2007 October 11-18 San Francisco and the Napa Valley

The Ripon College Alumni Association sponsored a tour to San Francisco and the Napa Valley and asked Bill to host it. I went along for the ride, and we had a lovely trip seeing new sites and revisiting places associated with family. Bill’s mother grew up in Marin County across the Bay from San Francisco and his parents lived in San Francisco as newlyweds. More recently, Steve and Maria lived in Napa for three years and Kate was born there.

We were on a Collette Vacations Smithsonian tour with Ripon Alums Greg and Kathy Dunn, whose daughter Jennifer was a Ripon Alpha Delta Pi during one of my terms as chapter advisor. This was only a six day tour, but we saw a lot. We did a walking tour of Chinatown in pouring rain, a bus tour of the city in bright sunshine,

and a trip across the Golden Gate in complete fog.

Napa showed us the same variety of weather conditions, but our luncheon trip on the Wine Train happened on a glorious fall day. We thought of little Anna as we rode by Taylor's Refresher, her favorite restaurant.

Among the highlights of the trip were visits to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco; the Ma-Tsu Temple of America in Chinatown;

a tour and barrel tasting at Silverado Vinyards;

various art galleries, including several in Yountville and the museum and gallery at Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts; dinner at the Culinary Institute of America; several classes--dim sum cooking in Chinatown, and food and wine pairings and blending and bottling our own wine at Copia;

drinks at the Pacific Union Club and dinner at a tiny French restaurant on Nob Hill as guests of Ripon College alumni Guy and Susan Henshaw (Left to Right: Greg, Kathy, Bill, Jean, Guy, Susan);

lunch at John’s Grill (opened in 1908) and a backstage tour of the San Francisco Opera with my Colorado University friend Meg Franklin, who also got us opening night tickets to the Magic Flute;

and my birthday dinner on the 46th floor of the San Francisco Hilton.

No trip seems complete these days without an airline story. We got a whole extra day of vacation courtesy of Northwest Airlines, since it took 27 hours to make the trip home. Time on the tarmac, time in a holding pattern, rescheduled flights taking us to extra cities, and a night on mats in the Minneapolis airport still failed to dampen our spirits about a trip that was altogether good fun with fifteen great travel companions and an outstanding tour manager.