Napa Valley

[da]

Sigh. My turn to wake up at 6am. Just a brief note on yesterday. We drove across the mountains into Napa Valley, and had a picnic on Lake Barryessa. It was so peaceful and pretty that we decided to keep going along the twisty road there, and eventually we found a great spot for hiking. Roughly here, if google maps can be trusted. So, we left the twisty road and walked on the very twisty path. At the end (2.5 miles/1.5 hours or so), we turned around and went back on the road. It took less than ten minutes. I mused, after we got back onto the windy twisty road, whether there was another road just up the hill from us to reduce the hour of windy twisty road to 5 minutes of driving. Or, whether ants at the water's edge were treated to a closer-to-the-shoreline trail that was equally fractal. Too bad I didn't look that closely when we were at the water. Lake Baryessa is artificial so this wonderful coastline was merely a topo line 50 years ago. (there are some neat pics at that link; apparently the dam has a drain-hole instead of a regular spillway. Drats, we didn't see it. This trip.)

Then we ended up in St. Helena, which had a coffee shop every 300 feet, and about four stores that sold varietal olive oils. Gotta love swanky wine country.