Is it November already??? Good lord,
this year has flown by! It's already been 2 months since this fateful trip to
the West Coast! I better hop to it!
So, where'd I leave off...oh yes, we had just finished with our first vineyard tour at Robert Mondavi. (Side note--I just got a lovely wooden crate from the vineyard at work today!) We snapped some photos in the parking lot and we were off to our next stop: the Francis Ford Coppola vineyard, which is now called the Niebaum-Coppola Vineyard, because that will really trick people into thinking it's not the Coppola vineyard. Yeah right. People want to see Sonny and Michael Corleone roaming the grounds! Maybe even Vito strolling through the rows of grapes with orange wedges in his mouth, scaring little boys. If that doesn't sound like something straight out of a Catholic priest's fantasy book, I don't know what does!
Anyhoo, the three of us (Deb, Sony, and I--Betsi wasn't there yet) turned into the drive and went to the parking lot. We sat there for quite a while, waiting for the valet--apparently you can't park your own car there for fear of disrupting the delicate ecosystem...well, that's my guess at least. After about 10 minutes of this, Deb drove on up to the visitor's center stand and flagged down some sweaty-looking chick in a black suit (it was in the mid- to upper-80's that day! she must have been ripe!) to find out where the valet parkers were. Sweaty told us that they were closed due to the power outage (see part 1 for reference)! Dis! The three of us were quite upset, and I started to use my strongest Minnesota accent to help our sob story gain credibility. Sweaty gave us her business card and said the next time we're in Napa to come find her ("I'm in hospitality and will be here forever!") to get free admission. Sure...because I come to the San Francisco area so often...my last visit was in 1984! (Not counting work in 2004, but I was majorly hung over from drinking my weight in G&T's in first-class on part of the flight and nearly threw up in the office from the flickering of the fluorescent lighting!)
Maybe it was fate that we couldn't go to this tour, because by the time we pulled out of the parking lot, Betsi was calling us with an ETA of about 30 minutes. Perfect! We told her to meet us at the Beringer vineyard to play catch-up. It was only about 5 miles away, so we headed out. Good thing we did! It was bumper-to-bumper the whole way there! If there's one thing that I can't stand, it's traffic--it doesn't take much to make me a road rager. Of course, it was a one-lane highway, so we couldn't pass any of the blockage, so we patiently crawled up the road until we reached the Beringer vineyard. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, "Why Beringer? They sell that for $4 a bottle at Blue Max Liquor!" True, Beringer is widely available all throughout this great land of ours for low-low prices, but it was the most scenic of vineyards we went to. Since Corky (see part 1) had schooled us on how grapes are born already, we decided to skip the tour and just walked around free areas while waiting for Betsi to show up. Sony bought a really funny poster from the olden days of two bearded dudes by tons of barrels of wine. It reminded me of our walk through the barrels earlier that day! [P.S.--I will put pictures up, but they will be all at once, as I seem to be having difficulties accomplishing this task right now.] We chipped in $5 each and sampled some vino in the visitors' center, then played the waiting game for Betsi. She rolled in a couple minutes later, and Deb then decided it was time to leave. As Scooby Doo would say, 'ruh-roh!' Deb was hungry--after all, her death-wish Kashi had probably burned off by now!--and Sony and I were ready for a nibble of something besides dusty vineyard grapes, but Betsi wanted to look around still, as she had just driven over an hour to experience it all! So we spent 5 quality minutes together, then the three of us went back into town to get some food while Betsi shopped for wine-related gifts.
Back to Napa we went. Someone told us to go eat at this little burger joint, so we parked and walked there. If we would have asked better questions, we would have learned that there was a parking lot at the burger place, instead of parking a mile away and walking, but we were stupid American tourists. Boy oh boy, were our faces red! Well, it was pretty hot out...I digress! After our snacks, we stomped back to the car and drove on to our final destination, the Domaine Chandon winery. By far, the best tour of the day! For $15, we got a tour, samples, and a free champagne flute! And Sony got to play teacher's pet to her eye candy for the day! Our tour guide, Dante, wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree, but he had one fan in the crowd who didn't care if he sounded like a robot and was obviously spewing off a memorized script to us! She was like the Road Runner, leaving a trail of dust behind her while she was speed-walking to keep up with this guy! Oh Sony! There were many good pictures taken on this tour, and while we sipped our free samples, we saw many drunkards who obviously had been there all day and were in desperate need of snacks of their own! Good times.
