San Francisco Days

For those who do not know, we have taken a sanity break (vacation) to Maui. We have been here before, and find it very relaxing. We are currently staying in the Up-Country area of the island. We found a cute B&B called the Hale Ho’okipa Inn. We actually visited a winery yesterday, and purchased some pineapple wine. Nothing like what we drink back in California, but a nice departure. Today we actually made the drive out to Hana. It is a beautiful 33 mile twisty, turny road along the northern coast of Maui. There are plenty of beautiful picture opportunities and waterfalls along the way. We made it there in only 3 hours, which is fairly short considering all of the bad tourist drivers on the road. We had lunch in Hana and decided to go to the red sand beach. It had started to rain on our trek down the hidden path to the beach. By the time we got there we were soaked. It was a beautiful, almost surrealistic, hidden beach. The beach looked deserted until we got down there and found a small group of people in a small overhang area. One of the locals was polite enough to inform us that “faggots do not belong on this beach”. We had our look around and left. It is hard to believe in this day and age, that ignorant people like this still exist.

Tonight we are off to a great dinner at the General Store. Our friend Rick recommended it, and we ate last night at one of his recommendation, Momma’s Fish House, and had an incredible meal right on the ocean. I’ll post pics when we return, and keep everybody updated on the rest of the trip.

…But we did go to the HRC Gala Event last night in San Francisco. The event was to raise money to defeat California Proposition 8 on November’s ballot. This proposition would create a ban on same sex marriage, reversing the May 15th CA Supreme Court decision to allow same sex marriage. All money raised from last night’s event will go towards defeating Proposition 8, including a 1 million dollar donation from Bruce Bastian . This was a supprise to everybody there, and a truly amazing donation considering Bruce does not live in California, but lives in Utah!

Last weekend we went to the annual Kendall Jackson BBQ. Each year there is a theme to the event, and this year it was “California Cowboy”. We do not have any country western wear, so we did not dress up for the occasion. The folks at Kendall Jackson did supply us with cowboy hats.

The party was held at their wine tasting center outside Healdsberg. Our friend Kristen (aka Kiki, Kristinka) drove up with there with us.

Our friend Carolina (aka Carolinka) works for Kendall Jackson, and is in charge of organizing the event.

Yes we did go camping a couple of weeks ago, and yes it was warmer! Our friend Dean

was actually able to con me into jumping into the swimming hole. It was a good time and our tent was able to remain dry the whole time.

Scott found the hammocks to be a lazy way to spend the afternoon,

while I found the warmth of the sun perfect for me.

Dean had nicknamed me Lilly (AKA Lilly Munster) because I was so white. No matter, I still enjoyed the warmth of the sun. It was the 4th of july, so we had decided to be somewhat patriotic for the day, or night. Fireworks (or campfires) were not allowed (see California is burning) because of the dryness of everything, so this was the best we could do.

The person who opens his ranch up for these camping trips, is also the chef and art educator.

He primarily works in ceramics, and he does incredible works….

This is part of a collection (we know of 3 in this series) of casts he had done of his friend who eventually died of AIDS. All of the pieces are very moving and full of emotions.

Tomorrow we are going to head into wine country to attend the annual Kendall Jackson BBQ. this years theme is California Cowboy. It should be fun and pictures will be in the next post…

Scott has taken a job with Genentech in South San Francisco. Always ranked in the top 5 companies in the US to work for, he’s really excited and feels really lucky about the opportunity. He starts on August 11. With everything going on this year, we haven’t had time for our usual Spring vacation extravaganza. So, we booked a quick week on Maui before Scott starts.