Napa Valley trip today!

Today, me and a couple of PARC interns went to Napa Valley, wine country which is famous for its wines where some of the wineries have won many awards. It was a great trip, we had to go through San Francisco to pick up an intern and on the way there, we stopped by Pier 39 to see if we could get any tickets for the Alcatraz tour (home of the famous federal prison before being declared a national park and place) tomorrow afternoon. But unfortunately, they were all sold out! We tried to book online yesterday but for some reason we couldn't, there were technical difficulties with the web site. We then went across the Bay Bridge to Hwy 80 East. We drove on the car pool lane (the left most lane) which allows for 3 or more persons in the car. In Toronto, Hwy 403 now has a designated car pool lane, where before none of the highways had a carpool lane. We crossed the Carquiuez Bridge, which is a toll bridge, and then we were supposed to turn at the Marine World Parkway exit. However, we missed it and so we had to go all the way back, but on the way back, there wasn't any Marine World Parkway exit. We had to go across the Carquiuez Bridge again and then pay a $3.00 toll again. We finally made it onto the Marine World Parkway, Napa exit and then turned right onto Highway 29 (also called Sonoma Blvd). It was quite a ways, probably about almost close to an hour before we were in St. Helena.

On the way to St. Helena, we passed by a town and it was called Oakville, my home town in Canada! I wanted to take a picture but I didn't. Anyways, we finally arrived at the V. Sattui winery where we went to visit, eat lunch, and taste some wines. For lunch, there was a BBQ so I had BBQ ribs and macaroni salad as you can see below.



Here are some photos I took inside V. Sattui.













The wine that I really loved the most was Mustkat, it had a nice fruity taste to it.
After tasting the wine, we decided to go to another winery called Sterling Vineyards. However, when we arrived there, they just closed, they close at 4:30 pm and we arrived 4:35 pm. Doh! So, even though we couldn't go in, I just took some pictures outside of the winery as you see below.





At Sterling, there was a cable car that goes up a mountain (probably maybe where the vinery is), but we couldn't go because we just arrived after closing time. After, we drove back to San Francisco and passed by through the country side, where we were in awe with the scenery of the vineyards, mountains and fields, it was so beautiful! Also, we passed by a race car grounds, which reminded me of the movie Cars which I saw last night. We wanted to go see the bay across from the Vista Point at the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was so foggy that we couldn't see anything! So, we just crossed the Golden Gate Bridge into downtown San Francisco. We wanted to find Tangerine Orange on Castro Street, but there was so much traffic of cars (due to the parade in San Francisco today), that it was very difficult to also find a parking spot. Everything we thought we saw a parking spot, we couldn't park because it was in front of a driveway entrance or fire hydrant, and it's against the law to park there. We finally found a parking lot, and then decided to eat at a sushi restaurant.

It was a very fun and tiring day today!