No way, I'm in San Jose!

Friday night I arrived in San Francisco to visit my best friend Christa and her husband Paul.

After some sushi and getting all settled in their apartment in San Jose, I slept wonderfully.

In the morning we had a great, albeit strenuous, hike up Mission Peak. Before they moved out here, I had given them a book on 50 hikes within 50 miles of SF and the Bay area and this was a hike featured in the book. 

The hike offered us some beautiful views and we really had some perfect weather.  The path was listed at 6.2 miles and we caught some stonger winds on the final switchback.  At the top, we felt pretty lucky that we dressed in layers and put back on our long sleeves. The trail must have been pretty popular because there were TONS of people doing the hike with us.

After we were done we enjoyed a quick lunch and a little relaxation before Christa and I made our way to do some wine tasting.  We decided to forgo the Napa/Sonoma vineyards for the closer vineyards in the Livermore region (mostly because the hike took me a bit to get up to the peak so it was later in the day).  However, we were REALLY happy with our experience in Livermore.  We started at Concannon Vineyards.  The place is HUGE. They were having a big celebration, with live music, tastings and other pairings and the guy doing the tasting for us had worked there for 31 years and shared with us some history on their vineyard. Of course the wines I liked best here were their 2 more expensive bottles ($65), but we didn't get anything.

From here we made our way into the main part of town, where we found a cute little olive oil shop where we could do tastings.  The olive oils and balsamic vinegars were so good.  We were even more impressed that the lady working at the counter was the one who runs the farm, and basically handles everything for her business, even down to the design of the labels.

She recommended that we make a stop at 3 Steve's Vineyard.  We really enjoyed this stop. 

Steve got us set up and welcomed us to our tasting (yes, this was really one of the Steve's as their vineyard's name indicates). We had some nice conversation and nice wine.  Everyone here was so personable and it was a great recommendation. We closed the place down but not without leaving with 2 bottles!

After  a nice dinner on the grill (oh my goodness, it was soooo good to have food off the grill again), we went out to San Pedro Square to hopefully catch some live Irish music to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  Well we found a table outside but it wasn't close enough to the music.  My cousin Cory also lives out here and he was able to come meet us for a few beers too. It was fun to see him.  San Pedro Square was a pretty fun area.  Where we were was called the Public Market and it felt kind of like a big cafeteria, with a bunch of different food stands that you can take out on a tray to your table.  We didn't have any food, but we bought a few bottles of beer that they'll open for you to take out to where you're sitting. 

It was a fun night (which is why this is getting posted this morning).

Now I better get up and get dressed in my shorts and tanktop....did I mention it's around 80 degrees and things are green outside? LOVE IT!