Turtle Driving

A few years ago, a buddy of mine and I invented turtle walking while participating in the weekly Sunday walk. The Sunday walk is big all over Europe, especially in the bigger cities of Paris, Stockholm, London and Barcelona. It's usually carried out adjacent to lunch to either build up your appetite or to burn off the festive meal. The Sunday walk is one of the reasons, I think, why Europeans are much more fit than their fellow Americans.

Anywho - the turtle walk, as it's name indicates, is about walking extra slow to embrace every detail of your surrounding, to really feel the splendor of life. The hypothesis is that if you slow down, your mind and soul gets a wider view of the present. The downside is that the future gets fuzzier. But letting the future go for the present once in a while is healthy. I think.

So yesterday, when the weather forecast indicated foggy San Francisco weather, we decided to head off on a classic roadtrip. It was either south, towards Santa Cruz and Carmel along Pacific Highway or north, to Tomales Bay or Alexander River Valley. When the weather is foggy in the city it's usually a little foggy along the Pacific Highway, especially around Half Moon Bay but clear and warm up north so that's where we headed.

We headed off early to beat most of the traffic and drove up to St. Helena via the Silverado Trail. I made sure to drive just under the speed limit to get back to the older days, when people took their sportscar for a nice Sunday drive. I was painfully remined off that those days are long gone when I saw the caravan of SUV's, Mini-Vans and Trucks that was building up behind us.

Once up in St. Helena we decided to head to Healdsburg via the Alexander Valley River Highway, a classic European sportscar road with sharp curves and wonderful alleys. It felt like the real winecountry with barns and vines without flashy estate signs and '$10 tastings here' signs. The rented limos were gone and we were practically alone on a 15-to-35-miles an hour road that followed the countryside like a secret shadow. The only few cars we saw were other sportscar (Porsches, Ferraris and MGs) drivers who happily waved in salute to the perfect day.

I couldn't believe that we actually had found this treasure in the midst of the winecountry, on a weekend preceding Valentine's day and with the best weather this year. I cannot wait to head up there again, but next time in the middle of the weak, at dusk or dawn to enjoy the solitude and hear the humming of my flat six 3.2 liter boxer engine. It hums like a colibri but have a roar second to a lion's.

We ended the day by watching the sunset at the Culinary Institute of America, planning the future whilst smoking a Cohiba. And since Napa looked more like a SUV convention than a winecountry we decided to have dinner at Tierra to explore their latest delights (Braised Short Ribs) while letting the traffic die down a bit. It was a fabolous decision. The food was fantastic and the road clear and open once we had finished dinner. I even got to do some speed driving at the traffic light on the 37 - zero to 80 in just a few seconds but don't tell anyone.