Adventures in Napa: Sparkling Wine Country

A few weekends ago, we got to celebrate our friends' fifth wedding anniversary by spending the day in Napa, touring sparkling wine houses.

Aaron and I decided to meet the happy couple in Napa. Not wanting to be late, we left a little early. Okay, a lot early. We got there an hour and fifteen minutes early. We decided to treat ourselves to a little breakfast.

Several times we have driven by the Carneros Inn, intrigued by its cute outer façade, but never took the time to stop. This time we did. They have a cute little restaurant on campus, called the Boon Fly Café, where their specialty is hot, fresh "World Famous Boon Fly Donuts". Of course I had to try one. It was delicious. We shared a tasty big breakfast and hit the road. Having a few more minutes to kill, we took a little drive down Highway 12 to see a bit of the valley before meeting our friends. 

Our first stop was Mumm Napa. Having found a coupon for a two-for-one tour and tasting, we showed up just in time for the 11:00 tour. (The 10:00 tour is free.) The tour was quite nice, giving us a history of the grounds, as well as an insider's tour of the facility. There were several stops along the tour that featured videos to complement the guided tour, as well as three stops that allowed for tastings of Mumm's featured sparkling wines. I especially enjoyed watching BOB, the machine that moved the wine bottles in and out of riddling baskets. And the cute little tasting class that was a complimentary part of our tour. Following the tour, we sat inside the tasting room patio and tried a few glasses. Each of the four of us tried something different: Aaron and I each tried one of the two sparkling red wines, while the celebratory couple shared a glass of Mumm's prestigious DVX.

 

Tasting wines while enjoying the view of a gorgeous vineyard can really make a person hungry. We made our way to a recommended local brewery for lunch. There we tried some tasty food and local brew from the Silverado Brewing Company. Our friends even went home with a growler box of the house specialty. (Yes, I said box. They thought they were getting a cool growler bottle full of ale, but alas, it was a box. A gallon sized box o' beer.)

We were hoping to hit another beer tasting room on the way to our last tour of the day, but we were just a little too slow. Another time.

Our final tour of the day was a Domaine Carneros. Aaron and I are no stranger to this sparkling wine house; we love it so much we are members! Our tour guide just so happened to be the same gentleman who helped Aaron and me (and my parents) pick out and purchase wine for our wedding. After the tour, he was gracious enough to host us for a little additional tasting out on the Chateau patio. I am sure you can guess that we were there until it closed, and we each walked away with a bottle.

I think you have to call it a good day when you get to sit in the sunshine, drinking the area's best bubbly, celebrating good times with great friends. Happy Anniversary to the Mr. and Mrs!

Bonus picture: our friends decided that it would be fun to share their box-o-beer with us, so they refilled Aaron's growler (we brought with us in case we made it to the second brewery) in the parking lot before leaving.

Adventures in New York!

(Okay, so I wrote the blog back in April, but never posted it because I was too lazy busy to download the pictures from my camera. So, in an attempt to put off the last few boxes of unpacking in the house – Voilà! I give you our Adventure in New York!)

K + A + Central Park = ♥

Aaron and I took a short little trip to New York this weekend. He and I have both been, but never together.

We took a red-eye out of San Jose. That in itself was a bit of an ordeal. Since the new house is only 15 miles away from SJC, we decided to take a taxi from the house to the airport. Let's just say that the taxi company made a few errors, causing them to be a little late, and causing me to have a panic attack about making our flight. Luckily, we arrived just in time! The flight was pretty much the same ol' same ol'. We flew JetBlue, so we got earplugs and eye-covers for sleeping. Only neither of us got much sleep.

 We arrived to NYC without a hitch and headed out into the city, with my friend Heather as our guide. We stopped and parked in Astoria, and took the Subway straight to Times Square. There we had breakfast at a cute little cafe called Evergreen. Afterward we checked out the new(ish) Times Square Disney Store. From there we walked to Central Park and explored several acres of the park. We stopped in Columbus Circle to watch a homeless person wash her hair in the bathroom, and decided to walk back to Times Square via Fifth Avenue. Aaron was a trooper about Heather and me wanting to stop in several stores. I was intrigued by the live models in the Hollister store, but alas we kept on trekking.

After we got back to the Times Square, we stopped at the TKTS booth. Honestly, I wasn't super jazzed about any of the shows featured on the board, nor did I want to wait in the humongous line that wrapped around the square. We decided to check out the 9/11 memorial, get some pizza, and head back to Heather's in Upstate for some sleep.

In order to get into the 9/11 memorial, you have to preorder tickets online. Thankfully, Heather had gotten us tickets for 5:30 that day. We picked up our tickets and headed to the new memorial. The line to get in was just as long as any brand new Disneyland ride. But the wait was worth every second. Even though the project was not complete, it was beautiful and awe-inspiring. The memorial consists of two giant pools, set where the two towers once stood. The names of all the lives lost during 9/11 and the 1993 WTC bombing were cut through the metal border surrounding the pools. The memorial museum was still under construction, and was unavailable during our visit. I felt the most fascinating part of the memorial was the survivor tree. A 9/11 guide told us the story of the lone tree, found in the rubble of the WTC buildings, month after the attack. It was taken to a nursery to heal, and after nearly a year of rehabilitation, it was brought to the WTC site. The tree was planted near the memorial, and shortly thereafter, the horrible hurricane and storm swept over the East Coast. That storm tore the tree from the ground, unearthing half of her roots. Luckily, she was able to recover, and stands proudly in the 9/11 Memorial.

Following our patriotic tour we decided to get some authentic New York style pizza. We ordered a pie, ate it properly (no knife and fork here, thank you Jon Stewart) and headed back to the subway to get some sleep at Heather's.

