Wine, Olives, Chocolate and Cheese

The ladies of our investment group just spent a long week-end in Napa and the surrounding areas. There were ten of us and we stayed in a house rented through VRBO. We had no idea, even though we had seen the pictures of the house on the website, that it was a 2 million dollars' property. The pictures did not do justice to the house. We found out, through a newspaper article the owner left, that just the windows cost $42,000. The article was a feature done on the house for a local newspaper and I'm glad he left it there, along with other information about the house.

We flew into Sacramento and drove, in our rental cars, (we had three) to the house. The Hertz man gave two of us free GPS systems in our cars (just our lucky day I guess). We stopped in Dixon for Mexican food (owned by a relative of a friend of one of the ladies) and then headed on to Napa. It was a stress free ride (even though I was driving) and when we arrived at the house, the outside gave no indication of what we would behold in the inside. When we opened the door, we could not believe it--we had never seen that much glass (windows) in a house before. We had views of the entire Napa Valley and could see all the way to the San Francisco Bay.

There were decks galore, and views from almost anywhere in the house. There was also a guest house where four in our group stayed. The main house housed seven (although the carpet in one bedroom would have made a comfortable bed for many :-)--oops, forgot this wasn't a family reunion :-).

We were all in charge of preparing breakfast and dinner, and all of the assignments were made before the trip. We shopped and everyone knew exactly what they were responsible for. There were wonderful meals with plenty of left-overs for our last morning there. We celebrated one friend's 70th birthday the first night, including cake and gifts, and another's 65th birthday at lunch in a restaurant on Saturday.

We took pictures and videos, laughed a lot, listened a lot and talked a lot. We were joyful in our independence--each went her own way with her own interests--with three cars, we were not held hostage and were free to go with the group which met our "tourist" needs on any given day. I was able to visit a friend in Sonoma. I had not seen him in many, many years and he has been quite ill. My group dropped me there and picked me up after an hour.

There were grape vines as far as the eyes could see and there was enough wine for a lifetime, even though three of us were not wine drinkers. I learned about grapes and wine from one of our resident "Jill of all Trades" who knows a lot about everything.

Someone to whom I sent a video (thanks to one person's flip video), said we looked "old," but not "in a bad way." I hope that what she meant that we looked like cool old broads who still know how to have a great time! We knew how to enjoy the best that Napa had to offer: wine, olives, chocolate and cheese! But, more than that, we know how to appreciate friendship. We know how to value one another. We know how to be honest with each other. We know how to love. We know how to live. We know the difference between first pressed olive oil and the oil from subsequent presses. We are all examples of the oil pressed from the first batch of olives--the best!