The PENguin Blog

--> One of the things we love about staying in bed and breakfast inns is the chance to meet new people. This time we ran into a young couple who were in California for a wedding and then came up to tour the wine country. He works with the UN training security forces in Liberia and she is finishing up a political science dissertation on community development there. So after a couple of hours of conversation on Friday, our last day, we were off to a late start. Finally, my foot was finally painfree enough for me to walk comfortably and so we planned a bit of a walk, with the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park as our destination. We never made it. The dominant question in wine country encounters is always “What wineries did you see, who gives a good tour.”   Our answer, couched in more diplomatic terms is that we don’t really go to wineries, after more than forty years touring here, been there done that. Only it turned out that Sharon wanted to see one specific winery t...

--> Yesterday we hung around Sonoma in the morning and then enjoyed a nice lunch with Barbara and Saul Kitchener, at Sonoma’s Fremont Diner, which serves some of the best fried chicken this side of Georgia. Because of my injured foot, today we toured mostly by auto apart from a short walk through downtown Healdsberg (see map in previous posting). From there we went across the hills to the Napa Valley and traced the Silverado Trail from Oakville to Napa, in the process going through Calistoga, which its late 19 th century promoters tried to sell as a resort, “the Saratoga of California." Along the way I was struck by the different types of vines and their different states of pruning. Now, I am no expert in oenology and I don’t even drink wine any more, but I retain a lively interest. As we have toured we have seen vines trimmed back severely, vines still in the process of pruning, vines left full and all stages in between, the differences depending o...

--> The highlight of our second day in Sonoma was a visit with Assunta Pisani, a former colleague of Sharon’s at Stanford who, like her, is now retired and lives nearby in Santa Rosa. Assunta’s sister Maria and her husband Vittorio own and operate VJB Vineyard and Cellars . The vineyard, in nearby Kenwood has been built along the lines of a Tuscan villa and we had a lovely lunch, pizzas of the sort that one normally finds only in Italy, and some fine conversation. Sharon was so taken with their Chardonnay, she and Assunta shared a bottle, that she got a bottle for our daughter and we stocked up on provisions for a light supper that we enjoyed at the end of the day on the patio of our B&B. It was lovely to see Assunta, a charming and literate woman. Before meeting her we took a very brief walk in Sonoma Valley Regional Park. Sharon has long been limited in walking by chronic arthritis in her foot. Just recently I developed a painful instep, so we did not ...

--> As those of you who follow The PENguin know, 2014 marks the beginning of our retirement. In December, Sharon left Stanford after 25 highly fulfilling years, and I will not be teaching this spring so that we can begin our travels. We started with a quick New Year’s eve run down to Monterey where we brought in the new year with our friends James Bryant and Mary Hill of Carpe Diem Fine Books . This scene from a beach at Carmel, just south of Monterey. And now, the first week in January finds us again on the road, this time going north to see friends in Napa and Sonoma and to just hang out in the wine country. Monday’s excursion was to Jack London’s Valley of the Moon Ranch.  Here you see the Museum that Charmian built to preserve Jack’s literary legacy. Back in the day when pen and ink were essential tools. The walk from the museum to London's grave site and the Wolf House   and the tragic ruins of Wolf House, the hom...