Chris Isaak Charges Our Battery

Dara arranged for us to go see Chris Isaak in concert at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, about a half hour south. It's actually a Paul Masson winery, and they have a cozy outdoor concert venue with bleacher seating and chairs out under the stars and trees. To get there, you go into the hills for a bit, and then you take a winding road up the mountain through the vineyard. They have restaurants up there, so we went early and ate while enjoying the great view over the south bay. You can drink while listening, so it felt like a cross between a bar gig and a concert. Chris Isaak was great! We used to watch his TV show on Showtime, but I think it's reduced to reruns at this point. Now that we've gone to this concert there, I expect we'll look for some others. We also know the right place to eat, that you should bring seat cushions (ouch!), and that you should wear your woolies, since it gets quite cold when the usual summertime fog starts to creep in over the mountains.

We had an unfortunate adventure on the way home when we returned to the Prius only to find out that I had left the damned thing running the whole time. In my own lame defense, I will say that when it is running on the battery, which it was while I backed into a parking place, it's a little difficult for the inexperienced to tell if it's on. Anyway, when we got back, I pressed the "On" button, which turned it off. Then I pressed it again, and every warning light on the dash came on. Basically, this high tech beast drained its own battery when left on and parked for three hours. Since it was all downhill off the mountain, we cruised out of the parking place and down the hill, foot on brake to cause the battery to charge. At the bottom of the hill, it still would not automatically start the engine when I pressed on the gas, but it was running reasonably on the electric. We then pulled over, turned it off and back on again, and everything was pretty much okay and back in running order. We are left with a "Check Engine" warning light, but according to various Googling, that will go away after a few more drives in the car, when the computer then decides that everything is really okay and stops warning you about the previous problem. Way more adventure than either of us wanted.