Day 3: July 4th! San Fran to the Vineyards

Day 3

Happy 4th!

On Monday, we took our time driving to Sausalito, Napa, and then on to Healdsburg where we stayed in the cutest little B&B.

We had confirmed reservations for a premium rental car--you know, a malibu or something along those lines. Andrew inquired about how much more it would be to get a convertible for the few days that we had a rental car and the person said it would be an extra $100/day. No thanks, no biggie, we will pass. Well the lady at the airport said the premium package allows you to pick a car with leather. So she said you can pick any car up here except the SUVs. Right away-so we can have the inifinity? No, thats a speciality car. Ok, just thought I would ask-all the can say is no, right?!? So she said we could pick from this silver VW or a red volvo. Sweet, better than a malibu, we will have the volvo. Not too shabby for a the price we paid. Then she checks with her manager just to confirm its ok. When she comes back, she says to us that we can actually have the one next to the red volvo. You mean the brand new, black Saab convertible?!? Yes, thats what she meant. So I think dealing with 2 or 3 rides of public transportation on Sunday was worth the few days in a brand new Saab convertible. Love!!! We loved it. Andrew loved driving it. We named her Trixie :)

On the way to Sausalito

We loved being able to drive across the golden gate bridge with the top down. It was the most perfect, clear day to drive across the bridge. It was the 4th and right as we drove over the bridge, 4 fighter jets flew over as well. Pretty neat.

Fighter jets

The Golden Gate Bridge

We arrived in Sausalito and immediately fell in love. If we moved anywhere near SF, it would be Sausalito-thats if we could afford a house on the cliffs. Amazing. We had lunch at Spinnaker. As angie says, it reminded her of a 1960's country club. They ate there the day before. So true but really great food. It was quiet and sat out on the water with the most amazing views of SF, the bay, the bridge, sailboats. After lunch, we drove around the town of Sausalito. You can look up and all you see are houses up in the hills/mountains. So neat.

Leaving lunch to go drive around in Sausalito

The view from below.

The view from up there.

(i know, bad picture but pretty view)

After our little Sausalito self-guided tour, we headed to Napa. I had talked about wanting to go taste champagne from Domaine Carneros but it wasn't first on my list. So we were headed to Silver Oak to make sure we got there before they closed. We didn't have any appointments on Tuesday so we thought we would just wing it and do whatever we felt like doing. It was nice not having a schedule for the day. We enjoyed our leisure drive and being slow. So anyways...we did stop at Domaine Carneros because we passed it on the way by surprise. It was one of those--hey theres the champagne place I was talking about lets go, skkkrrttt...turn right. So we ended up having a little taste of champagne. It was nice. Quick. But nice.

our champagne flight tasting

bubbly

And look who we ran into :) I told Andrew that they were coming today but didn't know what time because they had other vineyards on their schedule for the day. Well...only one person in California has a volvo with an auburn sticker and Davidson county tags. We walked up behind them and surprised them. It was fun to run into them again. Loved it--twice in 2 days!

Happy 4th from the Vineyards!

Angie, Missy, Carla

Can you tell its the 4th? We are all in some sort of navy and red.

So patriotic!

So on to Silver Oak. Silver Oak was by far one of the best we went to. Customer service was fabulous and well...the wine, you can't go wrong with Silver Oak. It was not busy so we got a little behind the scene tour with the lady who was giving us our tasting. We loved learning about the Silver Oak story. Silver: bc they are located off the Silverado Road. Oak: bc they are located in Oakville, Ca. One of the many facts we were told that I actually stored away.

The Silver Oak tasting room.

They have gorgeous grounds.

$3000 12L

Santa, please?!?

Andrew loving the Silver Oak vineyards

So after our tasting it was onto our B&B. The grounds are covered with beautiful flowers and it's just so fresh there. The owners, Tom and Brenda, are very nice and helpful. We enjoyed getting to know them and getting to know the 2 other couples that we ate breakfast with while staying there.

It was like this everywhere-beautiful flowers. Why can't my backyard look like this?!

Little pathway to our cottage.

When you first drive in, you see this barn (it was the big room in it) and then Tom and Brenda's house is to your right.

We ate at Rustic at the Francis's Coppola Vineyards. It was great food. The views were spectacular-kinda made us feel like we were not in the US.

Although it was the 4th, we actually were so tired that we didn't stay for them. We dined on the patio and it would have been a perfect place to stay and watch but we were exhausted, to say the least. We watched some of the Macy's Fireworks from D.C on TV..so at least we got some fireworks in. Wednesday...it was onto vineyards, tours, and wine tasting.