Napa, Day 1

We only had three full days in Napa, so I ran the preliminary plan by Meghan and Kim on the way to Napa on Wednesay night: I knew Meg loved Domaine Carneros (the quintessential vacation spot that we fell in love with on our honeymoon) and that Kim liked bubbly so I figured we could head there first thing in the AM on Thursday and plot our Napa strategy over morning bubbly. I brought our Frommers book, a list of wineries that Jessica recommended, another long listing that Brett and Meghan have honed over the years, and another booklet we got from the rental car place to aide in our planning.

Our host/server at Domaine was, of course, awesome. The place really knows how to cater to their customers/guests. As he delivered our champagne flights, we asked him to recommend some wineries. Actually, I said, "If you could only go to three wineries in Napa, where would you go?" He brought out this amazing wine weekly magazine with an AWESOME map in it and immediately made 5-6 recommendations. The guy was SO excited about the locations, and several overlapped with Jessica's, so I knew we had to hit those for sure.

In addition, his recommendations overlapped nicely with my sub-plan - to pick a smaller area of Napa and really explore it. The area is so big, with hundreds of wineries throughout Napa and Sonoma that you can spend much of your time just driving around the region instead of hitting wineries. I wanted to cut down on the driving/traffic time and maximize the winery time. And since most of the recommendations we gathered kept us in the Rutherford/Stag's Leap regions, that dovetailed very nicely with my thoughts on reducing time cursing in traffic!

Here is the group after plotting out our strategy and some bubbly. The weather, as is typical during this part of the year in Napa, was idyllic.

After Domaine Carneros, we hit a couple of the Domaine guy's recommendations. The first was Robert Sinsky, where they had food pairings with the the wine. We were under the impression that this would be a lunch-type event. Instead there were 4 pours of wine with tiny little servings of food. As an example, the first food pairing was HALF a mini-quiche. What the heck? Why would you make a mini-quiche and cut it in half?! The food pairings were super yum though - the other ones were herb-roasted almonds, olives, and then a cheesy roll thing. The wine was good but our server seemed a bit uninterested. She was nice, but nothing great!

After Robert Sinsky we headed to Silverado Vineyards with the intention of hopefully finding some lunch. Unfortunately, they didn't have a deli but they pointed us toward the Oakville Grocery. We had a wine tasting flight at Silverado before heading off to lunch.
And took some pics! The views from Silverado were amazing!!
At Oakville Grocery we all got sandwiches except for Brett and Meghan. They got a wheel of goat cheese, a big baguette and some pepperoni/salami meat sticks. They looked super yummy!
After our late lunch we had time for one more winery, so we headed to Goosecross. They had these cool wine bottles dipped in chocolate!
We got in another group shot!
Goosecross is a really small, family-owned winery. The ambiance was pretty nice and everyone was pretty friendly. Plus the guy comped our tastings because Jessica recommended the place!
Tasting room had barrels stacked up to the ceiling.
After Goosecross we headed home for some nap and chill time before our 8:30 reservations at Bottega. I totally didn't take any pics at Bottega but it was amazing - definitely an experience! I would highly recommend. They gave us a huge table in the front of the restaurant and we felt like rock stars. :)

Tahoe trip!

We're back from Tahoe and to say I had a great time wouldn't do it justice! I had an absolute BLAST! Now, I am not a very sporty person AT ALL. My hand-eye coordination (or hand-brain coordination sometimes) is total crap. I only learned to use an elliptical machine a few years ago. And my skiing experience is limited to one 7 day trip to Breckenridge with the family when I was 13 or 14. Now, I remember taking almost a full week of ski school, and then spending two more days running double-black-diamond runs with my Dad and brother. But that was over 15 years ago! And while I did ski in college a few times - I remember being way unsteady on my skis. While that could have been due to the fact that the hills in Indiana are covered in ice rather than snow, it could also mean that my memories are viewed through rose-colored glasses and I wasn't the complete snow-sport bada$$ I thought myself to be.

