07/15/08- We left around 6:30pm to go to Napa Valley, CA. It's hard to believe we just planned this trip 2 days ago and are already leaving for a long, long weekend. Took around 5 1/2 short hours and arrived at the Discovery Inn hotel around 12 midnight. We originally were going to sleep out in the car figuring it would take longer to get there but we shacked up for two nights there and it was well worth it. It actually is a nice pueblo looking motel with a fridge, microwave, cable tv, free internet and breakfast. What else can you ask for on around $75 a night?
Before going to bed I tried to plug in my phone and found my cord had shorted out. Then I found that I didn't bring a piece of my laptop cord that I needed. Man, another trip where I need to get another laptop cord. I really need to learn to bring an extra.
07/16/09- Woke up around 9am, got the free continental breakfast from the hotel and was off driving around Napa Valley. Sure we could have taken a tour with a designated driver for $99 each plus tasting fees, but it's more fun to try and drive yourself and play where's the cop.
First place on our list was Mumm Napa. One of the highest rated wineries in Napa and it didn't disappoint. The vineyards were beautiful and the place looked more like a tourist attraction than a winery complete with a cafeteria and gift shop. We shared a tasting for around $16 and enjoyed the outdoor views. Unfortunately they didn't have any dessert wines for our taste but we felt buzzed none of the less. We hit the 12pm tour of the winery and felt ready to ride to the next location.
Due to the vast amount of wineries we weren't sure which to hit next, so we picked one close by. Upon entering we asked the lady there if they have any sweet dessert wines and they didn't. However she pointed us to two other wineries that did. Perfecto!!!! We jumped in the car and went straight to Prager Winery. Prager was a nice little German winery. The funny thing was how they had $1 bills with a thank you note written on them plastered around the place. We did find a great dessert wine called Sweet Claire Late Harvest and had to buy two bottles.
The other places we went to were Gooscross, V. Sattui, Jessup Cellars (which was more of a wine bar) and Merryvale. Overall we got 8 bottles of wine (one was for our friend back home) and greatly enjoyed the day.
We retired back to our hotel and ate a simple dinner from the local grocery store. Tomorrow is still up in the air. Should we do another wine day in Sonoma this time or something else? We shall see.
07/17/09- After some planning the night before we chose to drive to Sacramento for the day. We set the GPS in our car for our first location and drove the hour to get there. At first we had a hard time finding the place, but we found a sign that said Discovery Museum and quickly parked. Upon entering the place looked more like a children's day care than anything else. We asked the person behind the counter and found that this is the wrong address. What we are looking for is no longer the Discovery Museum but the Sacramento History Museum located in Old Town Sacramento. Hmmmmm, okay. Luckily this was located right next to the state capital which was our next stop for the day.
We walked around Old Town Sacramento for a spell and it was hot. The temperature in the car read 106 degrees. WOW!!!! We both shrugged it off though. We figured this is good practice for our November trip to Egypt. We took in the town and checked out the railroad museum there. Not bad. Next stop was of course the State Capital. We took a free guided tour around the premises and were done around 4pm. We did not see Arnold the governator though. Before leaving we took a dinner in at Joe's Crab Shack. WOW, that place is awesome.
We drove back to the Napa area and stayed at a different hotel this time just south of Napa called Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa. This was much better than we expected. It had a small pond with ducks, swimming pool, hot tub, its own restaurant. We were surprised that this was only around $85 a night. Until we went to bed and found the walls were paper thin. We are not one to complain at all but I actually had to call the front desk to have the next door neighbor turn his tv down.
We got some food from the grocery store nearby and bought a small bottle of cheap dessert wine. We didn't want to waste the good ones from Napa just yet. Unfortunately the cheap wine sucked. We ended up throwing it away.
07/18/09- After waking up around 9:30am we sat down at the hotel restaurant for some breakfast. We had a $10 discount voucher and only had to pay $5.00 (including tip) for our food. Problem was we were not expecting an actual restaurant feel and had to wait 30 minutes longer than expected for our food and to pay. Our waiter was a bit absent minded as well. No biggie. We also looked at the ducks on the sidewalk waddling toward the pond. The daddy duck was eyeing me something fierce. When I tried to walk by it snipped at me and got a hold of my shorts for a spell. I was like, Dude- slow your roll man. Seriously I laughed and just felt fortunate he didn't go for something else.
We started our drive towards the coast and headed for Carmel which is about 2 hours away. Once we got close to Hwy 1 we saw that the traffic was getting crazy. We decided to head for our hotel first in Salinas "Good Nite Inn". After checking in we took a different route to Carmel and went to the mission there. Overall the place was not really that impressive but I did manage to get some nice pics of the place. We were only there for about half an hour before getting bored, so we headed for the Wharf area in Monterey. We walked the wharf for a spell and ate at a place called Crabby Jims. We ordered the crab again of course. We actually picked this restaurant because of the soup. Many places were giving out free samples of their clam chowder soup and this was by far the best.
After dinner we headed back towards our hotel. We decided to stop by the mall in Salinas first and Best Buy to get me a laptop cord and phone charger. It was funny to see so many people wearing cowboy hats around that area. We also looked for a wine chiller to enjoy one of our wines that night (since our hotel room didn't have a fridge), but couldn't find one. But once we made it back to the hotel we asked the guy behind the counter if we could use their main freezer for an hour. No problem.
07/19/09- Travel home day. We left the hotel around 10:30am, got some breakfast at McDonalds and started our drive down the California coast for the way home. After about an hour of driving we finally hit the coast however the fog was rolling in thick. We couldn't see out in the distance of the Pacific Ocean at all and barely on the coast itself. Luckily it hadn't came over onto the road yet. We were actually getting disappointed until we finally found a spot where it cleared up some. We pulled over to the side of the road and took pictures. You still couldn't see the horizon, instead it was a wall of fog (literally).
As we continued down Hwy 1 towards Big Sur we saw better views periodically and took more pics. Man, I was in awe. Imagine this on a clear day. I will definitely have to do this again sometime. Around 2:30pm we made it to the Hearst Castle. We decided to check it out and found that the price was $24 per person for a partial tour that lasted 1 hour. What? There were 4 tours total to see the whole house so we would have to pay $96 each and spend 5 hours to view the whole grounds. Forget that. We got some souvenirs that had nothing to do with the castle and continued our drive home.
Around 5pm we were in traffic around the Santa Barbara area. We were tempted to stop over at one of their wineries but felt going home was good enough. Not 10 minutes later our right front tire went flat on the highway. We pulled over to see the whole thing shredded. Took me about 20 minutes to get the donut tire on. It would have been less time but the first time I jacked up the car it slid forward a bit. Dummy me forgot to put the emergency brake on the car as we were on a slight incline downhill. No harm was done though.
We drove around 60 mph on the hwy the rest of the 60 miles to home. Half way we stopped at a Wal-Mart in Oxnard and got a new tire. We tried to see how much it would be for them to put it on for us but their service center was closed. We were stuck with the donut since it was 7pm on a Sunday. Just have to wait until tomorrow to work that one out.
Made it home around 8pm. The trip was much needed and well worth it. Next time though I think we will spend more days in Napa Valley and soak up the wine. Maybe bring some friends with us.
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