The Great State of Arizona

Our last stop was Arizona, which come to find out is a beautiful state. Desert, yes, but beautiful in its own way. From Hoover Dam to Grand Canyon to Flagstaff to Oak Creek Canyon to the city of Scottsdale, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Arizona.

We didn't even know we'd be crossing Hoover Dam, so that was a nice little surprise. Just another thing to add to our list. Come to find out, the Hoover Dam supplies power to L.A. Hence, the enormity of it.

Finally, our first look at the Grand Canyon-something I've wanted to see for a long time. It's one of those things that can't really be captured in a picture partly due to the vastness of it and partly to due the fact that it is absolutely majestic and a picture just doesn't do it justice.
We caught it just as the sun was going down, so the colors of the sun reflecting off the canyon were amazing.






We decided that we would wake up and catch the sunrise the next morning. Since we had moved on into Mountain Time once we crossed into AZ, we set our clocks 1 hour ahead. We set our alarm for 4:30am, so we could be sure and make it for sunrise. We headed into GCNP and waited...and waited...and waited. Finally a good 2 hours later it started getting light. Come to find out, AZ is the only state that doesn't have daylight savings time, so we were still in Pacific Time Zone. So we ended up waking up at 3:30am. Nice. To top it off (as you can see below) it was cloudy and there was no sunrise. There was, however, a thunderstorm in the distance which was almost as cool.

This is lightning striking in the distance.




We drove around the park for awhile and pulled off to check out the Grand Canyon from different pull out points. Next time, we're going to hike down to the bottom, but we didn't have time for that this trip.

I like this pic. It looks like the clouds are just sitting on top of the canyon.

See the Colorado River winding through the canyon?? Pretty cool.

After we checked out the Grand Canyon, we headed on into Flagstaff-my parent's old stomping grounds. It was a cute little town. Not a whole lot there, but downtown was fun to walk around.

And here's mom and dad's old house-512 Zuni Drive. All they remembered was that it was on Zuni Drive and it was yellow. Since there were 3 yellow houses on Zuni Drive this was a pretty good guess. I mean, what are the chances that 30 years later, the house would still be yellow?? According to my dad, this was the place where Laurel was conceived. I'm glad I could see a little piece of family history :)
Dad recommended a restaurant called La Bella Villa. It was still here 30 years later. Him and Dennis used to play music here for payment in french fries. Supposedly they were breaded french fries and incredible, but unfortunately they weren't on the menu anymore.

After Flagstaff, we headed on down to Sedona. On the way, we drove through Oak Creek Canyon, which is absolutely beautiful. It's crazy that only a few miles down the road, it turns into stark desert.
Coming into Sedona, this is the landscape that you start seeing-equally beautiful.

When I was little, I used to get so excited when I saw this light shining through the clouds because I thought Jesus was coming back :)

Saguaro Cactus. This is one of those things that you know are real, but when you see them you realize that you actually thought they only existed in a cartoon.
They are absolutely HUGE. I just couldn't get over how enormous these things were. It also looked like a great place for a rattlesnake habitat, so I made Dustin carry me up next to the cactus on his back :)

This is probably a more accurate dipiction of just how big these things are. Dustin next to it instead of me...that makes more sense.
And they're all over the place!

And now for the grand finale...After Sedona, we left for Scottsdale where my Aunt Betsy (dad's twin sister), Uncle Jimmy and the Clark Cousins live. We absolutely had a blast spending some time with them. With all of the gourmet meals and desserts, the G&Ts, the theological discussions, and just an all around good time, they were lucky we ever left :)
Betsy and Hilary inspired me to be a good cook. They pretty well have it mastered.
Their house was beautiful-including the backyard...