Well, I decided the first day to just go out on some greens and blues and see where I was at. And I was pleasantly surprised. I was able to parallel ski and take some turns down the mountain. The skiing did wear me out and I was ready to call it a day around 2:30. Once I was tired, it was harder to keep control and I took one big spill where I went butt over teakettle, rolling down the mountain and smacking my head and neck on it (chiro, appointment for Monday please!).

At the top of the mountain, Day 1

Shortly before this picture was taken I was checking Chad for weakness. But thought I'd be slightly more appropriate for the pic.

The second day we took an intermediate class where the instructor corrected a few small things (boots were too loose, we were committing to turns to late which caused a quicker, more out of control turn) and after that I felt on top of my game! I felt like I could have spent a whole week out on the mountain. I'm sure after a few more trips and practice I could be back on the black diamonds - I am way more cautious now than I was as a teen, and my legs are in no shape for the superquick swishing to be sure. But now I feel like I can get back to that skill level at some point, and that feels good that being good at something isn't impossible.

The thing that sucks is that I don't really like any other sports, and I can't ski very much where I live now. BOO.

So the second day we did the class in the morning, and in the afternoon we skied with the group of our friends. Chad and Stacy and I decided to head to the far side of the mountain and work our way back. At the top of the last lift, he said "Ok, on this trail to the left is blue. The right is black diamond (expert). They meet in the middle, so you girls go to the left and I'll go to the right and we'll meet up."

As he skied away, I thought: "Famous last words. We are screwed."

This is not a picture of the hillside we were going down

So anyways, we look at the hill and it's a sheer precipice - we can't see where we're going until we shove off the top of the mountain. And baby, that's not how I roll. I like to know where I'm going first. So we skiied down the side parallel to the dropoff a bit - to see where we were going. That's when we realized the area we were supposed to go down was completely ungroomed. There was a trail, but it was RIGHT under the lift only, and the place we'd skied down to had no trail, nothing. But at that point we kind of had to go down it. Great.

About halfway down that area (and stopping and discussing our options every few minutes, with the option of taking skis off and hiking back to the top sounding better and better), we finally realized that about halfway down the ungroomed hill we were on there was ANOTHER sheer dropoff. Oh yay (insert Chad-cursing here). We skied parallel to that one for a while before finally popping back out onto the trail. Whew. Only it had taken us so long that Chad thought we hadn't waited for him and had bailed on us. Boo. So we raced back to the lift and snagged it up the mountain to head back to our lodge, completely on the other side of the mountain.

Once we did the next run and got to the next lift, we had fifteen minutes to get to the top of the mountain, ski down it, and hit the next lift before they closed. So we hauled butt to the final lift and got there at 3:58, 2 minutes before closing time. We took the final run down to our lodge and walked in to cheers from the crowd that we actually made it back. It was kind of fun, like we were our own little band of heroes, just me and my friend Stacy. At least people didn't have to come retrieve us from the other side of the mountain!

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Here are another few pics of the group on the last day. Mike and I stayed in and rested up - I could have skied some more, but I didn't want to get back to Chicago all tired and sore. So we stayed in and watched movies and took naps. But it looks like the group had fun!

After they got back from skiing, the group above jumped in the hot tub. Brett said he would get Chris a drink that night if (in his swimtrunks) he jumped off the deck railing into a snowbank with a bellyflop and did a snow angel. I happened to be watching from a window up above and saw the whole thing, it was awesome. That is so our friends, making silly bets.

All in all, it was a great trip. The place we stayed at was amazing, and our friends are already talking about going back next year!

all pics stolen from my friend Deanne!

Baltimore Girls Weekend

This last weekend was a reunion with my girlfriends from high school! We started this last year when they all came up to Chicago... this year we decided to all head to Baltimore to visit our friend Jill!

We coordinated our trips extremely well, and Jill picked us all up between 4 and 5 PM at the Baltimore airport. We all piled into the Ford Flex (big square SUV type thing) that she had rented for all of us and headed to her house in the Baltimore suburbs.

That night we had so much fun, looking up stuff on facebook, drinking wine, and laughing. Jill and her husband Chris made tacos with steak and chicken and fresh guacamole and salsa. It was all so yummy! The girls wandered off to bed and Jill and her husband and I stayed out on the deck with a bottle of wine and lots of good conversation.

