Monday, May 30, 2005

My first real three-day weekend

This Memorial Day weekend was my first real three-day weekend. In newspapers you don't get three-day weekends, holidays or weekends off for the most part. News happens every day. And by three-day weekend I mean one where I have Saturday and Sunday off and then Monday is the holiday. I had many three-day weekends in the past--but I had to take them as vacation days--so they don't count.
Well, Curt and I went to Napa this weekend. We drove up yesterday and came home today. I am still buzzing a little from all my wine tasting. Yesterday we drove up, checked in to our hotel and then went exploring. We went to downtown Napa--a little dead on a Sunday. But we found a little restaurant to have lunch--pasta, salad and of course wine. Well, I had wine, Curt didn't. Our next stop was a little later for dinner. We had an appetizer and then shared a pizza for dinner. Very yummy! And of course I had wine. After that we drove around and found a nice restaurant with patio seating--we had drinks and enjoyed the weather and scenery. We went back to our hotel for a rest and then headed to the Red Hen Cantina (though we call it the Redhead Cantina), which was right next to our hotel. We had drinks there while they showed "Blade II" on the big screen TV.
Today we hit the wineries. I did a little research and I found four potential stops. We hit three today. The first was Trefethen Winery. I did some tasting there. The wine there was good. The only one I didn't like was their Chardonnay. I am not a huge Chardonnay fan anyway. Our next stop was Monticello Winery. Their wine was OK. But they did have a good Chardonnay. Our third stop was Andretti Winery--as in Mario Andretti. This was my favorite winery of the three. I liked all of their wines. I did two different tastings. The Andretti label wines were excellent. Then I tried their Montona wines. Those were a little fancier and more expensive. But they were very good. So I decided to join their wine club. I get two wines in the mail every 3 months and get discounts at the winery. My tastings were free and I bought a bottle of wine at a discount and received a free glass. And we are invited to the annual dinner with ol' Mario. I can take up to three "friends" for FREE wine tastings there and a bunch of other good stuff. So when are you coming to drink some wine?
Before we left town we had lunch at a nice little restaurant near the Napa Valley Inn--where I wanted to stay. But when I checked hotels.com for rates their rates had gone way up. So maybe we can stay there next time. Anyway, we sat outside with a view of the river. We had a yummy cheese plate and salads and I of course had a glass of wine.
And there is a Napa Valley Wine Train. I am all about that. Who wants to join me for a girl trip?
Here are a few pics from our trip.

2 Comments:

Blogger JenC said...

that sounds like a wonderful trip... and dave and i are both excited about the wine train! maybe i'll have to bring him for a double date once, and come again for a girl trip :-)

but first save up a little money :-)

Monday, May 30, 2005 9:56:00 PM  
Blogger JenC said...

by the way... i'm not trying to be mysterious -- the web site logs me on as the name of my web site ("JLC").

and on a technical note... i tried to look at your photos while i was at work and an error message popped up and told me it was inappropriate material to view at the republic. tsk tsk. :-)

Monday, May 30, 2005 9:57:00 PM  

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