I went to Derrick Story's Sonoma Coast Photo Workshop which was such fun. Derrick is a terrifically nice person and he puts a huge amount of effort into making the workshops great.  It flowed beautifully without being totally exhausting.  I loved it!

The people who attended were so talented and interesting, it was fantastic to meet them. If photography is your thing and you can manage to get out there, I highly recommend it!

One of the secondary reasons I did the workshop was an excuse to get a vacation in. My husband and I haven't taken a real vacation in years. We have done family trips which are fine, but sometimes it takes an extra push to move out of that particular type of trip. This was perfect. We had not been to California before and there was the Wine Country and San Francisco to take a peek at, both of which are completely different than our usual daily lives. Perfect!

Here's a bit of what I found while tooling about Northern California.

- if the car rental place gives you a Fiat 500 because that's all they have... you will talk to a lot of people. Everyone wants to know about it.  I was wondering if my husband would fit - he did - but he had to duck quite a bit to get in the door and thus banged his head a few times. Us + luggage = a somewhat tight squeeze. heh.  It drove very well though. Not a bad little car and very light on gas. It does draw attention.  Hilarious. 

- I am not a big fan of winery hopping. One can move between wineries, but if you're driving, the fun stops pretty quick - give me a nice wine bar and a hotel within walking distance - way way more fun!!!

- that said Korbel does an excellent tour and Champagne tasting. Their "Natural" label is really very good indeed and turned out to be my favorite, not too sweet, of the 5. (yes 5) types. There is quite a bit of history on display. The first man they hired to make champagne insisted on having his own darkroom as he was an amateur photographer! So they have many photos from back in the day - fascinating stuff. They also do a garden tour. The gardens around the original house have rose bushes that are over 100 years old!

- they grow roses near vineyards because... if there is a mildew problem, it will strike the roses first and alert the vineyard owners to take steps to keep it from hitting the grape vines! That is a wine fact. (as James May would say in his show James May's Road Trip - where he tours wine country to find a good wine for the average person in Britain - excellent show when one can find it on BBC)

- I was delighted at how well the people of N Cali drive. It was so restful after MA. They tend to be rather sane on the roads and I knew what they were going to do! How odd is that. Also on the twisty roads I was shocked to find they actually stay in their lanes!!!! Wow!

- SF itself is much like NYC or Chicago. People watching is incredibly fun in the city itself but they do have 1000% more tourists than I've ever seen in any one location.

- I tried White Zinfandel for the first (and last) time. Holy crap!!! People drink that stuff??? I had never had it before.  Our hotel bar had a very pricey wine list, White Zin was the least expensive thing by far (which should have been a huge red flag). Now I know - run away - run far - run fast! What an awful sickly sweet glass of not quite wine. GAK!!!

- OTOH I did find a new wine I haven't seen out here in the East. I must look for it here. It's called Geyerhof Gruner Veltliner from Austria.  It was a lovely tart wine that went beautifully with food. The bar tender at The Slanted Door recommended it - they were out of the Sauvignon Blanc I wanted to drink. (Yes, I know, the restaurant is on the Embarcadero, which simply screams "tourist trap" but it was most excellent - especially for a late afternoon lunch!)

- all the above being said, I could not live in N. Cali because I seem to be allergic to it. My hayfever was really annoying while I was there. I was taking Claritin like mad and it made no difference.  Who knew!  I was always told that drier climates were much better for hayfever sufferers.  Not so for me!!! Thank heaven I never thought to move there. A vacation I can handle, living there would be miserable.  Strange.

When I can manage to get the rest of the pics up on my computer, I will likely be posting more photos here.  At the moment I think I need a break from photography software though... the Apple meltdown of the RawCamera.bundle was a bit too much after a long trip. 

And thus endeth a vacation.

Posted by: Teresa in Travel at 07:54 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 876 words, total size 5 kb.

I'm back.  I took an actual vacation.  It involved cameras but also this



and this



and this



And even this



And that's just from the iphone.  heh.

More later. It's taken me 2 entire days to get some stuff back to normal... including Aperture (my photo software) that Apple updated and managed to break in the process... rolling back is a royal pain. Good grief!

Posted by: Teresa in Travel at 11:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 71 words, total size 1 kb.