The next morning we all got up, got showered, and headed to DC. We drove a bit closer in to the city and then parked and rode the Metro. Here are a few pics of us on the train! They were SO much cleaner and nicer than the El!!

Sara, Kacey, Karrie and Erin. Sorry Sara, this was the best one!

Me and Jillybean

First we decided to see some sights....

White House

Playing with that color accent again. As I took this picture some lady turned to her husband and said "You realize that is OUR house, right Clive?"

Washington Monument... by this time I was missing my DSLR... I was tooooooo lazy to pack it!

The Capitol and national Mall area

After walking around seeing sights and the First Ladies exhibit in the Smithsonian, we headed to Georgetown for some QT at Anthropologie, H&M, and Paper Source. I also made everyone duck into Dean & Deluca for some white truffle oil - yum! I got new pajama pants at Anthro (I have one pair from there and wash them every weekend so I can wear them for the upcoming week!), and picked up placecards for my sister's wedding at the Paper Source (green or ivory... couldn't decide so I got both!). After that we took the Metro to Filene's basement where I scored a few fake pairs of Sevens (I like the material and pocket design so I don't really care that they are knockoffs/lookalikes) and a shirtdress that I've been scouring the Earth for. All in all, it was a great shopping trip!

We ended up walking around so much that we had to drive directly to our 9:30 PM dinner reservation at Woodberry Kitchen. We were a bit out of place in our walking-about clothes b.c the place was super-trendy. But oh well. Seriously, if you are EVER in the Baltimore area, try this place. It was AMAZING, one of the best meals I've ever had! A bit hippy dippy (The waitress actually said that their cows are happy and you can taste it) and she gave a bit of bad wine advice to my friend, but the food was amazing.

I started the meal out with a mint julep and every intention to photograph everything I had.
So yeah, I would be a really bad food blogger because the food comes and I don't think "Picture!" I think "OM NOM NOM how can I get this food in my mouth faster?"

Jill and I couldn't decide what to get so we split the heirloom tomato plate (with jalapeno oil and aged balsamic), the crab mac& cheese (omg so good) and the seared tuna with caprese-peach salad (seriously, on the plate it went like this tuna-heirloom tomato-fresh mozzarella-slice of fresh peach-repeat four times... something about the peach in there just made the whole plate)

With dinner I also had a really good glass of Cabernet Franc that I kind of wanted to kiss.

Dessert was a glass of Muscat and a dish of basil ice cream. When you see something that weird you HAVE to order it. And it did NOT disappoint. Now I need to find somewhere in Chicago that serves basil ice cream.

At the end of the dinner, we were all a little punchy. Sara and Erin had bought us candy Grillz (like ring pops, but better... the grill part was plastic and the part you put in your mouth was a sucker) in Georgetown and Sara got hers out and started fooling around.
Jill was none too pleased. "YOU GUYS! I want to come BACK HERE! Behave!"
Once we got back home almost everyone went to bed but me and Jill. We stayed up a little later, hanging out in her office and fooling around on her computer, checking out blogs and home decorating ideas, discussing deep thoughts about life in general.

The next morning we had to get a few shots of our grillz. Yeah yeah, Bosse girls!

Me and Jillz Grillz

So yeah, the weekend was amazing. It was so much fun to see all the girls and to hang out with them - I had such a great time and I am so glad I have these girls in my life. :)

Get better, Italy!!!

Hmmm, awesome

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_italy_earthquake

We're leaving for Italy in a little over a month.

Did I ever tell all ya'll about the earthquake that hit Hawaii right before we went there? Yeah, we must be GREAT earthquake luck.

August 20

Last day of the honeymoon! So sad!

At one point the day before I had written out instructions on how to get to Korbel, as the plan was to hit Korbel and then Iron Horse and head to Oakland. It may not have been a coincidence that I wrote down the instructions that led us straight past the hamburger shack (Taylor's Automatic Refresher in St Helena, the whole town looked oh so cute) that we had been to the day before (Mike needed a cheeseburger after all that horrifying mud, and I'm not one to turn down the prospect of a chocolate milkshake). The food all looked so good that I wanted to try it again when I was actually ready for a meal, instead of just for a snack.

