Waking up after three hours of sleep is a lot easier when you know you’re leaving your bed for Napa, and not your routine commute. A 7-something AM cappuccino and bagel clumsily consumed at the pick up point outside the Parc 55 hotel was all I needed to help me explain to myself why my blanket and cloud-like beanbag bed had been given up. That’s in comparison to the six cups of coffee (new record!) that I needed yesterday to just get through my first day back at work.
The espresso began to kick in as our tour guide drove us through downtown San Francisco. By the time we got to the Golden Gate Bridge, my vision was far less obscured by my eyelids. Trying to get my well meaning, but not very versatile iPod camera (the battery of my camera-only camera was still happily charging somewhere in our room, while the lifeless camera itself bounced around in my bag) to cut through the famous fog to reach the international orange of the bridge was quite a task.
The nice people at Extranomical Tours were kind enough to give us an upgrade on our wine country tour, and we were able to see the Muir Woods as well. With this last minute addition to our original plan, we found ourselves wandering through the ancient forest which, I am now fairly sure, decorated a few pages of my year 8 Geography text book in India.
Walking with redwoods
There was some picture taking, a lot of talking in hushed tones, but, for the most part, the shutting up we both needed. Being secluded amongst impressive redwoods, and other respectfully silent visitors facilitated the start-of-vacation relaxation process. The trees just exuded age; a learned and practiced calm, but a tired one. Or perhaps that was projection.
♫I Came Across A Fallen Tree… I Felt The Branches Of It Looking At Me♫
Hi!!!
I can further stalk you now!
Lalala…