Berkeley, Museum, Sonoma...

So anyway, after Memorial Day, we pretty much immediately flew out to California to link up with my family. A very brief two-post summary will now commence:


One of the first things we did was visit the California Academy of Sciences, a huge natural history museum. It has a wonderful assortment of things, including a huge aquarium, planetarium, a green roof, and a rainforest dome. Unfortunately, the dome was closed due to maintenance or something, but despite that, we still didn't have time to see everything.


Aquariums are always a favorite of mine. As well as obligatory silhouette photos.


Sea nettle from the aquarium. Among the other specimens hanging out there were various reptiles I've never seen before, an albino alligator (named Claude), a Pacific octopus, Alligator gars, and more fish than you can shake a reel at. So much fun.


The next, we did another always fun thing: wine tasting at the vineyards. Last time Cathy and I visited we went to Napa Valley but this time we went to Sonoma Valley. I gotta say, I liked Sonoma better since it was drastically more laid back, casual, and natural.


Seigo is not yet of age and so did not partake in any of the tastings, but he did enjoy running around the grape vines (this was at Wellington Vineyards).


Bartholomew Park vineyard. We ended up flying back with an armload of wine, some of which I'm enjoying immensely as I type this.


Eric and Rie actually live in Berkeley. A nice feature of their particular area was a weekly farmer's market just a short walk away from their house. We came to check out on one of the days.


It wasn't terribly big but there were more than enough tasty morsels to choose from and the local support is strong, which is great. We bought a variety of edibles that we snacked on for the rest of the week. Also, the weather was excellent everyday we were there - which wasn't all that surprising, but it was excellent.

Next post soon.