California Trip (aka the longest post ever)

We're back from a very eventful visit to California. All in all we visited family, harvested zinfandel grapes at a vineyard, saw two wineries in Napa and went to a wedding (oh, and yes, celebrated my 30th Birthday - I am sadly no longer in my twenties). I definitely used the camera that Steve got me - and spent the last few days sifting through all 441 images. I've included my favorites in this post... To see the rest, visit my new flickr site.

First stop: I visited my friend Kiri who is a WWOOFer intern on a farm outside of Ukiah, CA

The evening I arrived, we took a very winding trip over to the Mendocino County Fair & Apple Show...

...and the next day I was put to work at the Chiarito Vineyard where we helped with the harvest of Zinfandel grapes (that's John Chiarito, the winemaker below) ...

...after all of the grapes were sorted, de-stemmed and put into storage to begin their journey to the bottle, we enjoyed a wonderful lunch with a beautiful view...

(that's Americo Chiarito (aka John's Father) above - the sweetest, most sprightly 96yr old I've ever met!)

Second Stop: Napa - Quixote Winery and Chateau Montelena

This part of the trip was planned by Steve, I suggested the wineries, but he planned everything else. I loved the B & B he picked (The Blackbird Inn) and the restaurant was amazing (La Toque)...

Quixote Winery

Chateau Montelena

Blackbird Inn

Next Stop: Visiting Family and Desiree & Brendan's Wedding, Fresno, CA

Last Stop: Back to San Francisco where we caught up with more family (and got great pics of our little cousin Stella) and had a couple of hours to enjoy the beach...

Before and After shot of Stella trying mustard... look at that face!

Whew! Now I'm off to the Me Ra Koh workshop in Minneapolis... stay tuned for more pics!