Eastbound and Down....or Sonoma is a place, not a truck

Well, I'm at the end of my West Coast jaunt and let me tell you, this has been a trip well worth it. Napa and Sonoma Valley are two of the most beautiful places on earth. Forget all you hear about the politics, the people and the plummeting property values, California is awesome, for the most part. Maybe I am saying this due to the perpetual buzz of wine tastings and the food coma that I put myself in every night, but everybody should come out here and see it for themselves. The redwood forests, the beautiful mountains and the perfectly planted grape fields make you glad to be alive.

Moonshining in a Range Rover

These people are really into wine. I mean, it's almost fanatical. Some of them are so in tune with grape tastes that they can tell what side of the valley they grew on just by sipping the wine. These people are characters to say the least, and I enjoyed talking to all of them. They were all very interested in moonshine running stories, so I was happy to oblige with all I knew about dispensing white lightning throughout our state. Pride, baby. Cassville would have been proud. I told them about the origins of NASCAR, what "revenuer" meant and how Prohibition was the greatest thing ever for many north Georgians. These winemakers love the stories of souped up Ford and Chevys, tearing down the highway, outrunning the police and the IRS and into legend. These were my ancestors and my heritage, and dang it, I'm proud of it. However, I did tell them that it would be hard for them to run liquor in their Range Rovers and be taken seriously.

"Run liquor?" one winemaker asked.

"Oh," I chuckled, "yeah, they would drive down to Atlanta from the mountains and sell it to rich people with speakeasies. The IRS wanted their cut of the sales, that's why they had to run it in the middle of the night or use a front." (My ancestors used a construction company as a front)

He thought that these people would come UP to the mountains and buy it, kind of like a wine tasting. I could see it now....a crowd of people in a tour bus pulls up in Rabun Gap, Georgia....

"Yes, I'll try your finest white, please. Oh honey, look at that cute copper still over there! Hey! What kind of shotgun is this?"

"Uh, they all fine and they all white. How many jars y'all want?"

It would deteriorate from there, a gun would be probably be drawn and all hell would break loose.

Hot Air Balloons and Mudbaths

Mark two things off the bucket list. I went to Calistoga, California and got in a giant wicker basket and floated 900 feet above the Valley, seeing the vineyards in a different, very cool perspective. The only thing that we were not prepared for was the fact that this basket held 14 people. I have noticed that any group of humans over 10 people is no better than a herd of cattle. In fact, I prefer cattle. All they do is eat, moo, and poop. Have you ever seen how long it takes to deboard a plane? It is pure madness. Hell, I bet a herd of cattle could be off that jetway in 20 seconds.

As with any guided tour, you have the normal group of people: the middle aged guy with a fanny pack who makes constant commentary and thinks he is funny, but he's not; the nervous women who make inocuous comments about the equipment failing; the dorks with their jackets tied around their waists; the hungover younger couple who could puke at any second; the sweet older couples who are too nice to tell everyone to shut up and of course, the foreigners who smell of stale cigarettes and chatter in their native tongue constantly with the cameras on autoshoot.  I was able to ignore all the commentary and the fanny packs and really enjoy it.

Then, it was mudbath time. Mubdbaths are not for the claustrophobic. You step into the warm mud and cover yourself in it and you really cannot move. Not to mention, it is 95 degrees in there. I had sweat running down my face and in my eyes. The point is to sweat out all the toxins in your body, which I did, along with my manhood. I basically laid there for twenty minutes and panicked until it was over. I even tried my Happy Gilmore happy place scenario (me at a Georgia football game where they hand the ball to Herschel every down, the Jumbotron plays Three Stooges episodes while I'm served filet mignon, pistachio ice cream and pecan divinity by my grandmothers) It didn't work. Plus, I was trying to justify this decision to the people back home...

"You paid to waller around in mud? Hell boy, you coulda done that for free down at Allatoona! Gene! C'mon over here and listen to what this fool did. Boy, I knew college would turn you into a liberal!"

Luckily, we were able to go to the "cool down" room, where I laid with a cold towel and cucumber slices over my eyes. What is the point of the cucumber? I don't know. I wish it had been pizza, because I would have scarfed it down as soon as they shut the door. This was probably my first and last mudbath.

I left my heart in San Francisco...and went back to get it

San Francisco was...random. You think the homeless problem in Atlanta is bad? If the homeless problem in Atlanta is a sprained ankle, then San Francisco is a torn ACL. They are everywhere and they are aggressive, I felt uncomfortable walking around in several areas. I went to Haight-Ashbury to see where the Summer of Love took place back in 1967. If you need a Grateful Dead t-shirt or if you want to smell what concentrated body odor/trash smells like, then Haight is your place. I was not impressed and I hate that, because I like the history of the area.

**Sidenote: if you wonder where marijuana is located in the city, just walk down Haight Street. I got more "Hey man, you need some green buds?" than "hellos." Or you could just settle for the secondhand high coming from every apartment on the street.

There were nice places, but I doubt that I will ever return to San Francisco on purpose.

So, it's "Eastbound and Down" for us, back to good ol' GA. (+1 for Smokey and the Bandit reference) Thanks to Wine Country, I can now say "Nice Cab!" without sarcastically referring to a busted yellow Crown Vic on Peachtree Street. I will truly miss the West Coast and I will definitely go back. Now, I just gotta get back to drinking without my pinky up......