The journey started out with an early alarm to make our 7am flight to Sacramento. It was delayed a bit with some mechanical problems but soon we were in flight. We got our car in Sacramento. What a surprise. The agent asked if we wanted to upgrade and we said “No”. We walked out to the lot and looked for the car in U25. What!!! It was a Chrysler PT Cruiser. We ordered a compact and expected to get something like a Neon. Oh well. We never seem to get what we order in CA. It was okay. Sucked gas big time and drove like a van. Actually it was kinda stressful in the traffic because I wanted a small car.

We decided on breakfast at 33rd Street Bistro which was very good. G had the smoked salmon and eggs and I had a tasty scramble with smoked trout, eggs and potatoes. Yummm. The only thing I didn’t like a lot was the toast. Way too thick. But I’d love to go back.

The trip over I-80 was typically; fast and speedy. We headed to our first nursery, Magic Gardens in Richmond. They had an okay selection but nothing new. We ended up getting a black succulent for G’s Mom. Next up was Berkeley Horticulture. Always a great place to visit. Unfortunately, they hadn’t gotten all their deliveries yet for Mother’s Day and the selection of Salvias wasn’t great. We were hoping to pick up a couple of different greggi hybrids but nothing much available.

Next it was off to the Berkeley Botanical Garden. Time flew by as we explored the areas. The California area was not readily accessible so we investigated the South America and Mexico areas. We were so surprised to see the xxx in bloom in the Chile area. These are plants that are in the bromelia family and we did not get to see any when we were in Chile. But here they were in full bloom and they we wild. One of the blooms was chartruse in color. The other one was a strange aqua-ish blue color. It was so weird it looked plastic. We were running out of time so we rushed off to see what we could in the Mexico plants and saw several great salvias in bloom.

We were getting hungry so it was off to Solano Avenue. First stop Solano Cellars to get a couple of bottles of wine. I picked up a St. Clair Sauvignon Blanc from NZ and an interesting Riesling from Germany. Then off to Cactus for some Mexican food. G had the Chile Rellenos, his favorite, and I had the rock shrimp enchiladas which had a great green mole for the sauce. We were in heaven. Then off to fight the traffic and a two hour drive to the Valley.