The next day we did some much needed sleeping in. We got our obligatory Dunkin' Donuts coffee and donut breakfast for the road, and headed to the big city. Upon arrival we headed straight to Max Brenner's for "lunch" if you can define a meal of chocolately desserty food lunch.

In need of burning off some of those delectable carbs, we walked around for a while and headed toward the Brooklyn Bridge. It was fabulous! The NYC skyline was absolutely breathtaking.

Following our walking tour into Brooklyn (and our visit to one of the most dodgy subway stations I have ever encountered,) we headed over to the Staten Island Ferry. This was our attempt at seeing the Statue of Liberty on a budget — the Staten Island Ferry is free, and floats right by Lady Liberty.

As if our New York trip wasn't cool enough already, we made our way to Rockefeller Center for the coolest part yet. My friend Heather's good friend, Claire, got us tickets to see a live taping of Saturday Night Live! Aaron and I watch the show regularly (though never when it airs, we DVR the show and watch it later!) Needless to say, we were uber-excited to get to see the show live. 

The whole process was super cool. Of course, cameras are not allowed, so the only photos we have are of us waiting  in the initial line. Even that was fun. But, wait, it gets even cooler! Heather's friend works at SNL, and following the show, she gave us a quick back-stage tour. We got to see everything! It was uh-maze-ing. Aaron got to say hello and good work to one of the male leads, who smiled back and said, "Thanks, man." At one point, I was worried about getting left behind as we zig-zagged our way through the area and nearly ran into one of the female leads, who was very polite about me nearly knocking her down. I am still smiling from that experience. Many thanks to Heather and her fabulously generous friend Claire, for allowing us the opportunity. 

We knew that there was absolutely no way we could top Saturday night, so Sunday we spent the day leisurely getting ready for our next flight. Heather, Aaron and I had a nice lunch at Cheesecake Factory, and we were off to the airport for the next part of our adventure on the East Coast – Washington D.C.!

Adventures in the Midwest!

Last summer, Aaron and I are went to on a wonderful trip to the midwest. I orginally wrote the blog post back in July (on my super-cool tablet, of course!) but failed to post it because I had yet to upload the pictures. Here were are chillin' in December, and I am just now posting... better late than never. Anyway --  here the story of our midwestern adventure!

The first leg of our adventure was to Chicago, Illinois. We met Aaron's family for an action packed adventure through the city. We started our visit with a visit to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. They featured a visiting tour of Body Worlds. While admittingly a little creepy, the plastiscine exhibits were very interesting and informative. It was really awesome to see how complex and interconnected the human body is. It was also neat to see a few animals as well-- a ginormous giraffe,  a small baby lamb and a very large ostrich. Following the exhibit we grabbed some lunch and had just a few minutes to explore the rest of the museum. Clearly we were not able to see all of the cool exhibits, but we were able to witness the Tesla coil in action! We also got to see some sights as we drove around the city and around Lake Michigan. The lake was very beautiful. We were able to see the Willis Building and the Navy Pier. Our next top was to see the long-showing Chicago performance of the Blue Man Group. It was not at all what I expected. Whereas I thought I was getting a shown like "Stomp!", we actually got a show that was a blend of comedy, music and performance art. It was very entertaining. But I must admit that the bathroom song playing in the bathroom might have been my favorite. We concluded our evening with the ONE thing I had to do while in Chicago....enjoy a fat slice of deep dish pizza.  The family headed over to Giordano's where we noshed on a delicious cheese and mushroom pie. It was heavenly! And the perfect conclusion to our first day in the Windy City.

Our second day of adventure in Chicago led us to the Adler Planetarium. The Adler featured a brand new viewing room which just so happened to have been powered by NVIDIA graphics. We then enjoyed the offerings of the museum, none we enjoyed more than the "Astronomer Talk" led by one of the resident space-nerds. It was wonderful to see him light up when discussing black holes, dark matter and recent astronomical discoveries. We grabbed some lunch and headed off to the local theater to see the final installment of Harry Potter. Following the movie, we had some superb Indian Cuisine in a neighborhood of Indian Restaurants.

We didn't have much time for sight-seeing on our final day in the big city. However, we did make time for lunch at a traditional Chicago establishment, The Golden Nugget. It is a greasy, hole-in-the-wall chain, but it was pretty tasty and great fun. After lunch we made our way to Iowa City. Of course, I insisted we stop at "The World's Largest Truck Stop!" It didn't look like much when you first walk in, but once you start exploring you begin to realize how big it really was.  It was three floors of trucker heaven... I was in heaven because there was a Dairy Queen! After a short ice cream break, we headed into Iowa City and settled in the fabulous Grove-Plattner Garden Inn. (Seriously, it is like this awesome B&B with a beautiful backyard garden.)

During our week long stay I was able to check a few more things off the "Things to do in Iowa" list. We went to see a summer rep production of the broadway musical "I Do! I Do!" We visited with many old (and new to me!) Iowa friends. Aaron and I walked around downtown Iowa City. We drank for several hours in an Iowa City bar. We ate at the Hamburg Inn, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Table. I got to see a Sam's Club in Cedar Rapids! We ate ice cream at the infamously delicious Whitey's. We had a brief tour of the Natural History Museum at the University of Iowa! The trip was highlighted by explosively fabulous thunderstorms and the beautiful glow of lightening bugs.

Best of all,  Aaron got to be the bestman at his friend Brandon's wedding. Brandon Moore and Lisa Fukui were married on Saturday, July 23 at the home of the Moore family. It was absolutely lovely! While the sky did drizzle a bit, the rain stopped at just the right times, and the clouds made for a wonderful soft light that only helped make the whole thing more beautiful.