The day began at 6:00 in the morning. We all got up to
catch our 8:00 flight in order to begin a vacation that has been in the planning for the last 7 months. None of us could belie
ve the time had finally arrived. We got safely to the airport and made it through the 7 hours of flying without any complications or overly
exciting events taking place. Even our layover in Denver was smooth sailing. :)
Once we made it to the airport in San Francisco, we had to make it through a
bit of craziness to
finally get our rental car. We literally had to ride down an elevator, travel a moving sidewalk, go through a parking garage, go up a large flight of stairs (luckily there was a ramp), shove our way onto a tram, ride through 6 stops with people getti
ng on and off in a hurry, and finally fight our way to the car rental desk where we picked up our Saturn SUV. (We don't know what it is called.) It was a greater adventure than the entire flight across the country.
We got ourselves happily situated in the car and immedi
ately headed towards our true destination. . . Napa Valley. Immediately, we were blown away by the change in landscape, housing, and even the bridges. The desire to take pictures became a need, but the problem was I forgot to check my camera before I left and quickly discovered that I did not have any batteries. I was disappointed to say the least. The good news is that after we found the tourist town of Napa and had a wonderful lunch, I was able to get new batteries the documentation began. Yeah!
We decided that since our mental clocks were telling us that it was 6:00 even tho
ugh it was only 3:00 in California, we wouldn't push ourselves too much and we would just drive around the town and take in the sites there. Man, that was a great idea. We were able to first have our first wine tasting at a place called, "GooseCross." It was wonderful. Mom even got an extra tasting for free since she tried to pronounce the word Voigner. (She was
wrong, but the pourer was impressed at her attempt.) The wines there were rich and the reds were definitely full bodied. It was exciting to try wines that I could never usually afford. :) I discovered why people were willing to pay so much for a bottle of wine. They really do taste differently. They are good! No. . . They were wonderful. Unfortunately, we can't afford these wines at home, so we won't be bringing of these home either. :( Sigh.
We then drove around the town and looked at all the awesome neighborhoods. They were beautiful. The houses are so unique and it seemed that the flowers here grow bigger and more vibrant than they do in Florida. It seemed that every other house had an amazing rose garden around it and the others had other brilliant flowers somewhere on the property.
I think this simple drive was the highlight of the day. We loved seeing how other people live.
We did have one other tasting at Gustavo Thrice. This was another quaint place to have a tasting even though it was not a winery. We again decided not to buy anything here and would wait until to tomorrow when we went to the real places to purchase something to take home.
We had dinner at a place called Taylor's Refresher. Scott had seen this on the Food Network as having the third best burger in the country. It was a walk up restaurant with picnic tables and umbrellas all around it to sit. There many people already there and when we left at 8:00 the line was quite amazing. We all thoroughly enjoyed our meals here and Scott got a Tuna burger that was to die for. I think we were all pleasantly surprised at how great the whole thing was. The weather was perfect and we all just truly enjoyed each others' company. (That is why we like to travel together so much.)
We finally arrived back at the hotel around 9:30 California time so needless to say. . . we had had a full day and were ready to crash. If the entire vacation is going to be this fantastic I am not sure we are going to want to come home. I guess it is a good thing that our girls our back home, so that we will want to come back to them. I will say we all miss them.
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