Saturday, March 31, 2012
Breakfast at home with Patrick: soyrizo, mushroom scramble, hash browns, dinner roll, hot water. Patrick drove us to Napa. Lunch at Oxbow Public Market: salmon-spinach crepe from La Crepe!, bignes from Ca' Momi. Checked in at The Chablis Inn. Shared a taxi with Andy, Scott, Ray, Emery, Patrick. Another taxi arrived for James K and Kenneth L, who surprised us all with their arrival. Champagne reception at the train station. Checked in, then boarded The Big Gay Train, an LGBT event in which you have an elegant dinner with wine pairings aboard a train that travels about 10 miles per hour for (I think it was) 4 miles then returns. We had a great time. The service and food were excellent. Our party was seated together as promised. We sat in the Vista Dome Car, which was well worth the slightly extra expense over the regular cars. We boarded near dusk, so there wasn't much to see, and on top of that it started raining as the train left the station. In addition to the meal, we viewed the kitchen from giant windows and also enjoyed a drink and chat with other guests in a bar/lounge car. Afterwards we spent about an hour at the afterparty at the Hilton across the street from the train station. Then we shared what we thought was a taxi back to our hotel. Instead of a taxi it turned out to be the Hilton's free shuttle—score! Some of us spent some time in the hotel's hot tub. A fine evening. Today I met or encountered mauricio, scott (aussie), phillip, ben, george, matthew jr (from alabama), matthew sr, larry, michael (aka miguel). Cold almost all gone, still some congestion in the chest.