last picture on the roll.