After we left the winery, we stopped in at the outlet mall on the other side of town, where we fiscally raped the Coach store with Sony's discount (I got a new wallet, two scarves, and a Christmas present for my mother; Sony got a scarf; Betsi bought a winter coat) and Deb bought out J Crew's supply of maroon sweaters and t-shirts for her game day wear at the Gopher football games. Betsi and I left early and headed back to the hotel with the assistance of her GPS device that the truck driver let her use to get to Napa in one piece. It was pretty slick...until it told us to make a right turn in 200 feet, but we must have turned at 175 feet because we took the wrong turn and drove through some residential area for a while. The other two ended up beating us back! Useless piece of crap. Regardless, we made it back in one piece and had a late dinner with Mark Allen (whose name had been dropped repeatedly during the trip by Deb and Betsi--we finally put a face to the name), and one of the Goal Line dudes named Doug.
We went to Paragon for dinner, which is in the hotel, and has a huge balcony that overlooks the entire hotel grounds. Beautiful, right? Well, it could have been, but we were seated in the far corner by the kitchen, and we had some tweaked-out server that was the intellectual equivalent of belly button lint. Not good. Sony and I had bleu cheese burgers--I don't remember what anyone else had. I do know there was some drinking going on at the table, and that Sony and I had to stay after everyone else finished their dinners to drink the rest of our cocktails. We never let booze go to waste! As we walked back to the elevators to weave our way through the labyrinth that was the Claremont hotel, we saw the Lockwoods and some other football coaches, all of whom ignored us (the coaches, not the Lockwoods). How rude! When we got back to the room, we decided to reenact this moment for Betsi, who missed the scene. Deb sat in one chair, Sony in another, and I played the part of Deborah, walking through the room and going, "My name is Deborah! I have a job!" We all just about tinkled in our undies over that one. Well, at least those of us who were wearing some...I think there was a lot of commando action on the trip!
That's all for day 3.....day 4 to come soon!
So, where'd I leave off...oh yes, we had just finished with our first vineyard tour at Robert Mondavi. (Side note--I just got a lovely wooden crate from the vineyard at work today!) We snapped some photos in the parking lot and we were off to our next stop: the Francis Ford Coppola vineyard, which is now called the Niebaum-Coppola Vineyard, because that will really trick people into thinking it's not the Coppola vineyard. Yeah right. People want to see Sonny and Michael Corleone roaming the grounds! Maybe even Vito strolling through the rows of grapes with orange wedges in his mouth, scaring little boys. If that doesn't sound like something straight out of a Catholic priest's fantasy book, I don't know what does!
Anyhoo, the three of us (Deb, Sony, and I--Betsi wasn't there yet) turned into the drive and went to the parking lot. We sat there for quite a while, waiting for the valet--apparently you can't park your own car there for fear of disrupting the delicate ecosystem...well, that's my guess at least. After about 10 minutes of this, Deb drove on up to the visitor's center stand and flagged down some sweaty-looking chick in a black suit (it was in the mid- to upper-80's that day! she must have been ripe!) to find out where the valet parkers were. Sweaty told us that they were closed due to the power outage (see part 1 for reference)! Dis! The three of us were quite upset, and I started to use my strongest Minnesota accent to help our sob story gain credibility. Sweaty gave us her business card and said the next time we're in Napa to come find her ("I'm in hospitality and will be here forever!") to get free admission. Sure...because I come to the San Francisco area so often...my last visit was in 1984! (Not counting work in 2004, but I was majorly hung over from drinking my weight in G&T's in first-class on part of the flight and nearly threw up in the office from the flickering of the fluorescent lighting!)
