Ridge Vineyards

So, I told a friend of mine that I would blog yesterday.  And... I didn't... Sorry!  It's funny how the weekend gets away from you when you are settling in, catching up from being out of town/ working during the previous weekend and cooking 3 meals for the week.  What can I say?  I got in a groove and couldn't break myself away from housework.  Yes, I know.  Feminist pioneers just died a little inside.  I'm sorry to the women of the 1970's and 1980's, but I do love to fold some laundry, cook some meals, and see the clean open expanse of a tidied house (okay, apartment).

Anyway, about a month ago during Erik's and my 3rd weekend in California, we went to Ridge Vineyards (as foreold here).  It's shockingly close to where we live, and it's just amazing wine.  Erik's been a fan and now I am too.  Besides, they have release parties for shipments (we haven't gone yet) and they are so close that we can get free wine tastings whenever we want (we're members now).  Anyway, before going to Ridge, we went to the Steve Jobs memorial at 1 Infinite Loop.  I had the honor of being at Buckingham Palace and witnessing (and contributing) to the Princess Diana memorial in August 1997 so I made Erik go to the Steve Jobs one in Cupertino.  Yes, it's morbid, but we can say that we were there and paid our respects to a great innovator and businessman of our time.  Side note:  I do hope that it comes out that Steve Jobs contributed to charity in some way because there are no public gifts of note and that bothers me.

Anyway, some photos from the Steve Jobs memorial.

Flags at half mast

Erik looking appropriately somber

The memorial.
I didn't get much closer because people left a ton of
apples with a bite out of them (get it!?) and those apples attracted bees . . .

Even though there isn't a large crowd here, you can see that a bunch of
people have come to the site because of the wear on the grass.

Even the gas station near the Apple Campus had signs.

So after that rather morbid excursion, we went up into the Santa Cruz Mountains to drown our sorrows in some tasty vino (after having lunch in a tasty brewpub nearby).

Panoramic view towards where we live (Santa Clara)

This winery is unique in that they don't trellis all their vines.

In theory, you are looking at San Francisco.  If you click on the large version,
you may be able to make out the skyscrapers on the lefthand side of the photo.

Family shot

After Ridge, we went for a hike in the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve but that will have to wait for another blog post. :)

Housekeeping items:
I bought two new books for my Scavenger Hunt posts: one for nearby cities and one for nearby hikes.  Expect to see some posts from those (already able to check off 2 hikes and 3 cities!).  AND, my biggest accomplishment.  I finished all the scavenger hunts from my Inside the Apple book before I left NYC!! Yes, I know! I'm very proud.  But I'm also VERY behind in posting.  Don't worry, I have a goal to post more often now that we are more settled and work is starting to get in a flow.