Napa Day 2...

Monday morning woke up to the soft music on the alarm I happily figured out this morning, hopped in the shower and Lib and I were ready for the Riverpointe informational breakfast they offer here.  Marilyn is our activities director and she is this hilarious, boisterous older woman that had me in stiches.  She’s feisty, funny and fun.  Perfect for an activities director.  We had a buffet style breakfast (pretty amazing bacon fyi) and we sat down and listened to her spiel.  A couple of older Asian women joined us at our table, Grace and Maggie.  Lovely women who filled us in on the Napa timeshare.  They were original owners and here for the annual meeting.

Marilyn went on to talk about unfortunately the wine tastings that we were going to miss and a lot of tours that I can’t take due to my motion sickies.  Blergh.  But we did get some helpful info and when the Jelly Belly Factory was mentioned, Libby’s eyes lit up like Christmas tree.  I knew that was a stop we were going to have to make.  Back at our condo Lib and I sat down and tried to somewhat plan out the week.  We didn’t really want to plan too much but we also didn’t want to end up driving back and forth when we didn’t have to.  The Jelly Belly factory was south of us so we decided to do that then hit downtown Napa and Oxbow Market for today.

Off we went.  The Jelly Belly Factory was just how you probably imagine.  Lots of kids, lots of Jelly Belly themed crap and very loud.  I took this shot with the caption of “We are in wine country but this is the 1^st place Libby wants to hit”.  Tee Hee!

We got right in line for the factory tour and after not too long of a wait we were handed funny paper hats we had to wear and the tour started.  Here’s a few shots before we weren’t allowed to take pics:

This was made of all jelly beans!

All Jelly Beans!!!

Our tour group

The Jelly Belly Queen herself

The tour was pretty cool, but we wish it was shorter and a lot of the tour was “watch the screen and listened to the story of blah blah”.  I kind of wish it was more of an actual tour but it was pretty neat to see how jelly beans are created.  We got to sample a few different ones while walking through.  They took a touristy photo that Lib bought so here’s the snapshot:

We strolled the store and Lib got a few things for her daughter, I bought mom a package of Jordan Almonds and we both filled up a little bag of our favorite jelly bean flavors and off we went.

I’d also like to mention here that on our way to the factory we got a bit caught in a side of the freeway fire.  I’ve never been that close to flames and smoke before while driving and it was a little scary!  We were going to call 911 but a police paddy wagon was pulling right up behind us.  Yikes!

Back in Napa.  We parked at the Oxbow Public Market and immediately looked for food.  We landed at a great little Italian Restaurant called CA Momi.  Lib ordered a Peach Bellini and I a Pinot Noir from the absolutely darling waiter.  Seriously – so fucking cute.  I blushed every time he came over.  We split some amazing Bruschetta and chatted about our day.  Our meal was sooooooooooooooooooooo friggin good!  I ordered the Spaghetti de la something.  I was looking for a nondairy option and this was spaghetti noodles with garlic, caviar flavor and oil.  Seriously - AMAZING!  Lib ordered the Gnudi which was a spinach gnocchi.  So fresh and so good and fell off your fork!!  Ridiculous!!!    Our little cutie came back and we passed on dessert ordering another round of drinks instead.  He came back with drinks then surprised us with complimentary pastry puffs.  One was Cappuccino and one was Honey Milk.  OH. MY. GOD!  Sooooooo good!!!  The boy got a fat tip and we headed out.

Best Bruschetta I have ever had!!!

We wandered around the Market and it really reminded me of the SOCO district back home.  Very hipster, very foodie, very unique and overpriced.  Lib bought some yummy chocolates from a chocolatier (She got me a sea salt carmel dark chocolate thing – WoW!) Then we headed across the way to the downtown Napa area.  This was very reminiscent of downtown San Diego to me.  Super cool architecture and a lot of fun artwork.  Here’s some pics:

This is called Cat Bathing.  Can you see the cat?

There was a very moving tribute to 911 that had Lib and I a bit quiet and sad.  There were pieces of the towers that the Port Authority has sent all over the world for folks that wanted to make a memorial.  Very beautiful and very sad.

We took a faboo self-portrait on a bridge overlooking the river:

We did a lot of these finding places to post my camera and use the auto timer!

We wandered around more taking in the beautiful buildings and sites.

Even the parking structure was neat architecture!

Lib was always so willing to pose wherever I put her!

And back to our condo.  We decided to just take it easy tonight, I mean as much as I want to be constantly on the go all the time this is an actual vacation so relax time is just as important as site seeing time.  We got back, threw on our suits and after a very lengthy battle of trying to get the awfully huge dead alien bug thing out of the hot tub we enjoyed some Jacuzzi time.  Back to our condo where Libby BBQ’d some amazing Filet Mignon steaks and I attempted to make some steamed veggies and rice.  We enjoyed the wonderful dinner out on our patio where we did finally meet our neighbors – 2 shy ladies that seemed very nice and then a cat.  Yup – a little orange cat hopped up after our dinner to say hello.  Very friendly, very pretty.  I brought him out a little bit a chicken and a bowl of water which he enjoyed and we visited a bit. 

Now we’ll probably make it an early night.  I’m perfectly ok with this and I’m so friggin stoked that this is only day 2 of our vacation!!!!