Waiting YEARS for my chili dog to be ready... Hello, bra strap!

Usually I don't eat onions around Mike, but for this I made an exception. My chili dog, Mike's cheeseburger, my onion rings, and his fries all lined up deliciously.
I didn't make it all the way through that chili dog, but I conquered the onion rings. As a side note, this meal was $25. This place is making a KILLING.

After getting lost and taking more than a few wrong turns, we were running dangerously behind schedule and decided to hit up Iron Horse first. Like Bella, this place was in the middle of nowhere, CA. Iron Horse made the jeroboam (3 liters) that my Dad bought for the wedding, so seeing it was kind of special.

Jeroboams, everywhere

They must drink alot of bubbly around these parts

The Iron Horse tasting room was an outside wooden bar overlooking the Sonoma countryside, and was so beautiful. We both decided that the guy serving the tastings, Damon, had a pretty good gig - serving wine in beautiful weather in shorts and a t-shirt. He said it got a little chilly in the winter, but other than that he liked his job. Everyone at this winery was ridiculously nice. We started talking about our wedding champagne, and next thing you know, Damon was giving us a free gift of wedding cuvee. He was so fun and great to talk to and the bubbly was SO GOOD. They call their wedding cuvee the "swiss army knife" of sparkling wines, as it was intended to be liked by people with all kinds of palates. They are right, too, it's sweet but not overly sweet and a bit dry but not too much so. It's the perfect wine to serve at any occasion where there are different types of people. I would highly recommend it for your next party or wedding!

We also inquired about the price of a jeroboam for Katie's wedding, but the new wedding cuvee only ages optimally around 3 years, so we figured we would wait until she got engaged for that one. Ours was a Brut champagne, but they no longer make that in the jeroboam.

After Iron Horse, we dropped by Korbel for a little tour and tasting. The woman at the information booth told us a bit about the Korbel family history: mainly that they didn't originally make their fortune from wine, but from all the redwoods that were cut down on the property. She told us that the redwoods on their property were just babies (2nd growth) and that to see the big guys we should stop by Armstrong Woods down the street on our way out of town.

Our tour guide, Scott, seemed to not be very enthused at all with his job, but it was a fun tour nonetheless. Interesting, kind of janky and corporate-ized, but fun. These huge wooden casks are still in the basement only because they are too large to fit out the door. No other reason.

After doing a complimentary tasting and learning that Korbel makes more than that cheap 7.59 champagne at the Jewel Osco, we were all bubblied-up and ready to see some redwoods.

We even found a road that lead to the top of a nearby large hill/baby mountain. Mike corrected me when I called another mountain a baby mountin, saying that smaller mountains are older because they have had longer time to be worn down. To-may-to, To-mah-to. I say "baby mountain" to indicate it's smaller, not younger. As in, "Look! It's just a little guy!"

While we were there, we had to do a little redwood hugging...

And pose with Colonel Armstrong. 310 feet tall! HOLY COW.

While we were at the park, I kept asking Mike "How do hippies get up in those trees?!?" Because the darn things have no branches for the first, I don't know, hundred feet. Seriously, when an activist climbs up a redwood to prevent it from being cut down, how does that work? Mike says there is climbing gear for that, but it still seems like it would be really difficult.

Anyways, after that we just headed for Oakland, stopping in Petaluma for Thai food along the way. Can you believe I got Mike to eat sushi AND thai all in one week? I mean, he ordered pizza to the hotel afterward each time, but still....

August 19

Our plan on Sunday and Monday was to stop by and see the places that we had wanted to see but didn't have time to earlier in the week. Sunday was our "pick up the slack" in Napa day. Mike had also been waxing poetic about a possible massage all week long, so when I read about "The works" at the hot spring in Calistoga, I booked us for a 2:00 Sunday appointment (all they had). To start off the day, we hit St. Supery in Napa. This winery was in the Frommer's guide as a must-see, as they have an extensive self-guided tour to learn about winemaking. So we decided upon St. Supery as the first stop.

First we went on the self-guided tour, which actually took us out onto a balcony overlooking big winemaking tanks.

