girls trip to wine country.

The baby of the family, Emily, turned 21 on July 22!  Since this birthday is so significant, we allowed Emily to convince us to travel to wine country!  Not that she really had to twist our arms to get us there!  We decided we'd leave Boise on Wednesday and return on Sunday.  The trip would be quick, but packed full of fun!

We arrived on Wednesday evening and had time to check in to our hotel, grab a bite of dinner, head to Trader Joe's for picnic lunch fixings for the week, and crash after the long drive.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early and headed to the first of the wineries in Napa, Andretti Winery (yeah, the race car driver owns it!).  We enjoyed walking through the grounds and tasting the vino of course!

 Isn't this tree beautiful?

 These hens and chicks were larger than my hand, seriously!

 The Andretti Winery cat was appropriately named Merlot!

 After Andretti, we drove down the road to Clos du Val.  It was beautiful as well.  We liked the look of these little outdoor cabanas, but forgot to call ahead and reserve one!  Shucks!

 It was beautiful as well, and we ended up tasting some great wine there!

After Clos du Val, we went to a little lake called Hennessey Lake for our picnic lunch.  We may or may not have had a bottle of 2-buck-Chuck with lunch!

After lunch, it was off to a few more wineries.  We walked into Mumm, but left because it was so expensive to taste, and they only had sparkling wines which we weren't super enthusiastic about!

These were the zinnias outside of Mumm.  They were stunning!

 Then we went to a winery called ZD .  This wasn't our favorite winery, but it was still fun.

 After ZD, we went to Pine Ridge Winery, still in Napa, and had fabulous service and great wine!  This was our last winery in Napa, and it was a fabulous place to visit!

Thursday evening, we ventured to Sonoma for dinner.  Emily found some information online about a restaurant in Sonoma called Meritage Martini and Oyster Bar.  And it may have been the highlight of the trip.  Mom treated all of us to a fabulous lobster dinner.  The dinner came in courses and was just incredible.  But first, here's a shot of the town square of Sonoma.  This old city hall is surrounded by tons of shops that line all the streets of the square.

 Back to lobster...

 We had a nice bottle of wine...

 a salad to start...

 the main course was a whole lobster, mashed potatoes, and wonderful roasted veggies...

 there were shots somewhere in there...

and the meal concluded with our choice of gelato or sherbet.  Oh my, the sherbet was divine...lemon, pineapple, and strawberry!

 See how much Emily enjoyed her gelato?

 On Friday, we headed out early to tour some Sonoma wineries.  We started at Bella Vista, the oldest winery in the area.  I visited this place with some girlfriends a while ago and we had the most amazing wine tasting paired with food.  The winery was beautiful, but we didn't purchase any wine there.

 After Bella Vista, we went to our favorite winery of the trip!  It was actually right next door, and was called Bartholomew Park Winery.  The wine was TDF, and so was our host.  He gives the historical tours of the property and winery, so he was full of fun information.  Every single wine we tasted was out of this world.  Even the rosé!  My mom and Teenie are now wine club members!  This winery doesn't distribute, so don't look for their wines in stores!  You need to visit the vineyard to get some, and if you're in the area, visit the vineyard!!!

After Bartholomew Park, we went to their sister winery, Gundlach Bunschu.  The wine was fabulous there as well!  We picnicked outside at Gundlach Bunschu's picnic tables!

 After lunch, we hit the town for 30 minutes and did a little power shopping!  After that, we headed to Petaluma to visit my Mom's childhood friend, Ruth.

When we got to Petaluma, we decided to check in to our hotel, and then head to dinner.  We checked in to our hotel, and this is how we felt.

 The room was horrible!  It was itty-bitty.  It only had two DOUBLE beds.  It reeked of marijuana.  The air conditioner didn't work.  I could go on and on!  It was horrible.  We went to check out, and the woman at the front desk insisted on keeping $50 for cleaning since we'd been in the room and used the toilet!  We were appalled!  A nasty phone call, an e-mail, and a week later, my Mom got her $50 back!  Thank goodness!

After checking out of hell, we went to pick up Ruth without a place to stay.  We figured we'd find something on the road north after dinner!

We dined at the most incredible Italian restaurant in Petaluma called Volpi's, as per Ruth's recommendation!  Oh my...each dish was delectable!  Mouth-watering delicious!  (We really ate well on this trip!).  The back of Volpi's has a Speak Easy.  I had to take a pic!  It was tiny and charming!

My mom had such fun with Ruth!  It was so cute to watch them spend time together!  After bidding Ruth goodbye, we headed north.  My mom hoped to be able to go to a glass studio's second's sale the next morning in Arcata, California.  So we hoped we'd be able to drive to Eureka and stay there!  The road was dark, full of deer and curves, and there were people everywhere!  There was something called Reggae on the River in one of the small towns on our drive, and people swarmed the highway!  Not fun!  But we made it in one piece!

The next morning, we went to Fire and Light's glass sale and found a few treasures.  Then we began our trek home.  On the way, we stopped for lunch on the Oregon Coast.  We had delish clam chowder to share, and I ate the seafood and chips platter.  It was fried, but instead of just cod, it included scallops and shrimp as well.  Wow!  It was phenomenal!

 And during lunch, we got to watch the sea lions and seals swim all around the marina.  That was pretty fun!

The rest of that day was full of driving!  We made it to the Portland, Oregon area, and could not get a hotel to save our lives!!!  3/4 of us were on the phone for the better part of an hour calling every hotel in every town along I-5, and there was nothing!  Finally, we made it to Portland just in time to book a hotel for the night in Salem, the same town we'd driven through an hour before!  Lovely.  So we turned around and drove to Salem.  Thankfully, the hotel was glorious!  It was called The Grand, and the name was fitting.  The restaurant inside was fabulous, too!  So we slept in luxury on the last night of our trip!

I'm glad we did something special to celebrate Emily's birthday!  The wineries were so fun!  Thanks girls for the memories!