We’re Doing It All ! Let The Good Times Roll!

"My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil."

 

We’re loving this area of California.  Napa Valley is so beautiful.  Of course, that has something to do with the perfect temperatures and being in a nice location.

The little town of Napa is gorgeous.  It definitely is a tourist town.  Unique shops are tucked in little alleyways plus they have all the bigger named stores around too.  It has just about everything including beautiful rolling hills, loads of greenery, gorgeous spring flowers and right now the most awesome weather.

We have been through this area many times before but have never spent more than one day in the past.  Our RVing friends had mentioned more than once about the Jelly Belly factory which is just down the road from Napa.  I love, love, love black licorice jelly beans.  That’s where we decided to go on Friday.  It definitely wasn’t a good day to go.  Kids packed the joint.  Was it spring break or was it just an outing from the school?  We weren’t sure but there was no way we were going to stand in that line.  It would have been fun to see how the jelly beans were made but the line was way too long to even consider it.  So, we walked around and then left.

Made with jelly beans!

So much for factory outlet shopping ... cheaper at Winco at $6.65 per pound!

Right down the road from the Jelly Belly factory was an olive oil tasting place.  We went there instead.  We learned a lot about the different olive oils.  Everyone knows how good olive oil is for you but we really didn’t realize the huge health difference with some of the oils and not so much the others.  

The higher the phenyl content the better for you.  Of course, phenyl content is not required to be displayed on the bottle.  Matter of fact, there is no FDA labeling control over olive oil.  Olive oil should be under one year old when used otherwise health benefits decrease.  I didn’t know that.  I guess I really didn’t know much about the real difference in olive oils regardless of whether or not the “extra” was on the bottle.

We’ve started buying little postcards every where we spend a little time.  We should have started this earlier but we didn’t.  However, we have a few saved up now.  The reason for the collection of postcards?  We’re sending them to Justin with little notes on the back of each one.  It’s easier than writing a long letter and pictures say a lot more.

Saturday was a typical day for anyone.  It was laundry day.  It was an educational day too.  I discovered where some folks get their clothes.  It’s from the unattended dryers at the local laundromat.  You can guess how I discovered that.  The rest of the day was spent reading,  sewing and messing with the computers.  It was a good, normal day but also just an ordinary day.

Sunday morning we decided to take a drive.  We were off to look at a few more wineries.  We weren’t off to do any tasting but just for a drive to enjoy the beautiful countryside around Napa.  The fields are beautiful and the some of the buildings are just awesome.  We were out to explore a different area. 

The other day we drove down Hwy 29.  Sunday we decided to do one of the other side roads.  It was definitely a beautiful day for a drive.  

This was the Chimney Rock Winery

 



Gorgeous rolling hills, spring flowers and vineyards were everywhere.




 

 The winery that really caught our attention was the Darious Winery.  I bet you can see why it caught our attention.  The inside was as elegant as the outside. 

Darious Winery

Just for kicks we also priced some of the wines … not that we were interested in buying but we were interested in pricing.  There’s no way you’d find any of their wines at a grocery store. One bottle of some of their wines would pay for a month at a few RV parks.

Enough wineries …. Monday  ….. we’re taking a ferry ride to San Francisco.

‘Tis life on the road.