Children of the Vines

Pierre and Nicki, old friends from my undergrad days in South Africa, flew over from Chicago to spend the weekend. We hired a car and drove up to the Napa and Sonoma Valleys where we encountered lots of wine and sweet scenery, but no Russian River (we looked all over the place for it and couldn't find it. Maybe we were drunk at this stage). The photo shows us looking for the river. Fortunately we could eat grapes along the way.

Pierre and Nicki also got to experience San Francisco in all its many-splendoured diversity, including Tenderloin junkies using our car as a shelter to get a fix and a man with a giant cloth snake around his neck stripping naked to sun bathe in the Mission Dolores park as we sat there on Sunday morning munching our fine baked breakfast. Bon Apetit!