Jon and I arrived back home safe and sound after a wonderful week long vacation to California where we spent a few days in the bustling city of San Francisco, and also a few days in California's wine country including both Sonoma and Napa! This was a trip we have wanted to take for a long time and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT! I think that the area of California compiled of Sonoma and Napa counties is a small slice of heaven! The land, people, and places there are absolutely beautiful!!! We enjoyed relaxed warm sunny days, sun on our faces while we drove around in our convertible rental car from place to place, fresh humidity free air, cool nights and mornings, the luxury of sleeping in (which for us meant we were up by no later than 7 due to the time change from EST to PST)!!! We saw so many cool places, ate at many cool restaurants, met many friendly people, saw some historic places as well as some touristy places, even saw some family and friends out there! Everyone should take this trip...I will go back sometime for sure! We loved wine country!!! We stayed in Sonoma at a wonderful hotel, absolutely beautiful. We liked the town of Sonoma better than the town area of Napa however if we did this trip again (correction, someday when we return) we would stay in what is called Yountville, which is in Napa county, between the towns of Napa and Sonoma. We found the wineries we preferred and the better restaurants to be closer to Napa...and to the tourist NOT familiar with these places, on the maps and in the books and internet it appears that Napa and Sonoma are very close...well they are in mileage BUT THERE IS A MOUNTAIN CHAIN that divides the two places (READ, WINDING ROADS, 45 MINUTES DRIVE BETWEEN AND WINE TASTING) so you really need to plan your days to avoid a trip through the mountains after wine tasting!!! NO JOKE!! Favorite wineries included Frog's Leap, CakeBread Cellars, James Cole, Petroni Vineyards, and Bennesserre. We quickly found that we liked the small family run wineries over the big commercial names like Mondavi and Berringer. We also learned that by total random luck, we visited at the peak time, what is called "crush" or "harvest". The vines were beautiful, full of bright green leaves and luscious grapes ready to be harvested ANY DAY!! If anyone plans to do this trip, take my advice and go in September as you will get to see some of the harvest but also be there to see leaves and grapes on the vines. A month or two from now all we would have seen of the vineyards would have been brown sticks which would have been a major disappointment after what we just saw!!! We even got to see some of the process of how they make the wine at one place since they were literally right in the middle of harvest while we were there. I cannot say it enough...even if you don't love wine, this is a wonderful trip for any couple to take and if you like wine, well then it is even better:) There is also no shortage of spas and relaxing places in this area, and for those that are adventurous...this is like the capital in the world for hot air balloon rides which we did do on our last morning there! Very cool experience!!
I can see how a wanderlust person with no family or responsibilities could visit this place and not leave. A few million and I could start a vineyard too and chuck the law career and all of the stress that comes with that!!! Got to play that lottery.......
We also enjoyed San Francisco. San Francisco has so much culture and was so hustle and bustle but yet coastal and beautiful with the fog rolling in on the bay each morning which we loved. The weather was cooler, it actually felt like fall to us (we had to go to a store to buy some more fall clothes as we did not pack enough) and were both pleasantly surprised to find that we had both lost enough weight to fit into a few sizes smaller of jeans since last year at this time, yeah!! I think our favorite part of San Francisco was the day we spent with my Aunt Erin and Uncle Mike in Sausalito complete with the ferry ride to and from past the Golden Gate Bridge. We also enjoyed our time over in Tiburon, which is next to Sausalito and required a drive in the convertible with the top down over the Golden Gate Bridge. We explored downtown areas with all of the big stores, as well as the most cultural areas of town including China Town and Little Italy. We ate meals in both of these extremely cultural areas of town. We had lunch one day in China Town and the food was amazing...we were the only non-Asians there, (who has ever experienced that, not me) and we had authentic chinese food which was awesome!! One night for dinner we ate in Little Italy at an awesome restaurant called the North Beach Restaurant (named because it is in the North Beach neighborhood of the city) and we ate there because it was owned by Mr. Petroni whose family vineyard we had toured the day before! We told the person who seated us that and he then introduced himself to us and said that is wonderful, you toured my home and personal vineyards, I am Peter Petroni, and he then gave us a private waiter and changed our reservation to one of the nicest tables in the restaurant!!! That was really cool and I cannot take credit for this coolness...it was all Jon!!! We had a great time, I will have to let the pictures tell the rest of the story. We missed the kids terribly and were happy to be reunited again this past Sunday morning. THANK YOU TO MY WONDERFUL MOM for babysitting for this past week. I know the kids really bonded with her and I did not worry about them at all in her care. Lets hope it is NOT 6 more years before we take another vacation like this! Next up perhaps next fall...Paris and London!!!
