Ah, Napa April 30, 2007
I got to spend a lovely day in Napa this past weekend with my mother. I hadn’t been there for a few years, and had forgotten how wonderful it is.
First stop, of course, was breakfast at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Yountville. I got Pain Chocolat, mom got Pain Raisin, and we bought some bread to take home. 
Bonus: you can stave off line restlessness by watching the bakers do their thing behind the large glass window.
We journeyed on to the newly opened Castello di Amorosa Winery, mostly out of curiosity to see the $40 million house that Daryl Sattui built. For $25, you get a tour of the castle and a tasting. The tour is a bit hokey because they talk about the structure as if it’s a real 12th Century Italian castle (”And there you’ll see the windows where they would have poured out the boiling oil”). 
And that’s mostly because Mr. Sattui insisted on great attention to detail, down to importing Italian artisans to paint the murals and forge the ironwork, to make the castle as authentic as possible (”pay no attention to the electric lighting and fire sprinkers”). But all in all, it was an entertaining way to spend ninety minutes, and the wines we tasted were pretty decent. Plus they have a dungeon with real torture devices that you can actually touch (no museum “off limits” policies). So go right ahead and sit in that spikey chair!
All that walking and drinking makes you mighty hungry, and what better way to spend lunch than eating a blue cheese burger and chocolate shake at Taylor’s Refresher in Saint Helena? None more better.
To then burn off the lunch we strolled down the main drag of Saint Helena, buying too many bottles of local olive oil and honey and bars of dark chocolate.
I can’t wait to go back.
If you’re looking for something to do with substance, to help balance out the hollow hours of American Idol viewing, why not attend a screening this Friday of Kevin Sites’ new documentary, 
The New7Wonders Foundation is the brainchild of Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, created to fund heritage site restoration efforts around the world. As a fanatical traveller, it’s certainly a worthy cause in my book.
would go camping en masse, and a few of us brave (stupid?) souls would trek on up the Mist Trail, sometimes all the way up to Half Dome. It’s a spectacular hike, especially once you get past the hoards of tourists at the base of the first falls.
I want one. Seriously.
The Los Angeles Conservancy’s 