California Dreaming

Monday I headed out to the other, larger Bay Area for a meeting at NASA-Ames. I'd previously never been in the area, so I was looking forward to it. We got in early enough Monday to head up to Napa Valley for a little sight seeing/tasting before the sun went away. My favorite stop was at V. Sattui where they have a deli and we also picked up some great cheese, salami, and bread and enjoyed a mini-feast on the picnic table. We also had dinner at Michael Chiarello's restaurant Bortega. I had oh so yummy braised beef short ribs with Meyer lemon spinach.

Tuesday all day was the meeting and we also got to tour the unitary wind tunnel where they were getting our model setup for testing. After formerly working in a wind tunnel in college it was neat to see the Ames tunnel, too bad I couldn't sneak into the 120x80 foot tunnel I've always wanted to see. In the evening, some of us headed into San Francisco for dinner, we made it to Fisherman's Wharf just in time for sunset. The rock below is actually The Rock, Alcatraz from the end of the pier. And that was it with a return to H-town the next morning. Didn't get to see much, but it was pretty what I did see.