A GREAT VISIT
Today's planned big event was the much anticipated reuniting with our good friends Gary & Claudia whom we'd met on our Fall Leaves Cruise in New England - October 2015. We met at dinner the first night of the cruise and spent hours together every evening over dinner before exchanging information with the promise to keep in touch and try to get together again. Well, we all know how that usually turns out but today we were able to make that promise come true!
The day started out great as the day dawned without rain! Kim and I were able to take advantage of our balcony/porch and posed for a photo under the bright skies. The temperatures never got out of the fifties and any time the breeze would kick up it was chilly, but us Floridians were loving the weather change. After morning coffee with Randy and Karrie it was soon time to head into the dining area for our fully prepared breakfast. On today's menu was.....scrambled eggs, poached apples - which were delicious - bacon, and the big hit of the morning: apple-raisin bread pudding! It was all delicious! We had plenty of time after our meal to play cards with Karrie and Randy; one of the highlights being when Randy bid clubs and all he had in his hand was a single 9 of clubs. If you've ever played "Bid Euchre" you're laughing now, if not, well let's just say that like most card games typically you bid to take the hand when you have MANY cards of the trump suit and alot of them are face cards :) We all enjoyed the moment and the morning together. A little after eleven Kim and I headed out on the road and the GPS said we had about an hour and 45 minutes ahead of us. Under the bright skies we enjoyed the drive through and out of Napa Valley and onto the interstate before arriving in Pleasanton, California around 12:45 and at our good friends' home at almost 1 pm. As Gary said it best - "You guys look just the same; it's as though we saw you just last week." And that was the big story of the day. Today I don't have lots of stories to tell, except that despite having only spent that one week together in the fall of 2015 the four of us immediately hit it off. And this afternoon when we were re-united it was as if we truly had just seen each other a week ago. For the next many hours we talked and laughed and just enjoyed each other's company as much if not more than we did a year and a half ago. We are so hopeful that in the near future we can end up traveling together! After lunch at the clubhouse of one of Gary's favorite Golf Clubs (photo at top of the page taken on the balcony there) we headed out to two small, local wineries and enjoyed many different local wines. The first was at the Brent Creek Winery.
We had seven different wines here, one of which was so delicious that Gary & Claudia bought a case (it was on sale!) We posed for a selfie here between glasses :) We headed just down the road afterwards and arrived soon at the Charles R Winery where we sat around a table made from a wine barrel and enjoyed another half dozen different local wines.
By 5 pm we'd drained all the wine from our glasses and as the sun began to set it was time for Kim and I to head back to Calistoga where we were meeting Karrie and Randy for a late dinner. We stopped off to get an "official" tour of Gary and Claudia's home - what a great house in a wonderful neighborhood! And then Gary graciously gave Kim one of the bottles of wine he'd purchased from the Brent Creek Winery, as she enjoys the red wines. And Claudia gave me two smaller bottles of White Ziffendale as well as some yummy "home-made chocolate chip cookies" (no one will ever know the difference Claudia :)))) The drive back - like the drive there was smooth and enjoyable and Kim and I spent most of it talking about just how much we enjoyed the day with our special friends and how glad we were that we not only DID stay in touch but made them part of our visit to northern California. Gary & Claudia told us of a spring Mediterranean cruise they've booked on Celebrity that is an itinerary that we would definitely enjoy going on and so we left them with the promise to look into the possibility of joining them on this adventure. We arrived back in Calistoga a little before 7:30 where Karrie and Randy were waiting for us and we walked - despite the upper 40 degree temps - downtown (about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile) to the restaurant. Kim and I were not hungry for a full meal and we both ordered the same thing: a bowl of French Onion soup and the most delicious corn bread, home made and served with a generous amount of honey butter slowly melting on the piping hot bread. What a great end to a great day!
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