Diablo-San

Last week, my brother and I went to the top of the Mount Diablo, which is the most prominent physical feature in the Bay Area (other than the Bay itself.) It's 3, 489 feet tall, and on a clear day affords a sweeping view of the area. Unfortunately, fog was covering the peninsula on the day we went, as it often does, so we didn't see much of San Fran.
The Native tribes of the area believed Diablo to be the center of the world. You see, it is the northernmost location of some Southern California plants, the southernmost location of some Northern California plants, and has some plants not found anywhere else on earth (the Diablo Sunflower and the Mt. Diablo Globe Lilly are two of them.) In addition, James "Grizzly" Adams used to hang out here. So, it's a special place.

Here are some pics.

Interesting rock.

On top of the world! Looking toward the Central Valley.

Jonny, doing some heavy lifting.

A Raccoon.

Jonny, smiling pretty.

Another interesting looking rock.

Jonny, doing some rock climbing.

View to the South.

More Jonny.

The trail on the side of the mountain. Very dry, low scrub vegetation - kind of feels like a desert.

A pretty looking plant.

View to the North. Our house is in there somewhere.

Sideways

So I haven't posted on here in nearly a month - apologies for that. Spent some time back in Dakota, job interviews, and the like have kept me busy - well, sort not really. I guess I'm really just lazy. I've taken several pictures during that time, and will be updating this here blog piece by piece in the coming days before Jonny, my brother, and Amber, my soon-to-be sister and law, get hitched.


So these pics are from a leisurely Sunday afternoon trip in June to some wineries in the Napa Wine country, not too far north of here. My siblings had to pick up some wine for the big day, and I came along to do some tasting. We went to six different estates. It was quite interesting to see the varying levels of snootiness at them - the attitude of the people working there. The wine was pretty good everywhere, although, I must confess, by the end, I couldn't really tell the difference. My new favorite wine is from a company called Grgich (pronounced Grrrrr-gich). They were fun, down to earth, and have great wine!

Here are a few photos:

The Coppola Estate, owned by the famed Movie director, Francis Ford Coppola. Lovely place, isn't it?

The Grapes of Wrath

Vines, at the Coppola estate.

More vines

With my brother and soon-to-be sister in law. She was kind enough to drive for us.

The happy couple

"Lean on me! When you're not strong!"

This is the Peju estate. Very good wine, but high on the snootiness scale.

An interesting looking flower.

Jonny, and grapes

Suburban traffic, and an oil refinery

Ambaah, in the rear-view mirror