They also had this really cool display where you could smell a lot of different smells that are typically in red or white wines. Smelling all those was pretty cool - especially since it wasn't just alot of stuff sitting out in bowls. They actually had little tubes that pumped that smell up to you when you pulled a lever.

We then did a tasting with this really awesome guy named Challo. We hadn't expected to spend much time there, but the wine was so good and Challo was a generous fellow with the pours. When we looked at the wine club information, it was pretty reasonable and the wine was good - so we joined their wine club, too! That made three, but we both like wine so it's OK (plus, most of the places send only 1 or 2 bottles every other month).

After spending almost an hour and a half at St. Supery, we grabbed some lunch at a local deli and headed to Mumm Napa. Once we got there, we only had about an hour before our 2:00 spa appointment, and Calistoga was about 15 miles away. So we wandered around the store for a bit, went to the bathroom in the nicest porta-potties EVER, and hit the road. Seriously, these porta-potties had tile floors, nice stalls, and music going. I had to snap a picture. You know me and my love of nice bathrooms.

This is where the day goes downhill. We headed to Calistoga for our "The Works" appointments. "The Works" at Dr. Wilkinson's includes a mud bath, a soak in a mineral sulfur bath, a steam bath, and a 1/2 hour or hour massage. Sounds downright luxurious doesn't it?

This picture is a dramatization

Now, when you think mudbath you are probably like me and think some sort of clay-mud material. You probably don't think sewage mixed with peat moss with a dash of sulfur and an extra shot of road kill. It smelled straight up awful. They asked me if I wanted a facial mask and I pointed at the mudbath and said "Of this stuff?!?!" When they told me the facial was of clay mixed with lavendar, I was all about it - mostly because I knew I had to have something good-smelling on my face to keep from throwing up. A sulfur mudbath is one of those things that is a good idea in theory, bad idea in practice. At the end of being in the mud, I was literally chanting to myself in my mind "Only a few more minutes! Only a few more minutes!" as I sweltered under a towel that was over my head and tried not to throw up. Mike said he actually whimpered when they pushed the sewage up and over his arms. And that's not even the best part - when you get out you are covered in the crap and have to shower. You have to pick the stuff out of every nook and cranny you've got. I don't know about you, but there is just something about picking sewage out of my belly button that I don't wish to repeat. Mike asked the guy what the mudbath was good for and was told that it improves your circulation. So, basically, since we have good circulation it didn't really do anything for us. It didn't relax us, that's for sure! After the mudbath we got into the mineral jacuzzi bath. That would have been fun, if their idea of bath wasn't scalding hot. Even after she cooled it off quite a bit (as I am standing there buck naked, saying "oooh, still too hot".... so embarassing) it was still making me all woozy, so I sat up in the bath rather than lay down. After the hot sewage & hot bath, I think my temperature was roughly 500 degrees, so I passed on the steam bath. I don't really dig steam anyways, it makes it hard to breathe. So they put me in a little room and wrapped me up like a burrito in this big towel to "make my body temperature" go back to normal. Which would have been a good idea except they laid my head on this big plastic towel which made my head even hotter. Let's just say that the massage was the only good part of the experience. My masseuse was so good, the sewage and sweltering might have been worth it. And since there were separate men's and women's facilities, I didn't have to listen to Mike freaking out about it all either ;c)

One last note about "the works," from Mike: "and what kind of people would work there? I mean, all they do is shuttle naked people to and fro all day.... it's so odd..."

OK, I'll shut up now. That's all I have to say about the mud bath experience.

