Off Pieste

Susan's niece and her boyfriend are on a 6 month internment at the Solar Living Institute in Hoptown, 100 miles north of San Francisco. Seeing as we're so close it would have been a pity not to have made the effort to go and see them. And it was well worth the effort.

The route took us over the Golden Gate Bridge along the Redwood Highway all along the 101 to Hoptown through the Sonoma Valley wine area which was hilly and very attractive.

The SLI is an organisation that promotes sustainable living and has, as the name suggests, an interest in promoting solar power. They run an extensive education programme and have a huge store selling all sorts of goods related to sustainable living, including organic and biodynamic wine which we tasted - and it was quite good too.

The couple share a cooking and living space with 6 other internees which is a yurt and have their own separate bedroom built out of cob. They grow much of their own food and have been overrun with produce. We helped them out by taking a couple of litres of freshly pressed grape juice, some round cucumbers, plums and heritage tomatoes back with us.

We had a brief turn around the gardens of a local vineyard at Campovidea munching on sweet, flavoursome, warm, ripe grapes and other fruit as we went around. Then it was to the local pizzeria for supper before the long drive back to SF.

On the way back we were pulled over by the cops in Santa Rosa as I changed lane from middle to inside to get off at the junction for a brief rest. The officer was very nice, just wanted to know why I changed lane when there was no need to. Advised me where to go to rest up and said how pleasant it was to meet someone from the UK. He said there were a lot of drugs runners on the highway.

Apart from a little detour through some roadworks at the Golden Gare Bridge, the rest of the ride back was uneventful.

That completed a rather eventful 24 hours starting with the unexceptional dinner in Lori's last night. We just could not get to sleep as an adjacent room had their air con on full blast that resonated through our room making it impossible to sleep, so at
00.45 I rang the front desk and we were moved to another, quieter and better room away from the noise. A result.

So, that's nearly the end of our time in San Francisco. Tomorrow we set off for Yosemite.