Another Day In The Valley...

     I'm a little behind in my blogging. I'll post my most recent entry tomorrow (Thursday) as early as possible.

    The rain ended sometime before I got out of bed this morning. Even so, the best place to play with Travis, rain or no rain, is in the pavilion across from our campsite. I think Travis would chase balls all day long if I was willing to keep throwing them.


     Suzanne finished work around 1pm and we drove over to Barb's where her contractor was demoing her guest bathroom. We were planning to go to lunch, all four of us, but Vince thought it prudent to stick around while the bathroom was being smashed to hell so Barb, Suzanne and I headed for Napa's Oxbow Public Market to do some shopping and have some lunch. As it turned out, the OPM was closed for maintenance - so instead, we shared a pizza across the street at Filippi's Pizza Grotto. I'm telling you, Fillipi makes some of the best pizza I've ever had. It was delicious!


    From there, we took a ride out to the Carneros region of Napa. We lived here from 1992 to 1996. It's a beautiful area just south of Napa proper, where the climate is more suitable for cultivating Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. In fact, Carneros Elementary School (where my kids went to school) owned a vineyard and sold the grapes to Mumm. A great source of income for the school district.
    We drove by our old place, which looked like it had been added on to at some point. I was always pretty fussy about maintaining the yard and the current owner is doing a great job of carrying on that tradition. The manager of Carneros Alambic, a brandy distillery across the road, built and operated by Remy Martin, used to bring me a bottle of their best at Christmastime in appreciation of my landscaping efforts. Carneros Alambic is no longer in operation and I believe the building is vacant. It was a beautiful facility, built while we were living here. Here's a 2002 article from the Napa Register you might find interesting. 

      Back at Barb and Vince's place, we hung out... visiting and watching a little TV. Our dinner reservation was for 7pm at The Red Hen Cantina, one of our favorite haunts when we lived in these parts. At 6pm I took my leave and returned to the coach to walk and feed Travis. I met Suzanne, Barb, Vince & Barrett at 'The Hen' at the appointed hour and we had a wonderful evening of food, margaritas and conversation. We said our goodbyes in the parking lot  😢, as we would be leaving the next morning... and headed our separate ways.

    It's been a wonderful three days here in Napa visiting loved ones. We created a lot of memories in the four years we lived here and driving around the area definitely rekindled a lot of those memories. A pilgrimage I made this morning brought back memories of a very good friend. I'll write about that tomorrow.

Thanks for reading the blog.