Rob's Labor Day Vacation to Napa, CA
September 4th, 2008

Our pre-Labor Day trip this year took my wife and I to one of our favorite places, Napa California!

All visits to Napa must include the obligatory vineyard photo…this is taken off of our patio deck at the Harvest Inn in St. Helena

This makes me less fun than Dawn; when we were in our room, I made my wife watch coverage of the Democratic Convention…this is what she thinks of Bill O Reilly.

One of the reason we like the Harvest Inn is all of their rooms come with giant, wood burning brick fireplaces that I could literally fit into…

Leading to a nice roaring fire. Perfect for a summer afternoon with the room A/C set at 58 degrees. Literally…I am not kidding, my wife sets it at 58!

Our first night out took us to one of our favorite Napa restaurants, the Bistro Don Giovanni…

I was a happy man with an entire bottle of wine to myself…

While my wife was drawn to a specialty version of a pineapple martini on their menu named after the recent dopey pot movie “Pineapple Express.”

This is what you get when you hand your wife the camera while on your way back to the room in a taxi after she’s had 6 pineapple express martinis. Great scenery shots, babe.

Ummm…these are post sex shots. Deal with it.

The next morning we visited Domaine Chandon, a sparkling wine vineyard in Yountville on beautiful grounds. As you can see, we walked out with a few boxes of great wine.

Our next stop was the brand new Del Dotto Winery location in St. Helena, complete with a gorgeous water fountain and a la carte grapes. Okay that part about the grapes isn’t true…don’t put the grapes in your mouth.

Every great trip has a theme or running joke. Ours was a fly. Just one fly. Everywhere we went, there was a fly. Not the same fly, obviously, but always only one really annoying fly. At dinner, at breakfast, in our room, in the car, there was always a fly. I finally told my wife it was living in her hair which she surprisingly did not find very amusing.

Here we are (slightly out of focus, sorry about that) on our way to the Martini House Restaurant in St. Helena.

This was our awesome second floor table view of the bar below.

I drank a great red wine from a little known winery called Gridley and my wife downed a half dozen of these red martini things.

The sight of Oreo cows means we are leaving Napa Valley…

…On our way to San Francisco and the obligatory scenic photos of the city by the Bay.

Our first stop was lunch at the greatest authentic Italian Restaurant in America, North Beach…here I am enjoying a glass of red wine made by the co-owner of North beach with some fantastic Prosciutto (a glorious Italian ham) and Carpaccio (that’s raw, sliced prime beef).

The trip ended with a mini-shopping spree at one of our favorite stores, Prada, where I grabbed an awesome pair of gator shoes and some cologne while my wife scored perfume (to kill that fly hopefully) and a new purse.

Shoot us an e-mail for questions or comments.