la and napa!

Before starting year two at Wharton, I headed back to California for a bit to visit home and go to napa with friends.  I didn’t take a bunch of pictures at home, but it was nice seeing family – despite how short my time at home actually was.

One of my friends from school, Taryn, came to LA and then we drove up north to meet two of our other friends from school, Monica and Kristen, for a girls trip to Napa.  In Napa, we went to wineries (including the Napa Tasting Room (a bunch of small wineries showcase their wines there), Pride Vineyards, Keenan, Mumm and Goosecross .  We also ate excessive amounts of local cheese and tomatoes, ate at the Farmstead, Ad Hoc and OxBow Market.  We decided Pride was our favorite winery by far!  Highly recommend that if you go there.  Each place we went to was a totally different experience.  Highlights describing each winery below

• Napa tasting room we stood at the counter and tried 3 different wines from smaller and new wineries
• Pride we got a tour of their property and caves and tasted many delicious wines.  Their property is on the Sonoma/napa county line and thus their wines have grapes from both counties.  Also being in the mountains their grapes are about 3-4 weeks behind those in the valley
•  Keenan we sat inside at a table (they are redoing their facility) and tasted many different wines, got great advice from the lady giving the tasting and she even brought us lots of cheese!
• Mumm wonderful views from outside porch and bubbles.
• Goosecross we learned that the vineyard was recently purchased by the coors family as an investment opportunity.  The lady, 5^th generation in coors family, was generous in letting us try many wines and explained the whole wine making processes to us

  

After a great few days, we dropped Monica and Kristen off in San Fran and headed back down the coast.  We stopped at a really cute strawberry farm off the road and picked fresh strawberries and got some delicious treats from their store.  The guy working at the trailer selling other goods, recommended a beach a few miles down the road so we stopped there – it was gorgeous.  We walked over the railroad tracks (stopped for obligatory picture) and down a small hill and we ended up at a wonderful beach where I even found a starfish.  We stayed in carmel for the night and then the next morning continued down the 1 after doing the 17 mile drive in carmel.  On the way down we saw elephant seals on the beach – such a treat. 

Overall, nice being home in the sunshine!