...which is complete with a grapefruit tree.
Betsy modeling her house :)

Betsy and I on our shopping day. She took me to my favorite store...Anthropologie. She knows my love language. Pretty fun aunt, eh??
While we went shopping, Hilary slaved away on this lemon meringue cake. I think it took her about 6 hours to make, but it was well worth it (well at least to those who didn't spend the 6 hours making it).
One of many theological discussions. Dustin ate it up. By this point in the trip, I'm sure he was bored with me and my simple, shallow mind :) These boys were a treat for him...
Group pic
Another group pic.

Betsy, Jonathan, Hilary
The girls. Since everyone says I look like my dad, it would make sense that I might look like my dad's twin sister...never thought of that.

We loved hanging out with the Clarks so much, that we decided to stay an extra day. We came to the conclusion that we weren't all that ready to go home yet. Why not drag it out a little longer? Real world can wait...

Thanks, Clarks for such a great time!!! You can bet we'll be back :)

Oklahoma City-first and last stop of the trip. We just stayed for the night and afternoon, but we had a great time visiting Dustin's grandparents (below) and Grandmoi and Stan too!

We got home on August 21st-1 day later than our itinerary showed. 21,000 miles and 16 states later our trip was over. It was kind of bitter sweet for us. As we were driving home, we were trying to decide where we'd rather be than on our way home, and both of us concluded nowhere. So, I guess the trip ended at the perfect time. We were excited about seeing friends and family and sleeping in a bed, but our trip of a lifetime was over. Since we've been home, we've decided that the real world is over-rated :)

Vegas, baby!

Well, after Southern California, we headed to... VEGAS!

At first, we thought that we'd never go out of our way to go to Vegas, so we decided to make a stop and call it a once in a life time gig. Well... we actually enjoyed ourselves. Yes, Vegas is over the top and cheesy, but we had fun staying in a really nice hotel for cheap, going to the casinos, and seeing a really great show that won two Grammys.

Santa Clarita, home of the Big W, for all you "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" fans.
(MMMMW Subculture followers: The W is not there anymore... It was in someones back yard and one of the palm trees got blown over in a storm. Sad.)
(For those of you normal people who don't know what we're talking about, the Big W was a W made from palm trees. Click here to see what we're talking about.)

Arizona in late evening



One night, we decided to do the casino buffet. We chose the one at the Bellagio, thinking because of how nice the hotel is, we couldn't go wrong. And we didn't. It was incredible and we ate it well, strategically eating our way through the night, taking breaks and avoiding cheap foods. Seriously. Note, above and below pictures are courses number 1 and 2 of 5.
The fountain at the Bellagio. You've seen this on movies a lot (ie, the end of Oceans 11), but it's the real deal. This was one of the most impressive things we saw in Vegas.



The Bellagio's fountain and Paris Hotel and Casino


New York New York Hotel and Casino


At the MGM Hotel and Casino, they have a lion exhibit. The lioness (above) and lion (below) were a big hit there.. though we found it pretty sad that they were confined to the indoors in a small space with tons of people (like us) flashing their cameras into their cage... but it was still pretty neat.

Paris Hotel and Casino at night time.


The Bellagio, again, at night time






Our favorite part of Vegas. The show. We saw 'Love' by Cirque Du Soleil, all to The Beatles music. The show won two Grammys and we were blown away by our first Vegas show experience.



On our way to pick up the tickets


This is when we were picking up the tickets... the entrance to the show.



We even got all dressed up for it which was really fun. Nell was BEAUTIFUL.




Pre-show


The finale



After the show, with a good view of the strip.


The strip.

Well, we had fun. I think that it exceeded our expectations of Vegas. The show helped and I think if there was ever a good show back in Vegas, and the hotels were cheap, we'd go back.

Thanks for keeping up with us. We're in Scottsdale right now, visiting the Clarks - having a GREAT time, and will head to Oklahoma City on Tuesday, thus the end of the trip. We'll have our Arizona blog up soon.

We are very sad that the trip is ending, but life must go on, and we're really anxious to see what the Lord has for us in the future. Thanks for following us. Don't forget to check in on our Arizona experience. You're a good one for following us.

