Happy Anniversary to Us

Last week was my and Joe's 2nd Anniversary and we celebrated by getting the heck out of the city! Joe planned it all, only revealing hints about what we were going to do. I suspected we would leave SF, and I also suspected we would go to wine country, but that's all.
Friday night we stayed in SF. We went to dinner at Ana Mandara's, a beautiful Vietnemese restaurant right on the water near Fisherman's Wharf. The inside looks like a lush movie set, and the food was delicious. Joe gave me my present, which was the first season of Battlestar Galactica (score!) on DVD.
We tasted some wine at a little shop in Ghiradelli Square to kill some time, then sat on the stone steps leading out to the water, waiting for Fleet Week fireworks. It was a beautiful night out, and Joe gave me a second present, which was a box of chocolate truffles. My favorite, I wonder how he knew?
Unfortunately the fireworks were on the east bay, not the north where we were, and because of the cloud cover we couldn't see them at all. We started to walk towards them, but on the way found a cool bar where an Irish band was playing, so we decided to abandon fireworks for that.
The next morning we got up bright and early, packed overnight bags, and went to breakfast at Sears Fine Foods in Union Square. They're famous for their 18 tiny Swedish pancakes dish, which I got, along with lots of coffee.
The next suprise was...our Avis rental car! We picked it up, Joe handed me directions, and off we went! Turns out we were headed for the Santa Cruz Mountain wine region (Napa being swamped at this time of year). It's about 45 minutes away, not counting the time we spent lost among the steep and twisting back country roads.
The first vineyard/winery we went to was Cooper-Garrod Vineyards in Saratoga. The owner himself gave us an hour long tour that was very good. He taught us things about the area, and the history of that particular vineyard. We got a free tasting of their wines, though I didn't love most of them. We did buy an interesting 2000 Claret, though. They also run a horse stable and we watched some of the students practice doing tricks on horseback, which was pretty neat (though scary, since most of them appeared to be eight-year-old girls on the brink of falling off and being crushed).
On the way to the next vineyard, we passed an estate sale. Since we actually had a car and we saw some furniture for sale, we decided to stop. It was more of a rummage sale coop, really, but we found a neat old coal bucket and a coffee table. The coffee table is extra long, and a little beat up, but it was only $15 and we managed to fit it in the car by laying the seats down. The wood inlay along the sides is beautiful. The center of it is what I at first took to be plastic. I thought it was like those plastic countertops that are made to look like marble. Nope. It's marble. Unless they make fake marble so heavy even Joe can't lift it on his own. Luckily the center piece comes out so we could carry it together.
To be continued...