Immanuel Boys in the Bay Area

Almost a year ago Rebecca Brown started quizzing me about summer camps on the east coast given her baby boy Max – who at 18 is now no longer a baby – had expressed interest in working at one during summer 2024. Fast forward 10 months and three 18-year-old boys fresh out of Immanuel College grade 12 arrived on our doorstep, full of stories about summer camp, Nashville, Philadelphia, Scottsdale and all the spots they explored in-between. My old man and Max’s grandfather attended Immanuel College before Edison invented the lightbulb, and I also attended high school there with Max’s dad Ed, so it was quite the circle for us to have the opportunity to host Max and his Immanuel mates in California as they made their way back to Australia. Also great for us to finally be able to repay Rebecca and Ed for all the times we’ve bunked in with them on the farm over the years!

I tried to give the boys a tour of all the uniqueness the San Francisco Bay Area has to offer, and there was nowhere better to begin than with a tour of the behemoth operation at La Crema in the midst of the 2024 harvest. Fortunately it was a light day for grapes last Friday and the patrona was able to devote an hour-or-so to showing the boys everything from the crush pad to presses to filters and ultimately the massive barrel cellar. Always something fun going on at the winery when the grapes are coming off the vines…

After a weekend in the mountains for the Last Weekend of Summer in Arnold we spent a day touring west Sonoma County, beginning with the gentle giants of Armstrong Woods in Gurneville – many of the trees over 1000 years old – before heading out to Sonoma Coast State Park for a few pings of the Aerobie. (Rebecca: Max needs an Aerobie for Christmas so he can learn how to throw one…) And to round out the day Jarrid was kind enough to give us a tour of Ocean Breeze Dairy after a scrumptious lunch at Fisherman’s Cove in Bodega Bay.

A week in the Bay Area just wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the Golden Gate and San Francisco, we managed to scoot down there one day after school to catch the bridge on its way to being enveloped in Karl the Fog. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve stood at Battery Spencer overlooking the Golden Gate, the view just never gets old. The three boys were pretty enamored with the vista, especially as the fog rolled in over the headlands to engulf the main span. The Haight with all its vintage clothing stores was a big hit with the boys, as were the candy stores of Chinatown. We even got Josh to branch out a little from orange chicken for a delicious dinner of chicken wings and salt and pepper spareribs at Capital (I think he actually liked it too!). A great day down in SF before we bid the boys farewell this morning…

After dropping the boys off at the ferry this morning so they could enjoy San Fran on their own for a few days I returned home to a lovely bottle of wine, scrupulously tidied beds and thoughtful handwritten notes on the table from each of them. I hope their parents are ready this and puffing out their chests with pride, they were a pleasure to host…