Napa Valley

Where we last left off we had just left the state of Oregon, and were driving through california towards Napa Valley. To be more precise, towards Rohnert Park.  Yes, i’ve never heard of it either.  but it was close to Napa, and there was a nice hotel we found.  anyways, we got in late, at around 8 or 9, after having driven all day.  by the time we arrived we were famished, and decided to visit In and Out burger, which was about 1.5km away from us.  since we had driven all day, we decided to walk there, and joked that we are probably the only people that have ever walked to In and Out.

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Now, let’s discuss Napa.  i think we were staying in Sonoma valley, and napa valley was the next one over heading away from the coast.  all these valleys are separated by mountain ranges that do not have roads over them.  instead you have to drive towards the bottom or the tops of the valley, and drive all the way along them in order to visit the towns you want to see.  below was a model i found at an info center that shows this very clearly.

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Now the good thing about that was the following morning, we woke up and planned out a route that went from where were were staying and took us south and over into the actual city of Napa, and then we would head north up the valley for lunch.  we would end the day driving all they way up and coming back down towards where we were staying.  so having a plan in mind, off we went!

The first place we stopped was a real nice public market in Napa.  a few days a week they have farmers markets there too, but not today.  we wandered around, and i found a nice little boutique chinese tea vendor.  so i sat and had some Puer for the first time in a long time.  while drinking we talked to the sales person and he told us about some cool wineries around that he liked.

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after that we wandered around the city.  Napa is where Morimoto has one of his restaurants.

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Noa snagged us a table at Bottega to have lunch, another well known restaurant.  All these fancy restaurants are in a city called Yountville, which i personally had never heard of, but apparently its quite famous.

so after leaving Napa, off we drove to Yountville.

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lunch at Bottega was amazing.  i did not feel like i should be taking photos there, so i didn’t, but we had a very enjoyable dining experience and really good food, wine and service!  after that we walked around a bit, and found the French laundry restaurant.

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now one of the reasons its so famous is they grow a lot of their own food for the restaurant, and i think it was one of the first to offer really local and seasonal food.  this was a map of their garden plot, and their actual gardens.  they are open to the public, and you can wander around them.  and did i mention they are across the street from the actual restaurant.  pretty amazing.

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we also stumbled upon Bouchon, where we were very excited to try the bakery.  and then found out that out of the whole year, this is the one the staff decided to have their staff meeting.  BOO!  so no tasty bakery stuff for us!

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now did i also mention that IT WAS STINKIN HOT in napa?  after having frozen our butts off in Oregon, it was so nice to be walking around in shorts again.  so we were having  good time just walking around and seeing the town.  what i really liked is they had some grape vines right there, so that people could walk around and take pictures if they wanted , which i did.

vineyards

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Having had our fill of yountville, we kept driving north towards St Helena.  everywhere you drive by the way, you see nothing but grape vines, and vineyards.  they are literally everywhere.  it’s totally crazy.  So anyways, we were driving north and our target was called the Clif Family Winery.  we drove through St Helena to have a look, and then found the winery.  Noa had heard they sell really good meyer lemon jam, and we also found plum jam there that we got.  But what they are actually known for, which we had no idea about, but really should have, was that the owners are the inventors of the Clif Bar.  And the reason they invented the clif bar is that they are a family of bikers, and needed something to fuel themselves on long bike rides.  on the side they also produce wine, i guess!  Their tasting room was really cool, and they had bikes all over the place.  It made me wish i had some of our biker friends like Will or Goosen with us.

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St Helena train tracks.

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As we were leaving St Helena driving North, we pulled over at the Giant Sized welcome to napa sign.  i guess we did the trip in reverse….

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We also pulled over at some point to get a picture of the HWY 101 sign, which was the highway we ended up driving all the way down from Northern Oregon to San Fran.

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That evening, we decided to go to Lagunitas brewery so that i could have some beer there.  Amongst rogue, deschutes, driftwood  and dogfish head, its for sure one of my favourites. as we were very close to petaluma, we decided to go for a quick visit.

now, its located in an industrial park in petaluma, and the brewery is actually on site.  right next to the brewery they have their tap room, and even a small stage for performances and stuff.  we went about an hour before closing, and it was a very lively spot.  if i lived close by, i could see myself coming quite a bit.

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of course i was there to try ipa’s.  i have had their little sumpin’ sumpin’ ale, and its great.  i’ve also had hop stoopid, which is wonderful.  so i just asked for a sampler of four ipa’s, and this is what i got.  it was their run of the mill IPA, an imperial IPA, hop stoopid, and one called galaxy.  the galaxy was closer to the 120 minute dogfish head, so quite sweet, a little over the top.  the regular IPA was fine, but the imperial and hop stoopid were still my favorites.  sadly we did not have a lot of time to try more beers, there looked like so many good ones you can only get at the tap bar.  i shall go back with some day, hopefully with dan or aaron :)  or anyone that wants to drink beers with me for that matter.

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driving home, we got rewarded with a beautiful sunset after a very action packed day.

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Overall we had a wonderful day in Napa, and we certainly learned a lot.  we did no winery tours, as most need at least 24h notice, and almost all cost between 20-60 dollars a person.  also, if you’re going to really enjoy yourself, you should hire a car/van to drive you or a group of you around.  who’s going to spend that money at a winery, and then not drink because they have to drive.  so i think it was a great day, a really good fact finding trip, and we are set now if we ever do go back, which would be wonderful.  there was still some much left unexplored, and there are a lot of beautiful hikes we had to give up due to the problem of not enough time.

