How about another San Francisco Meet?

Cyclo-
I'll help with the beer and wiener meal.

CI found me on FB and we're in for then also. That last Gathering out there was wondermous.

We'll do a wine country tour one day while there, and maybe even rent a car and drive down to Hearst Castle (it's 230 miles from SF one way, so that's definitely a day trip).

Looking forward to seeing a few of you strangers.

Make it two days and take the scenic Highway 1 drive all the way down there. It is a drive so full of nature's beauty that you'll never forget it. You could spend a day in the Monterey/Santa Cruz area alone, and another one in the Santa Barbara area, and another in all the beach towns between Santa Barbara and Hearst Castle.

Geez, that makes me homesick. I wish I could afford to make a trip out there just to drive that highway again.

That really sounds wonderful, Butrfly. I'll have to plot that a bit, planning around and such. I looked at some of these ...

http://www.visitcalifornia.com/Trip-Ideas/?chapter=sf

... to be shortened into day trips, but your idea sounds better. Between this and a day for the wine country that pretty much leaves only a couple of days to visit with everyone.

I love the area around the Hearst property.. I also love north of SF, near by Point Reyes and Tomales Bay. Sob...

Glad you're going, Diddies. Did you get to the wine country back in 2004? I can't remember. That's actually worth 2 full days (well, more, but never mind). Aside from the wine, it's a beautiful area, it being a many valleyed thing for wine mavens. And north of SF isn't the only wine country..
The Santa Cruz mountains have some good vineyards. Paso Robles area.. Don't get me started..

<another homesick one>

Yes. we. did, Osso. And it was grand.

We still talk about those wineries we visited. One was as fancy as a Lexus dealership -- gleaming marble floors, violin and cello players in the corner, and the mail-order packages including gourmet food items and sauces (one of which we signed up for). Then there was the place that looked like a commercial warehouse with a picnic table and an upright metal cylinder out back, where a guy in a wool shirt with a dumb-looking yellow lab beside him strolls up and says "We just have one rule here at Big Jugga Wine: the redder, the better!"

There were at least three other wineries that fell in-between these in terms of luxury and presentation and so forth, but they were all excellent.

I want to make a point of stopping in Buellton at the Hitching Post, where they filmed a scene from Sideways.

When I last drove (sob again) through California on the way here, I stayed in Buellton. No, I didn't go to the pea soup place, did that years ago, and nah.

I'm a highway 101 lover..
If you'll be down in Buellton, then you will be doing the Santa Ynez valley/Santa Barbara County, et al.. now I'm even more envious.
Hope you have time for a day there..
this is just the first link I found =
http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/santa-ynez-wineries.html

That would be Anderson's pea soup restaurant; we haven't stopped there in many decades, and usually have a rest stop in San Luis Obispo in more recent times.

Hey, ci, have you had an opportunity to go to the Nut Tree restaurant in Vacaville since it reopened a couple years ago?

If so, is it as good as it used to be?

Right, we stayed there overnight a long time ago. I didn't mention the name since I was semi dumping on the place. I remember the food being, eh... at best, On the other hand, that was a long time ago. There are lots of other good places to stay in that whole area, in many price ranges.

That's also considered "wine country." They have some pretty good wine there; my wife and I stopped at several wineries when we were on vacation driving down to San Diego.

My husband I used to take off for long weekends just driving north (from west LA) up Pacific Coast Highway to join 101, and we stopped all around Santa Inez valley/SB county, Paso, and so on, over the years. Lot of happy memories, picnics, beautiful views, and good wines to take to whatever place to stay that we found (and also take home).

We went to Palm Desert from San Carlos for Christmas and (lucky me) my fiance wanted to take the extra time on #1. I'm so glad he did. It was some of the most beautiful scenery... around every bend,...losing my breath. We passed Monterey, little cabins along the route (Was that Big Sur?) I'd like to go there for our honeymoon-- but I think Master has different plans...

I drove by Hearst property..and would have liked to mill around. Haven't yet been to Napa. So, sounds yummy!

Big Sur is about 40 miles south of Monterey, just as beautiful though.

Hearst Castle is about 65 miles south of Big Sur.

We'll do the Colorado-New Mexico tour at first (same, I did in September last year) and then drive via Grand Canyon, Moab , Reno et. al. to SF.
Afterwards, we'll try to destabilize Boston and surroundings for another week.

I forgot the name of that restaurant on the cliff in Big Sur, but that's one of our favorite spots to look at the beautiful scenery. Our friends use to go to that very expensive hotel, Ventana. My wife and I just drove in and walked around a short while, and left. Even the air felt too rich for our blood.

Yep. Thanks. We drove through Big Sur on the way down to Palm Desert. The saddest thing I saw: the filmy brown cloud hanging over LA. I promise, there was a fresh new stink every five miles through LA. Sick baby diaper LA... old paper mill LA... old lady denture water LA...

But, that was the only low point in the drive.

I'll notify Homeland Security, Valter.

You people are making this sound like the whole A2K needs to take the Meetup on the road. (I'm sorry that some of you who would much wish to be there won't be.) Which complicates scheduling and budgeting a bit ...

The good news seems to be that two days to the south will enable us to take in enough wine to let the Diddies skip a third day to the north. Which leaves more time to visit and do the city things, like the Embarc and Chinatown and the Pier and the Haight and yadda yadda.

I also did the restaurant selections last go-around and recall we had a favorite at the one where we had our own little dining room , which made conversation a breeze for those of us w/audio challenges relevant to ambient noise. If that info is buried somewhere in an old archived thread it maight be useful as we plan.

Now might be a good time for the locals to chime in on potential dining/entertainment/lodging options, as well as any other suggestions for the group as a whole to do (we really like the museum trip, ci).

That started with S. Scala, perhaps. It is buried in the old archived thread, but that's a ferociously long one.

Aha, it's still there -
http://www.scalasbistro.com/

Here's the 2004 gathering thread -
http://able2know.org/topic/19053-1

Depends on how many people are coming, and what they want to do, of course!

Cycloptichorn