up!

i spent the last couple days up in napa valley with my cousin. while up in napa, we went to a couple wineries - how could you not?  below are some photos from mumm (winery).  they had a nice terrace with a view of part of their vineyard.  additionally, mumm had many different flavors of bubbly - my favorite.  i think my last job definitely had some influence on that preference.

another highlight of the trip was our hot air balloon ride.  we woke up very early to drive up to sonoma for our hot air balloon adventure.  let me breakdown the limited elements in a hot air balloon:

1. basket - wickerish material
2. balloon - approximately 646lbs of fabric
3. air
4. fire

to get the balloon up and running the pilot first filled the balloon with air from a very strong fan.  next, he used blasts of fire to warm the air which then lifted the balloon up (in comparison to cold air outside).  we all hopped in the basket and after a few more blasts of fire, we were off.  we floated around in the air about 80 minutes and then landed near sonoma airport.  once you are up in the air, there is very little control over the balloon - you can only sorta direct the adventure.  landing at the airport was 100% determined by the winds.

it was beautiful up in the air.  i cant even begin to describe the amazing views.  one interesting thing was that the mountains in the distance would change shapes (at least the peaks) as you looked at them.  we learned that this phenomenon was caused by the light hitting the photons and the height/angle we were viewing from resulting in an optical illusion.

last, we also walked around downtown and oxbow market - very cute.  in addition to some fun stores, a few of the parking spots were labeled with some motivating words.  additionally, there were quite a few installations of public art.  my favorite was a permanent installation which had footprints showing you how to dance the cha cha cha.