San Francisco Revisited

We arrived at Nacho and Stephanie's Weds afternoon. Stephanie had left us a key but it didn't work so Nacho's brother Gilo kindly came over to let us in. We settled in and around 16.00h Stephanie and Nacho arrived home. It was lovely to see them again and really kind of them to let us come and stay for a few more days whilst we prepared the bike for Mexico. We caught up on news about college and work and had a wonderful supper of tacos de papa made by Stephanie.

On Thursday morning Stephanie made up pancakes for breakfast and they were simply delicious, topped off with her mum's home made jellies.

On Thurs & Friday David set about servicing Nancy, getting her tyres changed, and chatted with Nacho about repairing the side stand. We had made a list of what needed to be done. It seemed a long one and besides all things mechanical to do with Nancy, included fixing David's earphones (they need a new jack plug); replacing David's inflatable pillow which deflates in the middle of the night!! Washing clothes and motorbike pants which were filthy; Nikwaxing the Meindl boots to keep then waterproof and supple (these have been an excellent purchase for bikers who need a protective boot, coupled with one they can hike in also); writing and uploading the Blog; replying to emails; Skyping friends and family; shopping at REI for a replacement Leatherman for David as he lost his small one, a Petzel headtorch as David's has fallen apart, and a big job was fixing the Autocom intercom. We have had this for a number of years and when it works it is brilliant. The trouble is the wires are quite fragile and somewhere or other there is always a problem with a disconnect. This time it seemed my headset was the problem. Last time we were in San Francisco, Nacho's dad fixed my earplugs by putting on a more robust jack plug, which worked a treat. But now the problem is with interference coming through the earplugs which drives us bonkers. And also the microphone sponges are a worn. So over the next few days David serviced Nancy

and I worked my way through the rest of the list.

On Saturday Stephanie and Nacho had a big family supper of Chili Rellano,

Mexican Rice and Tomato sauce, followed by my contribution of sweet potato pie sold as part of a fund raiser for cheer-leading competition to be held in Florida, from the next door neighbour; and chocolate cake. The ladies spent the afternoon skinning, stuffing, coating and frying chillies, making sauce and rice

and

supervised by Nacho's mum Claudia chef supreme

and Stephanie chef par excellence

Then we all tucked into a magnificent feast

and

Check out these chillies-fabulous!

Thank you ladies

Then we sat around and chatted

and curled up on the sofa

A jolly good time was had by all!!

The following day was Sunday and we had decided to have a day off with Nacho and Stephanie to go out for a ride

We filled up with fuel

David discovered an oil leak from the rocker box cover, then headed off for a high spot so that we could get a good view of San Francisco

The weather since we arrived this time has been perfect. Shorts and tee shirt weather. And we could see the Golden Gate Bridge

Then we took off for Napa Valley to see some vines

and do some wine tasting

and

I soon discovered that here in Napa Valley you have to pay for wine tasting, anything up to about $50 and you are limited in what you can taste (spoilsports!). The only winemaker that doesn't charge is Sutter Home, so that was where we went and was allowed to taste 4 wines. Not quite a good day out in the Loire Valley!! Nevertheless I purchased a quite palatable Zinfandel and Sweet Red.

Our final day was spent sorting out the oil leak and doing admin. As I sit here it is about 16.00h. We have been hard at it all day in preparation for leaving tomorrow. And we think David has mended the oil leak. Nancy is looking hard worn but peachy!! Bit like me really :)