Dermot broke out his clubs for the first time at 5:45am, and played Eagle Wines Golf Club. Katie and Liz finished the homemade cake for Becca’s Birthday Party that night and grabbed breakfast at sweetie pie’s bakery in town.
Dermot played with two Napa valley locals and won $5, while Katie caught up on world news at the coffee shop. After packing up our life on wheels, we re-invested Dermot’s winnings into some sandwiches and wine tasting on Silverado Winery Trail. Liz gave us some great recommendations, and Katie’s chauffeur took her to 4 wineries, attempting to avoid $$$ tasting fees. After visiting Stag’s Leap, BV (the O’Brien’s wedding wine, delish), Elizabeth Spencer’s, we met a cool couple who recommended Salvestrin’s.
Salvestrin Estate Winery was hands down the best visit of the day, with the very personable and knowledgeable Cynthia who told us about the 75 year old Italian winery. We tasted wines complimented with tomatoes from the family’s garden, dark chocolate and also got to taste grapes ripening right from the vine. Excellent time!
We head into San Francisco to be the ‘decoy’s for Becca’s surprise birthday party—only to get stuck in bay bridge traffic… so we ended up taking Becca to Zeitgeist for a drink to enjoy the perfect Indian summer weather. Back to 1306 Dolores, and Becca was surprised with about 15-20 of our friends- including Dermot and Katie’s friends that stopped by after the bbq for our homemade cake and cocktails!
Day 18
Happy Birthday Becca! We took Becca to the neighborhood breakfast joint, Chloe’s. After starting the day with mimosas, we were very productive including getting the car rear hub and rotor fixed, an oil change, as well as doing some 2008 trip planning.
We stopped by Adrienne’s house to visit her 2 week new bundle of joy, Alex, as well as her 3.5 year old Leah. We brought over turkey and avocado sandwiches and caught up on the past two years, before heading to the financial district for our travel agent appointment with Airtreks. After 1.5 hours worth of feeding the meter on Dee Dee’s Car (Thanks D!!), we have made some positive progress on our flights and trip planning.
We picked up our car, and went back to the old apartment to pack up and get organized before Becca’s Thai Birthday Dinner at Koh Samuai and the Monkey. Jay planned a fabulous pre-fix menu with enough food to feed a small army! We got to meet many of Becca’s current and former co-workers, including an awesome woman who took a year off work to travel as well. She gave us great tips and advice for our ventures in South East Asia. Fat and happy, we headed back to the old 1306 for our last night in my old apartment.