 

 

 

 

 

The end of vacation, and some fruit

I interrupt my regularly scheduled vacation updates to say that im back home in Israel.  We arrived 4 days ago, at around 1am to the airport.  By the time we got to tel aviv, it was well towards 2am, and having to carry 4 heavy pieces of luggage, and 2 carry on’s up 5 flights of stairs was a treat!  needless to say we overpacked and bought too much on the way.  i think it took me about 30 min for the sweat to stop rolling off me.

But, its so wonderful to be back in the heat!  towards the end of the trip we had some cooler weather in san fran, germany and london, so im thoroughly happy to be back in the sunshine.  and for the moment, it doesnt seem that bad!  i guess when we left back in mid june, the temperatures were getting up towards 30, but the humidity was still low.  now the humidity is cranked, and the temperatures hover around 30.  I think we missed the worst of it though, because it actually doesn’t feel that bad out.  True, i figured out you have to walk everywhere MUCH slower, so you dont start sweating.  but otherwise its pleasant.  Then again, ive mostly only been out at night, i dont have to “work” in the sun, and we are indoors with the air con on most of the day……

I also apparently missed my passion fruits season.  i got one measly one left behind on the plant.  and it was delicious!  but yeah, totally missed that boat….  THOUGH….  its full on fruit season.  the great and, sometimes not so great thing, is that all fruits and veggies here are seasonal.  so going to the market yesterday i was overly excited to finally see limes being sold!  Noa and i were like, yes!, we can finally make guacamole with limes…. and then we both realized that its not avocado season and i fell to my knee’s screaming WHYYYYYY……..    (not really.  but im SOOOO freezing limes in order to save them for the avocado season….)

K, so that was a bummer, but then i quickly got over it when i started piling figs, lychee’s, mango’s and watermelons into my bags!  i was so excited, we got some of everything, and when i got home, i thought i would stage them all to get a shot of whats in season at the moment.

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we got watermelon, mango’s, pears, apples, peaches, grapes, 3 types of figs, and lychee’s!  holy moly!  and on top of it all, noa’s parents neighbours were harvesting prickly pear fruit, called Sabras.  I had never had a fruit before, just jam, and they are very tasty! (i had to watch a youtube video on how to peel them) and the mango’s are amazingly plump and sweet.  everything is awesome.  its so nice being somewhere where you can get so much fruit in season, and its CHEAP!!  i think the mango’s were 15 shekels per kilo, so thats like 4 bucks for a kilo?  cray cray.

So what more can we expect from our almost 2 month long vacation adventures?

we still have Sonoma, San Francisco, mainz/wiesbaden and a whopper of a trip to london.

things got pretty hectic towards the end there, with not a lot of down time, so i got way backlogged on processing photos, uploading them and blogging.  but im back and have the time now, so hold tight.

The elusive Oregon coast

Having left portland around 2, Noa and i started driving for the oregon coast in order to drive down the 101, with the idea that we would get a little more than halfway down in half a day.  But first, we needed to stop for lunch in Tillamook!  if you have never heard of it, a lot of cheese is produced there.  So as we were driving to Tillamook, we decided we should try to find a place that would serve grilled cheeses, and low and behold, we did! it was a cute little farm/tourist destination that had goats and yak’s, and grilled cheeses!

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having finally made it to the coast, we started driving south, and after what seemed to be a forever inland road, we got our first glimpse of the pacific.  yup, that looks like the pacific!

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we kept driving until we hit the city of newport, which has one of the many oregon light houses, and is also a national park.  we thought we would drive out to it and have a nice relaxed stroll around the area.  well, when we got there, the first indication that there might be “some” wind was some kids were being blown about!  after we parked, and tried to open the car doors, we realized that it might be somewhat blustery out, and we need pants and sweatshirts!  having found those, we got out and started walking to the light house.  apparently theres a rookery for sea birds right next to it, and seals hang out on the rocks below.

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it was a nice little windy break.

from there we still had quite a bit of driving to do, but we stopped so i could jump out and take a picture of all the diverse beaches.

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it started to get more hazy the further south we got, and when we finally left the higher cliffs of norther oregon, and dropped to the sand dunes of central oregon, you can see the haze really set in. luckily by this point we were close to florence oregon where we would be spending the night.  as we got into the hotel, the wind and cold just seeped into you, and we could not see 10 feet in front of us.  we had a meal at the restaurant and all you could see out the window were grasses being whipped around by the wind.

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the following morning the haze was still settled around us, and i got a few pictures around the hotel before we left.

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the town of florence

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that day we still had a very long drive ahead of us.  we left at 8am, and i did not expect us to get to our destination just north of san francisco until 9pm.  As the day progressed, the weather certainly got better though.

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it was funny, every little bay would have its own weather pattern.  the clouds would sweep in and out, alternating between nice and warm and cold.

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I found these little flowers along one of the sand dunes.  and the seagull was just hanging out.

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Just before crossing the border into northern california, we stopped and put our feet in the water at one beach.  it was as cold as the water in vancouver.

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the 101 drive down Oregon coast has been something i always wanted to do.  ive driven the I5 thru a half dozen times, and while quick, is not nearly as pleasant as the 101.  the problem with this trip was i think we tried to accomplish too much.  we wanted to hurry to sonoma, in order to see it a bit, but that only left a day and a half to drive the coast, and see all the sights.  i hindsight, you could easily spend a full week just exploring the little towns, stopping to see the different beaches and for me taking photographs.  i did not even scratch the surface of photographic opportunities along the way, which in a way is a shame, but also leaves something for us to go back too….right?

overall thought, even with the short time and the little we were able to see, it was an immensely enjoyable drive, and I am very happy that we finally got to experience the oregon coast.