Category Archives: _North America_

California Wining

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It had been some time since my last visit to the San Francisco bay area, so it was about time to return – with the main driver really being to see Lisa – my old pen pal, who I had originally met on my first trip to Antarctica – and to finally get to personally meeting some of her family.

So on this Saturday I was handing myself over to Delta Airlines to get me across the pond into Detroit (my favorite US airport) and then on towards San Francisco. I made it into San Francisco in the late evening (around 22:30) after two uneventful flights (good thing). Lisa and Harry did pick me up and we made it over to Oakland.

Sunday saw me sleeping until about 10:00 (not unexpected, given how timezones work). Over breakfast we looked into the planning for the upcoming days – to then head for an easy day of wining around the more local wineries.

We first made it over to Treasure Island – straight in the middle of the bay and straight in the middle of the Oakland-SF bay bridge – for a visit of The Winery SF (or simply W). We made our way through a number of wines. Not being a fan of Chardonnays (anymore), my focus was on the reds here – all were nice, though the Pinot Noir really outstanding.

On the way out we had a stop at the coast for a view over to San Francisco – before making it back into Oakland and a stop at Dashe Cellars to try some great Zinfandels. After a late lunch, we had a final stop at Rosenblum Cellars for a further tasting. Dinner was at home with a home-made Korean-style ox-tail soup.

Overall a great and easy going day – and a good introduction to California wines (which over here are still somewhat seen in the ‘mass-production’ and ‘nothing-special’ category) – and even better preparation for the following Monday.

Monday saw us driving up to Napa; Harry had secured tickets for the wine train – i.e. a train ride through the Napa valley, accompanied by a great lunch. With the train marketed as ‘wine train’, we somehow had expected the trip being themed around wine, e.g. with a proper tasting, some wine backgrounds etc. – but that was not the case, it was really more like a restaurant on tracks (with an extensive wine list though). To make up for that, we had another tour around the valley – after we returned to the train station. We also did two more tastings – one at the Whitehall Lane Winery and the other one at the Grgich Hills Estate.

So – two wining days … with many great wines – in other words two winning days 😉

Rochester … Fall-ing

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Business did bring me back to the United States yet another time – now to Rochester, Minnesota (and not New York, as the locals tend to stress) …

During the week the focus is on working with long days in the office, so the weekend is a nice chance to get out into the crisp fall air, and into nature to finally get some sunshine.

With a colleague I made the way from downtown to the Quarry Hill Park, a 3.5 km walk (one-way) to the Nature Center (with plenty of educational displays of local wild- and plant life; from here we used some of the parks trails to see the different habitats in the park (evidence below) … fall certainly is here … it will be winter soon.

Carolina Sky

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A business meeting did bring me back to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Below some impressions from my short connecting flight from Charlotte to Raleigh featuring some amazing cloud formations …

Good-byes

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The last day of the Rocky Mountain High tour … day of good-byes …

The first good-bye was silent … we were greeted by a new van this morning … Kelly had exchanged the old one (without working air-con) with another one (with somewhat working air-con).

The first actual good-bye was for Las Vegas; on the way out we stopped at the famous sign at the South end of the Strip for a photo opportunity.

From here we continued into California – towards the Pacific and Los Angeles. On the way to the hotel we had a stop in Hollywood and some time to check out Hollywood Blvd … before it was time for final good-byes.

Las Vegas

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I ended up doing my own thing on our full day in Las Vegas … I kicked it off at the Atomic Testing Museum around midday and then made my way to the Las Vegas Strip for an extended walk to get a closer look at the casinos.

into Las Vegas

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Our stop after Zion was infamous Las Vegas, NV.

We left Zion straight after the others returned from the hike; obviously it was a pretty quiet ride over to Vegas – with not more than a gas and a lunch stop on the way. Once in Vegas the first point of interest was an outlet mall – before we were heading for our hotel (right – no camping here … first night in a bed for weeks) and showers.

We met up again in the evening to go into town for dinner at the Bellagio buffet. I was still not in perfect shape, so made it back to the hotel after dinner – while most of the others continued with the night out Vegas-style.

 

Utah Ranch Stay

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We crossed the border from Arizona into Utah – for another ranch stay, this time camping and without taxidermy.