Napa Valley

Sunday we traveled up to visit Charles' college friend Jim, who is a wine chemist in Napa Valley. Jim was the expert tour guide taking us to the best places to eat and driving us to the prettiest views in the area. He gave us mostly a driving tour of the area, stopping at the Beringer Vineyard for some wine tasting.







There Jim introduced us to the great dessert wine called Nightingale. It tastes like Creme Brulee (one of my favorite desserts), and Jim got us a bottle.

















Napa Valley is an unusually beautiful place. In one direction you'll see lush greenery, and in the other, rugged desert terrain. The grapevines are all planted in rows as in this picture. It is a well-groomed beauty. Much like the Redwoods, and now the rest of California, I fell in love with the trees.

Later in the day, we met up with Charles' other college friends Kristof and Jennifer. They have two beautiful little girls- this is their oldest Pella running around. Kristof is a wine maker, and his he named his first wine Pella Wine.
This was our ideal way to see the best of an area in one day. We didn't want to see the places that all of the tourists go, we wanted to see the places that the locals loved.
Jennifer wrote a great short story called "Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster" which was published in the 2001 Best American Mystery Stories about her short spell as a cop in Wine Country.