HWY 1 & SoCal

Hey everyone. We're trying to check up on our blogs (if you're still keeping up with us). The Internet access has been few and far between... but we're doing pretty good with what we got. After the Monterey Peninsula, we drove down the famous Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) to Southern California...




..I know, we've seen a lot. And I know I'm an extremist, but the fact that my wife isn't and said that it's some of the most beautiful things she's ever seen says a lot about this part of the world. I hope we captured it just a little bit...

We thought Big Sur was a town... which it kind of is, but mostly, it's a conglomeration of state parks, about 40 to 50 miles long, but if you do it right - about 8 hours


The day started of a bit cloudy, but it cleared up later on


This is one of the creeks that ran through one of the state parks



This is Pfeiffer Beach State Park. We stopped to get in some beach time.


While there, we found this little fella... a harbor seal just beaching it up for the day



We tried to pose for some pictures and we got this one... Nell's hair getting blown by the wind = a handlebar mustache for me.


My beauty.

I feel like I should preface the next few pictures. They were taken at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, specifically at McWay Cove. This is one of the most beautiful setups either one of us has seen. A cove, a waterfall, caribbean-blue water... just incredible.



We stared at it for a while, then finally decided we have to move on...

I'm not sure what we expected the PCH to be, but... it exceeded all expectations.




Beautiful woman


What's that squirrel looking at?

At the end of the state parks was a beach front with Elephant Seals. Neither one of us knew they even existed... but check out their noses...


Crazy, eh?


A pair trying to intimidate one another


Hearst Castel. We didn't get a chance to go in because it was so late, but we saw pictures of it... and it's pretty fascinating. Maybe next time.


Toward then end of our PCH drive, we finished it off watching the sunset over the ocean.

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After Highway 1, we then headed down to Santa Barbara for a few days where we shopped and rode around the beach front on our bikes.

They call this Arlington West. There are 3,000 crosses here that pay tribute to all of the soldiers who've lost their lives in Iraq. It was pretty surreal.

We watched some sail boats for a while. I watched them with envy, hoping one day I might be able to do something like that. It's pretty fun to watch.




This guy was just hanging around Stearns Wharf there in Santa Barbara


We also saw a skate boarding park where we watched them in action for a while.

There were about 4 beach side weddings going on Sunday afternoon as we took a ride on our bikes.





We also went to UC-Santa Barbara. They have a pretty cool setup right there on the ocean.


Here's Nellie standing in for Laurel as an honorary alumni of UCSB. This was her first choice of school until she found out how much it costs. UCA will have to do...go bears.

After Santa Barbara, we headed to Ojai, CA in honor of Dennis Collins who grew up here.


It was a great little town with orange and avocado groves as far as the eye could see.
(This is at Friends Ranch, but we didn't get any of their world famous freshly squeezed orange juice because they were closed that day.)


A HUGE eucalyptus tree.


This is downtown Ojai at a park where we walked around for a while

We went for a drive up Gridley Road where the Collins fam used to live. This was the view from the top of the hill. Beautiful.


And Nell doing a little orange picking...


Here is the road that Dennis grew up on. We didn't know what house it was, so we took a picture or this one just in case it was it :)


For dinner, we went and checked out Boccali's, a local Italian restaurant that Dennis suggested. It was SO good. They grow their own vegetables and use that in the dishes that they prepare. And talk about amazing strawberry shortcake...they've got it there!

We absolutely loved Ojai. It was a beautiful, quaint town with such friendly people. All of the locals we talked to were very welcoming. Thanks, Dennis and Linda, for being our tour guide in Ojai! We enjoyed it!

After that... we headed to Ventura County.. just north of LA, where we stayed with Rex and Sherry Holt and got in some great beach time.

