For our 10 year anniversary, we wanted to take a big trip. We originally planned on going to Europe, but I wasn't ready to go that far away from the girls yet so we chose to do something else we've always wanted to do, a Wine Country trip!
Steve booked the entire thing and he did it up right. He is the best trip planner and let me tell you he was so organized and had everything completely planned out. We flew into San Francisco early in the morning and picked up our rental car. From there we drove through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to Sonoma.
We stayed at a cute boutique hotel that had a complimentary breakfast every morning. The breakfast was amazing and they waited on you and brought you the best food. Each day had a different menu. Our first full day there we went on a wine tour with a group and went to several small wineries and one cave tour. We learned so much we never knew and bought bottles at every vineyard. That part I wasn't expecting, but we came home with a nice stash!
On the 3rd day, we packed up and drove to Napa Valley. That was the scariest drive ever! We were literally on a two lane road with a cliff on my side of the road. I was a nervous wreck! Steve said if I didn't stop whining and nagging him about slowing down that he would drive off the cliff on purpose. LOL. I had him driving so slow all the drivers behind us were passing us and flipping us off. Once we got there we went to some of our chosen wineries. Duckhorn was our favorite and then we went to the tasting room for Orin Swift who makes several of our favorite wines. They have the coolest branding too, I love their style!
One thing I never knew about Napa and Sonoma, they have NO bugs! They never have to use pesticides in their vineyards because they have NO bugs. How crazy is that?? Another thing I didn't realize is that water is like liquid gold in California right now. I didn't have any clue how severe their drought is. I mean it was like an act of God to get a freaking glass of water at a restaurant around there. We were so dehydrated and thirsty, but every time we asked for water they gave us the stink eye. Not only that but when they did bring it to you it was a tiny shot glass of tap water with no ice. I would guzzle it down and they would give me the stink eye again as they brought me a refill.
Steve booked us a room in Yountville, coolest little town ever! Our room was so nice! I took advantage of the jacuzzi tub and bath salts every night. We walked around in the evenings and hit the wineries during the day.
The last night 2 nights we stayed in San Francisco. I've been before but never realized how trashy that city is. Not that Houston is clean or anything but San Francisco was just a western version of New York to me. Everyone lives on top of each other and everything is covered in bird poo. I may have had a bad taste in my mouth to start off with though because as soon as we got there some man tried to trick us into thinking we ran over him. Scared the hell out of us and then he tried to scam us out of money. After that, we got to our hotel and hated it. It was so not our style and our room was facing a wall.
The good news is we got out of the hotel, rode the trolley, went to fisherman's wharf and the next day got to go to Alcatraz!! Steve knows I've been wanting to do that for years so he booked tickets weeks in advance. I was sooo excited I could hardly stand it.
By the last day, we were ready to get home to the babies. Gigi stayed with them while we were gone and made sure that Ava got off to school, had all her homework done and got them both to gymnastics. She also ended up having to take care of Magnum who came down with a stomach virus the day before we left. The girls enjoyed getting to spend all of that time with her and we enjoyed getting a few days to ourselves again. Thank you Gigi!!!
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| Our Hotel in Sonoma |
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| Our first Cave tour at Deerfield Winery- Organic Wine |
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| Selfie |
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| Beautiful View of Sonoma |
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| Many of the vineyards have rose bushes. It's sort of the canary in the vineyard. |
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| Loxton had the best most informative tour. Owned by an Austrailian Wine Maker. |
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| Duckhorn our Favorite Winery |
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| Enjoying a morning tasting at Duckhorn |
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| The front of Duckhorn |
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| This is Orin Swift- Every label has a story behind it. |
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| This is the label for their Palermo Wine- This is the actual mummified corpse of a Catholic Cardinal. |
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| I drew this duck on the wall at Paraduxx- A sister vineyard of Duckhorn |
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| Our Amazing hotel in Yountville |
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| Steve was quite popular in St. Helena |
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| A beautiful well rounded breakfast on our last morning in Yountville |
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| The Rock! |
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| It was FREEZING as you can tell by my red nose |
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| All of the prisoners had their own tiny cell |
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| The prison yard- They said it was so cold some prisoners didn't even want to go out there |
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| View from the prison yard to the cell blocks |
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| View of San Francisco from the Rock near the guards house |
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| Alcatraz |
