Wednesday the 6th: Napa Valley, California
Spent two nights in Redding, swimming in the hotel pool and planning out our next few days. Decided we would visit the wine country and then make a quick stop in San Francisco to feast at Millennium, a high end, all vegetarian restaurant.

So from Redding, we drove south to Napa Valley. And today, we visited the area, with a first stop at Bouchon for lunch, one of Chef Thomas Keller's famed restaurants. This is not French Laundry, his super high end and super expensive restaurant right down the street, which has a waiting list over 2 months long. But it is a nice place, specializing in French bistro fare. We had fun but had to wait way too long for our food. It was very hoity-toity in there and we felt like poor bums...especially when the couple next to us got immediate service after they ordered $35 glasses of wine. Whatever.

After lunch, we drove through Napa to see the various vineyards. They're very pretty and very manicured. I think we thought it would be a little more authentic...large farmlands with long windy roads down to the winery, where you would then get a custom tour of the cellars while sipping exceptional wine. Well, that's not exactly it. It's much more geared towards tourists, with vineyards jam packed on top of one another, essentially fighting for your money for the overpriced basic tours and wine tastings. We were not very impressed. However, we still managed to enjoy ourselves and see the undeniably beautiful region by walking around the Mondavi vineyard, tasting some wine at the BV vineyard, and touring the cellars in the V. Sattui winery.

The vines pictured above had this label by them. It tells you all about the planting: the kind of grape, the year it was planted, how many vines were planted, how many acres they fill, etc. Pretty interesting. This one was part of Robert Mondavi's vineyard.

The wine cellar at V. Sattui:

Afterwards, we found a great place to stay in Calistoga for super cheap and had a fabulous dinner at their restaurant. Tomorrow, we head to San Francisco and then on to Yosemite (fingers crossed). The Labor Day crowds have lightened but forest fires in the region may force us to make some major detours.