Maybe it was fate that we couldn't go to this tour, because by the time we pulled out of the parking lot, Betsi was calling us with an ETA of about 30 minutes. Perfect! We told her to meet us at the Beringer vineyard to play catch-up. It was only about 5 miles away, so we headed out. Good thing we did! It was bumper-to-bumper the whole way there! If there's one thing that I can't stand, it's traffic--it doesn't take much to make me a road rager. Of course, it was a one-lane highway, so we couldn't pass any of the blockage, so we patiently crawled up the road until we reached the Beringer vineyard. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, "Why Beringer? They sell that for $4 a bottle at Blue Max Liquor!" True, Beringer is widely available all throughout this great land of ours for low-low prices, but it was the most scenic of vineyards we went to. Since Corky (see part 1) had schooled us on how grapes are born already, we decided to skip the tour and just walked around free areas while waiting for Betsi to show up. Sony bought a really funny poster from the olden days of two bearded dudes by tons of barrels of wine. It reminded me of our walk through the barrels earlier that day! [P.S.--I will put pictures up, but they will be all at once, as I seem to be having difficulties accomplishing this task right now.] We chipped in $5 each and sampled some vino in the visitors' center, then played the waiting game for Betsi. She rolled in a couple minutes later, and Deb then decided it was time to leave. As Scooby Doo would say, 'ruh-roh!' Deb was hungry--after all, her death-wish Kashi had probably burned off by now!--and Sony and I were ready for a nibble of something besides dusty vineyard grapes, but Betsi wanted to look around still, as she had just driven over an hour to experience it all! So we spent 5 quality minutes together, then the three of us went back into town to get some food while Betsi shopped for wine-related gifts.
Back to Napa we went. Someone told us to go eat at this little burger joint, so we parked and walked there. If we would have asked better questions, we would have learned that there was a parking lot at the burger place, instead of parking a mile away and walking, but we were stupid American tourists. Boy oh boy, were our faces red! Well, it was pretty hot out...I digress! After our snacks, we stomped back to the car and drove on to our final destination, the Domaine Chandon winery. By far, the best tour of the day! For $15, we got a tour, samples, and a free champagne flute! And Sony got to play teacher's pet to her eye candy for the day! Our tour guide, Dante, wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree, but he had one fan in the crowd who didn't care if he sounded like a robot and was obviously spewing off a memorized script to us! She was like the Road Runner, leaving a trail of dust behind her while she was speed-walking to keep up with this guy! Oh Sony! There were many good pictures taken on this tour, and while we sipped our free samples, we saw many drunkards who obviously had been there all day and were in desperate need of snacks of their own! Good times.
After we left the winery, we stopped in at the outlet mall on the other side of town, where we fiscally raped the Coach store with Sony's discount (I got a new wallet, two scarves, and a Christmas present for my mother; Sony got a scarf; Betsi bought a winter coat) and Deb bought out J Crew's supply of maroon sweaters and t-shirts for her game day wear at the Gopher football games. Betsi and I left early and headed back to the hotel with the assistance of her GPS device that the truck driver let her use to get to Napa in one piece. It was pretty slick...until it told us to make a right turn in 200 feet, but we must have turned at 175 feet because we took the wrong turn and drove through some residential area for a while. The other two ended up beating us back! Useless piece of crap. Regardless, we made it back in one piece and had a late dinner with Mark Allen (whose name had been dropped repeatedly during the trip by Deb and Betsi--we finally put a face to the name), and one of the Goal Line dudes named Doug.
We went to Paragon for dinner, which is in the hotel, and has a huge balcony that overlooks the entire hotel grounds. Beautiful, right? Well, it could have been, but we were seated in the far corner by the kitchen, and we had some tweaked-out server that was the intellectual equivalent of belly button lint. Not good. Sony and I had bleu cheese burgers--I don't remember what anyone else had. I do know there was some drinking going on at the table, and that Sony and I had to stay after everyone else finished their dinners to drink the rest of our cocktails. We never let booze go to waste! As we walked back to the elevators to weave our way through the labyrinth that was the Claremont hotel, we saw the Lockwoods and some other football coaches, all of whom ignored us (the coaches, not the Lockwoods). How rude! When we got back to the room, we decided to reenact this moment for Betsi, who missed the scene. Deb sat in one chair, Sony in another, and I played the part of Deborah, walking through the room and going, "My name is Deborah! I have a job!" We all just about tinkled in our undies over that one. Well, at least those of us who were wearing some...I think there was a lot of commando action on the trip!
That's all for day 3.....day 4 to come soon!
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