Sherry gave a pretty cool stop on our way to their house from Ojai. Grant Park is a huge hill located right off the highway and close to the beach so you can see forever (See above). Apparently, back in 1782, a Catholic priest who had started a lot of the missions there in Southern California planted a cross on the top of the hill (see below). They replaced the cross in 1912, but it's still pretty cool that it over looks the city and how beautiful the view is.

Also atop Grant Park.


We also spent a couple of days at the beach where we got good sun and I played in the water.


Rex took us to Skidrow where he works there with the poor. We went with him and another Baptist pastor to spent the evening

It was a pretty nice facility

The men before their service started (which they have different services for men and women).

Rex kicking off the service

This is Rev. Sherwood Haisty, a local southern baptist pastor from Filmore who preached that night.

This is Tracy, a tenant of the mission. He requested to sing a song that he and his brother in law wrote called "Jesus is Awesome." Let's just say... it was awesome.


This is the women's side. We met some very resilent women and also heard some very hard stories. We were really glad we got just a great experience while in LA.

The LA skyline from the mission. We loved the California sunsets.

Monterey, Pebble Beach, & Carmel-by-the-Sea

We wanted to check out Central CA, so we decided to spend a couple days seeing the sights of Monterey, Pebble Beach, and Carmel. Since they are all so close, we were able to see these places pretty quick.

On the way over from Yosemite, we came across this nice little town. We really wanted to go to the bathroom here, but neither of us had to go, so we took a picture of the sign instead.

Monterey was a interesting little town. We really didn't know what to expect. I got a brief rundown from my dad (a John Steinbeck fan) on Cannery Row, so we decided to check that out.
A recent John Steinbeck fan, Dustin purchased Cannery Row on Cannery Row. Pretty cool, eh?
There were TONS of sea lions everywhere on this pier close to Cannery Row. We were so close to them, we probably could have reached out and touched one had we wanted to, but after watching those little feisty things for awhile, we decided against it.
To me, this one looks like Simon Foster. They may be long lost brothers, who knows? Simon, are you missing a twin?
Crazy! I was totally amazed at this little habitat. Check out the birds and all the sea lions. Plus, there were jellyfish all around. Really cool.


After Monterey, we headed on down to Pebble Beach via 17 mile road. It takes you to all the well known golf courses and points of interest. We felt like we got a good feel for Pebble Beach after the drive...minus the fact that we didn't play golf. This pic was at Poppy Hills Golf Course.
Nice Rolex clocks at the Inn at Spanish Bay keeping time for all the good golf destinations around the world. Let's just say these hotels are pretty upscale.

A quick little tide pool pit stop just for me :)

Another sea lion habitat. I was a bit fascinated by this as you can see.

And a bonus...a harbor seal!
And the famous Lone Cypress Tree, which is sort of the mascot of Pebble Beach.


Dustin on the 18th hole of THE Pebble Beach Golf Links

And now we're in Carmel-by-the-Sea. I guess most people drop the 'by-the-Sea', but I'll leave it on cause I like the full name. This was a cute little candy shop on the shopping strip.
And a cute little tea room...the Tuck Box as it is called. How cute is that?!
The Mission. I don't really know the history about this place, but it was really cool. The town itself has somewhat of a Spanish feel, so I'm guessing there is some sort of Spanish influence here.


The garden at The Mission

Next we went on to Mission Ranch. Apparently, Clint Eastwood bought Mission Ranch in the 80's and still owns it today. It used to be an officer's club for the Army and Navy during WWII. It's a beautiful place with an incredible view and now is a bed and breakfast type place with a upscale restaurant.


They even have sheep!



We enjoyed our stay in Central California very much! Beautiful places to see if you ever get the chance :)

Yosemite National Park - This is for you, Bob

From San Francisco, we decided to spend a couple of days in Yosemite National Park. We enjoyed it so much, we decided to stay an extra day and really wish we could have stayed longer. We also decided that the next time we come, it'll have to be in early summer or late spring because of all of the waterfalls and rivers. What a beautiful place...

