Napa Valley, Part 2

Our first two nights in Napa were spent at the Calistoga Inn & Brewery.  It's more similar to a hostel than an inn (mainly, shared bathrooms).  However, it was well-priced, had a brewery on location (yes!), & rooms were spacious & clean.  The town of Calistoga turned out to be our favorite town in Napa - it was much quieter & laid-back than Napa, Rutherford, St. Helena...  If you're bothered by music late into the night, don't stay at the Calistoga Inn - they regularly have a DJ or live music in their bar, which is below all the rooms.  Their beers were delicious & the food was amazing (my first glimpse of what I consider Napa's finest feature - FOOD!).  With all the rain, we lacked the gumption to take pictures & thus did not manage to get one picture of our room.  Fail.

 We did, however, manage to snap a picture of our first night's dessert - a local wine & a super yummy peanut butter pie from the Calistoga Inn's restaurant.  The wine we found at Wine Garage, a place we knew we had to visit.  They proved to be a great wine store of friendly, knowledgeable, & NOT fancy shmancy stuck-up wine snobs.

 The next day, we made a trip to Milat, upon recommendation from the 'rents.  A family-owned vineyard, we met one of the owner's, Mike.  Very interesting guy.  Certainly not your Napa "standard" - in fact, he steered us away from the "yuppie restaurants" (his own words) & to the more local, less touristy, food places.

 Stunning California Poppies sent against the gray/green background

 Olive oil is another big venture in Napa Valley & I almost jumped out of the car when we drove by this place.  Olive oil tastings??  You betcha!  I convinced Steve to stop & check it out - we thoroughly enjoyed the incredibly variety of oils & flavors, but couldn't decide on one particular oil (& were slightly swayed with the $42 price tag for a small bottle).

RACE DAY!  It rained.  And there was lots of mud.  I lost my drive & ended up running only the half-marathon while Steve toughed it out to complete the full.

As we were trying to leave the park, a family was standing in the middle of the road, trying to take pictures.  Many of the adults in the family had completed the race; they obviously didn't care about time or the weather - they were just so proud of each other & enjoying their time together (seriously, I think there were 15-20 family members).  Needless to say, when they saw us waiting for them to move, the family member trying to take the picture came running over to our car & said "since you're waiting, would you mind...?"  We hopped out, took their picture, & in return, requested they snap our photo too.