We recently got together with good friends to tour around San Francisco and the wine country for several days.  It was all sorts of fun, but a comment from the owner of a bed & breakfast at which we stayed got me to thinking, which is a dicey proposition during any vacation, much less one involving wineries.

This kind lady had lived in Sonoma for some time, and had seen it grow up from a small farming community to a small wining community (the main ingredient required for this transformation is money), so we asked her advice one morning before setting out to take in the sights.  "I don't know," she said with a shrug.  "Frankly, I've never understood why people want to come here.  To see what?"

Just that fast she had turned the tables on us.  It didn't seem fair.  After all, we were paying her to stay there, and now she was making us make the sales pitch.  Then again, she already had our money.

Perhaps it was simply a matter of familiarity breeding contempt.  Certainly that's how it seemed to us, as we walked around the charming town square of Sonoma on a sunny 4th of July.  We even stopped to race one another up a climbing wall, something I'm fairly certain none of us have occasion to do at home.  My good friend Squid was at first distressed to have come in third, until later (ten minutes) over beers he realized (rationalized?) that his mistake had been to have been the only one to make the climb in pants.  Come to think of it, that may also explain why they invited us not to make it a best two of three.

The shops seemed quaint, the restaurants tasty, and the cold beer especially refreshing.  A good many others shared our enthusiasm, but not so many that it seemed like an amusement park for parents who had misplaced their children.

The same can't be said for the hundreds of wineries in the area.  Years ago our visit had more of a feel of discovery about it.  Obviously we weren't among the first to find the tasting rooms at the wineries dotting the countryside, but we could at least pretend we were.  This time, the bars were filled three persons deep, and our hosts were far less entertaining as they collected our money and poured our samples as quickly as possible.  It would not have surprised me if one offered me a "suicide", which is what the kids call a drink that includes every flavor at the soda fountain.  Of course, by the third or fourth winery, they might as well have.

There's also much more to buy than there used to be.  Where you used to find wine and items generally associated therewith - such as cheese, bottle openers, and snooty Frenchmen, you now can procure hats, shirts, furniture, and large mammals, which may or may not be snooty or French.

In spite of the crowds, we managed to have a great time.  That was almost entirely a function of the company we shared, rather than the wineries.  San Francisco is a cool city - cold, in fact.  Mark Twain called July in San Francisco the coldest winter he'd ever experienced.  We're convinced they manipulate the weather to boost sweatshirt sales.  Some of the people - particularly those employed by the mass transit system, are not the friendliest.  One gleefully informed me that his trolley was full, but even if it were not, he wouldn't let me on because I had walked in front of him when he had a green light.  And there's a bit of a smell to San Francisco, which led us to give it the tagline "Let it rip!"  It's not as if anyone would notice.  So the fact is we would have had a great time in just about any place, and often have.

And walking along the square in Sonoma, I wondered how many towns nearer to my home featured interesting downtowns with fun shops and bars.  Probably many of them, I decided.  But if I ran into someone vacationing there I would wonder what they had been thinking, much like our hostess did with us.

The question is, whose perspective is more apt?  Is the bored local a better judge of his own community than the fresh eyed visitor?  Or could it be that there are great discoveries hiding right beneath our noses as we commute to work, the grocery store, and the pizza place?  Maybe, every once in a while, it would be a good idea to visit your own community.  Perhaps we should bring that same sense of pantsless wall climbing adventure to our home towns?  At least then we'll know for sure that they're as lame as we think they are.