Sorry?

The wife and I were chatting in the Mercedes this afternoon about not looking forward to leaving Napa Valley tomorrow (Leave a Benz E550 convertible and free breakfast? Who would be happy about that?). She idly wondered which places we had each been sorry to leave on this trip. Before you jump in, I'll admit that I wasn't sorry to leave Death Valley. But once you get past that, I really enjoyed each of our stops, including the en-route 1-nighters: Billings, Salt Lake City, Bishop. Denver, not really; it was truly a place to stay because we just couldn't get there early enough to drive to Rapid City that night. Bishop turned into two nights, which I enjoyed.

Each of the National parks (counting Rapid City in this category) was unique in its own way. In some cases, I was anxious to move on because of what was upcoming, but in no case was I happy to leave. Well, maybe Grand Teton given the completely uncooperative weather which I'm sure got much better after we left. Yosemite was the star; Yellowstone the most bazaar. Zion could have used another day at least; Yosemite another month. Bryce perhaps another day, perhaps not. It's really a beautiful and unique one-trick pony.

Vegas I could have skipped, but we're a team and the wife loved it. Napa Valley appeals to both of us. San Francisco, where we go tomorrow, is kind of a decompression stop to ready us for our return to the East.

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Today was a bit of another day like yesterday: hit the gym, have a leisurely breakfast overlooking the Valley on the Terrace, visit a winery, gourmet lunch, another winery, then dinner. In the morning we visited Robert Mondavi. A beautiful building on beautiful grounds, and a very nice tour culminating in a sit-down tasting in a wine celler room. Very classy.

All You Need to Know About Great Wine, June 2012

Here's all you need to know about lunch at Mustard's:

I bet you can't eat the whole thing, June 2012

After lunch we went up to the Sterling winery. As befits the wine, the tour was a little more mass-market than Mondavi. But the winery is on top of a hill with nice views looking down the Valley.

Bottle of red, bottle of white, June 2012

All in, another pleasant day.