DEATH at 14 mph!!!!

The last 24 hrs have been eventful to say the very least. Our evening started off calmly last night. It was a beautiful evening and our plan was to go to Fisherman's Wharf and see the touristy sites so we jumped on the cable car which pretty much runs directly from our hotel to the wharf.

The ride up was nothing to really talk about, but after a couple of hours of marveling at Alcatraz, psychotic seagulls, and the crazy amounts of people who are oddly facinated with giant smelly creatures...

we were ready to just get back to our hotel and go to bed. So, we returned to the cable car line for the ride back to Union Square. With the ride there so pleasant, I insisted we sit in the front this time so we could see everything on the way back. Little did I know that the ride back would be terrifying!

First, we were chugging along and we hit the first big hill... I'm not quite sure what happened, but suddenly we started rolling backwards down the hill. The "driver" is dinging the bell and the assistant is yelling at the cars behind us to "GO AROUND!" The driver throws on the brakes and gains control of the car. Then, after rolling backwards all the way down the hill into the middle of an intersection we charge up the hill and make it to the top and over down the other side. We then go through a series of turns, random intersection transfers, down some super-steep hills, and we're racing down a side street that intersects with another cross street which has a stop sign, when something happens that makes me think I'm going to die...

A giant white van runs through the stop sign crossing our path and SLOWS down in the middle of the intersection. I, sitting at the front of the cable car, can look the van driver straight in the eye as we are careening down the hill towards him. The driver of the cable car again throws on the brakes and the driver of the van seems to finally realize that there is a cable car flying towards him and drives on. We literally come within a foot of hitting him! At this point I want nothing more than to be off of that crazy car! In a few more blocks we are off and to our room where we collapsed from exhaustion and terror! I don't think my heart has ever beat so hard!

Luckily, today was much more relaxed. We took the ferry from San Francisco to Vallejo and rode a private limo through Napa Valley where we visited 5 different wineries and tasted numerous wine varieties at each stop. It was fantastic! The weather was wonderful and the landscape was beautiful.

It was a great (quasi-drunk) day! I'm sad that our trip is coming to an end tomorrow. However, I am looking forward to getting home where there are no giant hills or runaway cable cars. I now appreciate that about Ohio... Funny how a near death experience makes you appreciate the mundane.