Day 5

November 3, 2021

Napa Valley is really beautiful just about everywhere you look.  Vineyards and olive trees dominate the landscape, but there's so much else enhancing the views.  This photo was taken in late morning.  It's typical of what you see all over the valley.

 

We enjoyed stopping at many wineries in the area.  Most require a reservation, so we did a bit of exploring.  We did get a pour of a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon at the Clos du Val winery, and bought a bottle.

One of the first places we went this morning was the Groth winery.  Very nice people, very nice place, and another bottle purchased.  My cellar is expanding!  These next two pictures are taken at the Groth winery, and they're a bit embarrassing:

 

 

Oh, no!  We're both caught on camera drinking white wine!  Please don't let it get out.  The shameful deed happened because the lady at Groth offered us a complimentary pour of their Sauvignon Blanc.  It was really good!  As someone who generally disdains white wine, I was very impressed.  (But the bottle we bought there was their Cabernet Sauvignon.)

After tooling around Napa for a bit we had lunch at a great Italian restaurant called Il Posta Trattoria (but we drank Napa Valley wine with the meal!).

We nosed around the town of Napa (in the southern part of the Napa Valley) for a while after lunch, then headed out for Lodi, passing through the San Joaquin Valley along the way.  The San Joaquin Valley also has beautiful views just about everywhere.  Here's one of them:

 

In Lodi we spent a good bit of time at the Michael David winery.  That's the winery that produces the Freakshow and Earthquake labels.  They also have some really nice higher end wines only available at the winery or through their wine club.  Their Rapture Cabernet Sauvignon is really good.

After leaving Lodi, we proceeded on to Mariposa to spend the night.  Our plan for the morrow is to visit Yosemite and go to the Mariposa Grove to see the giant sequoias.  It will be interesting to compare them to the giant redwoods.  We're told the redwoods are taller, but the sequoias are larger around.  We'll provide photos of them tomorrow.

While looking around for pictures to post, we found these three pictures of the giant redwoods on Andy's phone.  They're worth showing and got us in the mood to see the sequoias tomorrow:

 

 

 

Stay tuned for a Sequoia Report on the morrow.

Thanks for reading!