Back to the trip to Napa. It was our first time to go across the Oakland Bay Bridge. Even with rush hour traffic, the trip wasn't too bad. Perhaps that's because Kathy was driving and not Carol or me. However, she scared the living daylights out of us when she tried to drive and take a picture at the same time. She SEEMED to be oblivious to the brake lights in front of her. She says she saw them, but Carol and I beg to differ. Regardless, we both gasped "KATHY!" and she jerked and griped at us for griping at her! (You can tell we're late into the 2nd week of our trip.)
We made it safely to Napa, discovered we weren't on the tour list, but we were quickly assigned a tour guide and we had a great time. The weather was perfect. The wine was good but dry. The surroundings were beautiful. We enjoyed seeing the process from start to finish. This was a small boutique winery that doesn't sell or buy grapes from anyone else. The grapes they produce go into the wine they make, and you can only buy the wine at their vineyard or through their club. It was a fun experience.
We walked around the town of Napa for a bit but couldn't find anything all that interesting. Someone said we should go to the Beringer Vineyard and Winery, so we took off for St. Helena, about 18 miles north of Napa. That was the best decision we could have made. The weather was still warm, the sun was shining, the grounds were lush, and our host, Mark, was helpful. He figured out pretty quickly what we liked and made sure to give us the best tasting experience possible. As opposed to the small vineyard we visited earlier, this one is large and well known and they sell wine all over the country.
Our trip is winding down. We're having Diet Cokes at McDonald's in Sonoma and planning our trip home. We're trying to figure out why we'll have to drive almost nonstop for 3 days when it seemed so much more leisurely getting here.
I know another reason why it's hard to think about getting back to the real world. We'll have to start our diets all over again. How boring is that? That's the price we'll pay for having a great time. No "wining" allowed.
Well, except for maybe this. Last night we wanted to do a couple of loads of laundry. They claim to have machines at the Motel 6, but as one might expect, they weren't in the best shape. We used our trusty Garmin to find a laundromat in the area. After one wild goose chase - which took us up mountains and on windy, twisty roads AT NIGHT (at least we saw a doe and her fawn up there), just to find out that there was no such laundromat - we finally found one just up the street from our local McDonald's hangout. We gathered all our quarters and stuck them into the washers in the nick of time, just before the 9pm last call. All was good. We then put the clothing into a dryer, dumped the last of our quarters into the slot, and it whirled around for one turn before it quit. It just quit! Like it thought our clothes were dry! We had to cash in more dollars and put everything into another dryer. We decided it was defective because after 30 minutes, nothing was dry. We were tired and grumpy and just wanted to get in bed. We slept with wet laundry all over the room. So much for taking fewer clothes next time.
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| O'Brien Estate Winery |
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| O'Brien Estate Winery |
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| Beringer Vineyards |
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| Beringer Vineyards |
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| Vineyards were everywhere! |
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