Saturday, August 7th

This morning Nicole and Chelle woke up and went to Trader Joe's to grab things for a a picnic lunch. Then everyone met at our hotel. Uncle Nick drove his car while Chelle navigated with Bud and Jocelyn in the back, and Cole went with Rachael, Derrick, and Michael. We drove to Napa Valley and sneaked into a tour at Rutherford Hill Winery at 11:30. We sampled 5 wines throughout the tour as we went into the caves to see the wines being aged. We were not overly impressed with Rutherford except for the vastness of the caves as our tour guy seemed to be bored.









Then we drove about 4 miles to the Perj Winery. They had several tasting stations so as soon as we got there we sampled several wines as the wine host explained about the wines. His name was Jeff and he was fantastic.





We went out to the picnic tables by the vineyards and ate our picnic lunch. Jocelyn gave each of the sisters a jar of the homemade plum jam that she makes from Berkeley plums. Then we wandered the grounds and took some shots by the koi pond.













Finally, we drove a few miles to the Rubicon Winery, which was owned by Francis Ford Coppella. This was unique in that they had a small film museum, wines dating to 1868, a fabulous gift shop, a huge tasting room, and a snack bar. We wandered around and debated about driving back in the traffic. We ended up just hanging out for 2 hours and we were the last people to leave. The weather was PERFECT as was the scenery. If Nicole had a spare $300, she would have bought Mark an awesome guilloutine (sp?) cigar cutter.















Arthur had to do some work to prepare for Monday so we dropped him and Jocelyn off back at the apartment. Then the rest of us went to Zachary's Pizza for dinner. We had an awesome deep dish pepperoni pizza. Tomorrow the sibs and Nick are going to Muir Woods while Derrick and Michael catch the A's game. Then we are invited to Mr. Fisher's house for dinner!



Cheers!