Yesterday morning, I walked up the hill from their place, which is a private property trail that a few miles away connects to the Marin Headlands. I got a pretty long look at a lifer WRENTIT on this walk.
After, we got ourselves together and took Kevin's dog Ronin to get shots at PetCo, which was not as bad as we thought it would be. Then we moseyed to the farmer's market and bought some stuff that we would need for otu eggplant lasagna dinner. After the market, we went to Sho Chiku Bai Sake factory in Berkeley where we checked out their museum, and had a 7-course sake tasting. Kevin is no longer a sake hater. To spend a little more time in Berkeley, they showed me a pretty good brewery called Jupiter, which has a bluegrass band playing.
This morning I went to a brackish wetland I had seen on the previous day's driving. I had seen a couple of terns and waders, and thought it might be worth checking out during a low tide. It was. I saw 6 species of ducks, including bird #250 of the year, a BUFFLEHEAD. The wetland, Corte Madera Shorebird Wildlife Sanctuary, was incredibly diverse avifauna-wise, including AMERICAN AVOCET, BLACK-NECKED STILT, BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON, DOWITCHER, YELLOWLEGS, and FORSTER'S TERN, to name a few.
Kevin, Kelly and I went to Napa in the afternoon, since they had to get some things taken care of on their new used car. While they were fixing the small issues, they gave us a courtesy car, which we used to hop some wineries. Kelly is a club member of the Whitehall Lane Winery, so we got a personalized tour and free tasting.
On our way back to the car dealership, we decided to hit another one, Chandon, which specialized in champagnes. It was decent, but the reds at Whitehall were hard to beat. I can say that now, because I'm kind of a wine professional.
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