Trip to Napa, CA

Atop Sterling Vineyards after the gondola ride, beautiful views!
How can you NOT like traveling with this wild and crazy couple?


Muir Woods National Monument

When Dave and Becca Talley, our former neighbors in Houston and dear friends, invited us to Napa, CA for their 15th wedding anniversary, we jumped at the opportunity. This was their 3rd third trip to the region which meant they already knew their way around and where all the great wineries and restaurants were. What a great way to travel!

We rented a beautiful house together in Napa and enjoyed being able to eat breakfast at home and grill out if we liked. We stayed up late playing cards and haven't laughed that hard in a really long time! The first day we spent touring wineries in Napa, enjoyed lunch at Taylor's Refresher, and celebrated our anniversaries at Michael Chiarello's restaurant, Bottega. Taking the gondola ride up the mountain side to taste at Sterling Vineyards was memorable to say the least!

The second day we toured wineries in Sonoma, CA, lunched at Basque, and grilled on the patio at home. The third day we ventured out to Muir Woods National Monument to hike through the tall Redwood trees. It was beautiful, like everything we visited, and the views from the winding mountain road we took to get there were spectacular! I kept my motion sickness under control, much to the appreciation of all in the car. We flew in and out of San Francisco so it was a pretty drive between the two cities on the way home Saturday morning versus the extreme fog when we landed Tuesday night!

Many thanks to Grandma Eileen, Aunt Nicci and Uncle Andrew for traveling to Illinois and holding down the fort in our absence!