Cloudy Napa

Our stay in Napa was so brief and we had so many things we wanted to do, but we really fit a lot into our short time frame, and I guess we're just going to have to plan another trip in the spring or summer to finish the rest! We had a lot of fun, though.

I love how these trees looked in the gray weather.

Upon my cousin's (and his new wife's!) recommendation, we went wine-tasting here.

The castle was completed in 2007 and took 14 years to build!

I guess the owner, Dario Sattui, got a little carried away with the design, which ended up much larger than he had originally planned, but it's beautiful and was made in the design of a traditional Tuscan castle.

And the wine was good. :) I picked up a couple of bottles for my mom.

We also drove north a little ways to see Calistoga's Old Faithful geyser (I really want to see Yellowstone's someday!). Matt wasn't initially too jazzed to check it out, but I paid for him ($10 each), and I think it was actually kind of cool.

Just a little steam; it basically just looks like a big pond with rocks

Bubbles and steam indicate that it's about to burst.

Blast off! This happens about every five minutes or so, and Matt and I watched it three times.

We already have some wineries in mind for our next trip to Napa. In the meantime, there are some wineries in southern California not too far from me that I still haven't been to, so maybe I'll have to put that into the works.