Wednesday began with Suzanne and I taking a walk around our neighborhood. We admired the hills down to the Marina and the Hotel Drisco and these hills that we walked and then some remarkable houses ad we focused on the TransAmerica Building in the distance and noticed the moon already in the sky which convinced me to take pictures of flowers interrupted by the views the houses and the hills before I was back to the flowers (which seemed to be a theme of the trip)

before we came to these steps down to the water with a pair of shoes that had been abandoned (obviously by someone who felt the stairs were too steep) and then I was back to flowers beautiful houses and his sign that stated the situation we saw around us though the flowers kept us very impressed

After checking out of the hotel, we drove downtown where parking proved to be quite the challenge but when we did park, we were treated to views of the TransAmerica Building again interrupted first by Mark Twain Street (whose words rang true for us) before we returned to views of the building from various angles

Once we got Jane, we headed to Sausalito where we had this view of the city as the touring fire engine went by and our hunger drove us to this restaurant recommended by my BlackBerry as Suzanne posed and Jane made a face and then posed so that I could take this self portrait and this picture of the condiments before Jane's sandwich Suzanne's sandwich and mine arrived along with the French fries and the ketchup to keep the fries going. After a very long wait for the bill, we took a few more pictures of what was a remarkable view of Alcatraz and of the city and then headed north on US 101 until this car driven by Sibelle Oskarsson (415.492.0777 (strutyourmutt@sbcglobal.net)) bumped into the back of our rental car because there were too many dogs in the car (including one sitting on her lap). Fortunately, there was no perceptible damage, so we drove on to the gate in Napa and entered the magic code so that we could park in violation of the signs in many languages and see Arlene and Michael. Our visit began with a remarkable tour of their orchards, gardens and fruit trees

including this bush which is actually in focus and further trees, plants and flowers

before we reached the olive trees (which felt very much like a scene from Tuscany) and the strawberry plants which tasted even better than they looked and a few quite beautiful flowers before Arlene took this picture of Jane, me and Suzanne and we were shown to our quite remarkable quarters

where after a few more flower pictures

we were taken to the Celadon Restaurant where these were our (very tasty) main courses before the owner took these pictures of all of us and after coffee and dessert, Jane posed with Greg Cole who is the owner and we recorded his Zagat's ratings before heading back to see the wonders in the Bernstein house.