On our way in, just outside of the park, we drove by a huge field with a bunch of firemen from all over who had come to put out the forest fires just outside the park.

And here we are...

The first day, we hiked down to a Sequoia tree grove. They carved out this tree to make a road back in the mid to late 1800s.

Our camp. It was actually nice having a home base to come back to for a few days. We're definitely ready for a home.

The following morning, we headed down to the famous Yosemite Valley


Bridalveil Falls was a lot bigger than it looks here, but what's crazy is that these were barely flowing at all compared to what they do in spring/early summer. If you can see the black around the waterfall, that's how much it flows in the spring.


El Capitan


We also took a short 3 mile hike to Vernal falls.


Check out this rainbow at Vernal Falls.





At the top of the falls, there was a nice little pond that was a great refresher after the uphill hike. So, why not?


Huge cliffs and views like this were everywhere in the valley.




North Dome face...


The one, the only... Half Dome.


At dust, on the way out of the valley.


A Nellie original (the picture, credit the creation to Jesus)


S'MORES! If we're gonna camp, we do it up right.

After the day in the valley on our way to Tuolumne Meadows... Tenaya Lake.
The two black dots in the middle left are climbers going up Medlicott Dome. This is a climbing mecca. They were everywhere.


So, that day, we decided to go on a long hike.. we were shooting for a 13.8 or so..

Part of our hike was on the Pacific Crest Trail which runs from Mexico to Canada. This was Nell's second time to hike on a portion of this trail. She hiked on part of it in Washington, several summers ago with Laurel and Josh. That is also where Nell almost divorced Josh as a brother-in-law. He gets a little intense on his hiking :)


So, we kept hiking, but we soon (1.5 miles after) realized that we took a wrong turn. We met some people along the way that showed us a new route that would turn our hike into 17 miles instead of 13.8, so we got ambitious and went for it.

Picture break


The scenery was beautiful


..high up in the Sierra Nevadas.

Nell loved the trees

...and the streams.

We passed several beautiful lakes


And even got the energy for an fun pic every now and then...

...and of course a hardcore one too.

I mean, check out these amazing views!


We FINALLY made it to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp after hiking about 4 miles UPHILL. The '17' miles wasn't looking so fun at this point especially since we realized it was going to be more like 19 miles. Nice.

We came across this unidentified creature along the way. He's cute nonetheless.


You'll probably see this one again on our Christmas letter :) That is if I get crazy and decide to send one of those out. I feel like I'm not old enough for that sort of stuff. I guess this year might be one worthy of a letter.

And once again...Nell liked the trees.


Ok, so by about mile 15 we were completely worn out. Here is Nell documenting her face, so she will never do this again. So, we got a little ambitious on this one. That very well could be the problem when you put 2 people with big egos together.

Besides all the pain and soreness, we were actually glad that we ended up doing the 19 mile hike. It was SOO much prettier than what our original hike would have been.


And our dirty feet from the hike. What you can't see, is the huge blisters on our feet. After this we went and jumped in the lake to clean off a bit. And let me tell you, I've never been so tired or sore in my life.


Tuolumne Meadows.

The beautiful sunset on the way out. Nell still had a tiny bit of energy left in her to take a few sunset pics.

We left the next morning, but on the way out we went back down to the valley and did a VERY short hike to see Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. They weren't running all that much since it was August, but definitely worth the hike.

Now we know what all the buzz (mostly from my dad) about Yosemite is. It definitely met our expectations. It is a beautiful place. It would be a totally different park if you came in the spring, which we intend to do.

By the way, Dustin and I collaborated on the commentary in this blog. To avoid confusion, I (Nellie) had to refer to myself in 3rd person. This is a pet peeve of mine, so I felt the need to clarify. And I (Dustin) got tired and grumpy halfway through blogging and retired to my car seat/bed after handing it off to Nellie for finishing it up. Thanks, Nell.