Oh wait, I lied, I'm not done. So....... I didn't realize at first, but the sulfur smell stuck with us that afternoon. I didn't so much smell it in the car, probably because my senses were still awestruck from the assault. But back at the Marriott we were smelling up a storm. We had to take a couple showers each and really scrub hard to get the smell off. And later, when I was sweating a little at the restaurant, I realized the sulfur smell was back! In my sweat! EWWWWWWWWWW

OK, after the multiple showers, Mike and I took our traumatized selves to downtown Napa and Cole's Steak House. After a week of "froufy" food, Mike was ready for a big ol steak. And get one he did. I had the lobster bisque (little watery, not very much lobster) and the filet. He got the specialty steak, and we shared some mashed potatoes. I have to admit, his steak was better than mine. The filet was very good and cooked perfectly medium rare, but was just a filet. His steak and the seasoning was downright masterful. Our waiter, Galbie, was hilarious and welcoming, and we loved him. He may be our favorite server to date. After the steaks, we ordered the whiskey bread pudding. Galbie, bless his heart, had caught onto the honeymoon vibe and brought us not only the pudding, but a complementary brownie sundae as well. Ooey gooey warm brownie with vanilla ice cream and caramel drizzle. I quickly claimed the brownie sundae as my own, told Mike to stick to his pudding, and went to town.

A little walk around downtown Napa capped off our last night there. I truly loved Napa. It reminded me a lot of Bloomington, IN, where I went to college. About the same size, good restaurants, friendly people, educated and artsy vibe. I think I would move there in a heartbeat (St Supery, need an accountant? Will work for wine!)

August 17

On Friday, we continued our game plan and headed to the central part of Napa Valley. First up with the Mondavi winery.

I wasn't expecting much, what with the big name and all - our friend Meghan said the same. But it was really nice. Quiet and serene. Meghan also did the entire tour with her boyfriend and said that it was a great tour - very informative. But we didn't think ahead to make reservations for that, and got there at kind of a wonky time to do the tour. They had two tasting rooms, and we shared a flight in the cheaper tasting room and headed outside with our wine.

After we finished up that wine, I bought one tasting of the 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon. My Dad told me a long time ago that 1997 and 1998 were great years for the grapes in Napa, so I decided to try it. Plus, Mike graduated in 1997, so I had to get a picture with the graduates together!

Me, with the 1997 Cabernet. It was gooooooood.

After Mondavi, we headed to Rubicon Estate, the former Niebaum-Coppola winery. At first I balked at the $25 entry fee (per person!), but conceded that it was $50 well-spent after I took a look around the grounds and tasted the wine. There was a cool historic museum upstairs, and you could look into the winemaking rooms. The entry fee included a tour also, which was really cool. The guide was informative, and seemed to be really excited and involved in his job.

The tour took us into the wine cellar, which was amazing. It's a newer wine cellar, but cool nonetheless. Something about barrels all lined up in an underground cavern strikes me with awe.

We ended up joining the Rubicon wine club, as I couldn't imagine NOT having their wine coming to my house every other month.

After Rubicon, we were starving and heading to V. Sattui A friend had recommended hitting V. Sattui

when we were ready to eat, because they have a great deli. Unfortunately, about 9 million other people had the same idea. We walked in, Mike took one look at the crowd and the "froufy food" and bailed. I grabbed some brie, crackers, and water and followed suit. Thus, the pic of the fountain is the only one I have of V. Sattui.

It was already about 2:00 and we had an appointment for a 3:00 tour at Del Dotto, so we hit Target on our way and picked up personal pizzas.

Del Dotto is a pretty small operation - they sell alot of their wine in advance and have only 8 employees. The tour that we went on took the better part of 2 hours and we learned about winemaking, tasting, and all kinds of information from their Sales Manager, Matt. We tasted about 12 wines straight from the barrel, which was pretty interesting. One cool thing about Del Dotto is that (per Matt), it's one of the three wine caverns that were dug by hand over a hundred years ago. You can see the pickax marks in the caverns, which we were in the whole time we tasted from the barrels.

After over an hour of barrel tasting, I got tired and wanted to sit down on one of the barrels. Mike wasn't that excited about it, but I was!

Once the tour was over, they threw on some disco and broke out some more wine and snacks. Last tour of the day gets a party, I guess. However, we were ready for a nap and headed home!

Dinner that night was at the Bounty Hunter in downtown Napa. We basically just headed downtown to look for a bar to eat and found that place. I had this AWESOME Kobe brisket, and Mike had pulled pork. Mike liked that the chef was actually grilling the food out back and not on an indoor grill.

The original plan included a movie, but after such a long day (and with full bellies) we headed home to hit the hay.