San Francisco

After seeing the beautiful wine country, we headed on to the great city of San Francisco (quite possibly my favorite city in the U.S. to date).

Our first view of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm not sure why, but this massive structure fascinates me.

Our first stop was the famous Lombard St.-the most crooked street in the world. I bet the people that live on this street get pretty annoyed with all the tourists driving down it.
Then, on to Fisherman's Wharf, which is a cool little area down by the water. This was Dustin's first view of Alcatraz. Next time, we decided we'll take a tour of it. Since this was his first time in San Fran, we had too much to see and too short of time.
This is where all the sea lions congregate. It's fun to watch them play 'King of the Mountain'. They get pretty feisty. We couldn't tell if they were playing or being serious...
Here is an up close pic. They look like they are singing in an opera or something :)
Gotta have a picture of a cable car. This is North Beach, which is the Italian Community. We ate a nice little lunch there and walked around some. This is Washington Square, which is a beautiful park in 'Little Italy'. Not quite Italy, but they make a valiant effort.And my favorite...Chinatown. Actually, last time I was here, this place was a little overwhelming and actually kind of freaked me out a little. This time it was a bit better. My guess is, this is about as close as you can get to the real thing.

Dustin buying a new pink umbrella to block the sun. Later, he bought driving gloves.
This was totally mind boggling and pretty much the first thing we saw in Chinatown. This man in the picture was selling live chickens. Luckily, we got to witness a woman purchasing some. He grabbed them by their necks, stuffed them in a paper sack and stapled it shut. I'm glad we didn't have to witness what happened next.

After our Chinatown experience, we went to the Ferry Building. This cool fountain was in front of it.

The Ferry Building. There is a market inside and a place where you can watch the ferries come in.

It's really a beautiful building. We enjoyed walking around the little market inside. I'm all about markets. We have a system-I walk around the market, Dustin reads a book.
A view of the city.
We headed on to the Mission District, which is the Hispanic community. We pretty well covered the ethnic districts today. These murals are all over the place in the Mission District. Apparently, the Hispanic community moved here in the 1960's and brought their artistic abilities with them.
The muralists did a good job capturing the San Francisco spirit in this one. I like the pants on the man holding the rainbow flag.


Yes, we did. We went and found the 'Full House' house. Dustin was highly disappointed that there wasn't a park across from it like in the opening of the show. How cool would it be to live in the Full House house??

And the famous Haight/Ashbury. This is quite possibly my favorite part of the city. Good shopping. Great people watching.
One cool thing about the city is the amazing views you get. Because it is so hilly, you can go up on top of a hill and catch great views. Notice all of the sailboats in the ocean.
We went to watch the sunset at a beach along the Golden Gate Bridge. If you haven't noticed, I'm a sucker for sunsets. Sunset and Golden Gate Bridge-perfect combination for me :)

I'm not even really sure where we were here, but the houses were really cool.
The next day, we went to Sausalito before we headed into the city for another fun day. I love Sausalito, mostly just to walk around down by the ocean and check out yet another great view of the city.

If you can get past the chest hair and barbed wire tattoo, these 2 men who were fishing caught a leopard shark each. It was pretty cool watching them real it in.

Dustin getting creative with the camera. Great shot of the streets of Sausalito.

We decided to take a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge mostly just to say we did. It was incredibly windy up there, but really neat to be walking on the bridge.
After walking the bridge, we drove up this huge hill to get one more view of the city. It ended up being incredible. I think we could have sat there all day.
I mean, check out this view. Are you starting to understand my fascination with this city? Who knows, maybe it's just me.


We spent most of the rest of the day shopping around Union Square. We decided to leave a few things for our next visit to San Francisco...like Golden Gate Park.

I get a little passionate about this city for some reason. I just think that compared to most cities, this one has so much character. The houses, the streets, the structures, the views, the people...it just intrigues me. We recently learned that the mainland inside the city limits forms a 7 mile by 7 mile square. Crazy that all of that fits in 7X7 mile square! Hence, the houses all built straight up and connected to each other.

We are now in Monterey, CA and we will update with our Yosemite National Park pictures soon!

Wine Country, Emmy, and the Jay Kell Express

Ahh... Vino.
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We headed down to wine country - Sonoma and Napa Counties - after the Redwoods. We went to go see our friends - Emily and Jay - but got there a day or so early... so we decided to tour the vineyards and see as much as we could... and, boy, we're glad we did it.

These signs are everywhere and it's a great indicator of how many wineries there are in this little part of the world.

Our first stop was in Sonoma, CA, where we ate a great dinner and spent some time in the park. We drove to Napa to stay the night, and woke up to sights that were pretty foreign to us...


While in Napa, we did some research and routed out 40 mile bike ride through the vineyards in Napa Valley. This is in the first couple of miles.

The ride was fun, and don't worry parents and grandparents, we had our helmets on and plenty of water.

The vineyards were beautiful and picture perfect...

...it also helped that the grapes were beginning to change color and harvest time is getting near - everything is great color.

Our ride was from St. Helena, CA to Yountville, CA and back with some zigs and zags in between. About halfway, in Yountville, we stopped at a great bakery, Bouchon Bakery and had a good rest in their courtyard.

As you see in the picture above and below, the entire ride was through the rolling hills of endless vineyards.

As far as you can see - vineyards.

After our bike ride, Nell showed the battle scars - a pretty great tan line from her bike shorts. We spent the next day by a pool trying to get rid of it (which, in all seriousness, was nice and the first time it felt like summer to us).
On our way out of St. Helena, towards Santa Rosa where we stayed the night.



After a good night's rest in a hotel (complete with a two o'clock in the morning fire alarm), we decided to do some wine tasting at some of the wineries that Emmy suggested...
Quivira, Preston, Bella, and Armida

The wine was good and we had fun going from place to place tasting and acting like we knew what we were doing.

In addition to some good vino, the wineries themselves were beautiful and pretty welcoming.

This is Bella, where their tasting room was in a 7,000 sqft cave...

...pretty unique.

Nell even got into it and we found her some favorite wine.

The view from Armida

In between tastings

After our tasting extravaganza, we headed over to Emmy and Jay's. They live on a vineyard and next door to this one (above). We took a stroll and were blown away by how beautiful it was.


A lemon tree... in the front garden.

Meet Emmy and Jay. We had such a great time with them. They moved out here a few years ago, interested in the wine industry. A few years ago, they decided to start their own wine label, Verge. They are doing really well and growing a lot.. you can get their wine at pretty nice restaurants in SF or just contact them. They've got a great thing going.

Emmy and Nell.

They fed us that night and even let us crash at their house and even more let us sleep in while they went off to work. So... we (and I mean Nell) got up and did a photo shoot of their vineyard they live in....

They have apple and peach trees in their yard...

http://www.vergewine.com/

After the photo shoot and free showers, we headed to where Jay works - Michel Schlumberger.

Schlumberger's courtyard.

So, Jay's pretty much a big deal around there and gave us our own personal tour of the vineyards and the wine making process... It was incredibly interesting and we learned a ton.

Schlumberger's wine celler-ish area.

These are primary fermentation holding tanks ... ish. Not exactly sure the proper name, but just know, Jay, that I really did listen. Thanks for not giving us a pop quiz.

Jay was totally great and gave us a wine tasting over our own, where we got to try out some 17 and 18 year old wine. Basically, Schlumberger's is a pretty ritzy gig, and with some rich winos in the room, I got intimidated and awkward. But Jay took it in stride and made us feel totally welcome. He's a good man.

The End
...of wine country.

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So, now we're in San Francisco and all caught up on the blogs. Go us. Email us if you haven't talked to us in a while.. We'd love to hear from you.

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Again, thanks to Emmy and Jay for being such great hosts and making us feel unbelievably welcome in their home.