Sonoma & Napa Valley Review - Wining and Dining

Jeff and I headed to CA on Sunday for a QUICK getaway. It is our 20th wedding anniversary in June and we went to Napa on our honeymoon so decided it was time to return. We flew into Santa Rosa and drove to Sonoma, stayed at the Fairmont Mission Inn & Spa for a couple of nights.




The whirlwind tour included -
Ledson Winery - beautiful castle and my favorite wine of the trip


Kunde Winery - great tour of caves built into the hillside for wine barrel storage
(warning - to much wine tasting can make you light headed--I'm just saying)




The Girl & the Fig Restaurant - great French restaurant, pleasant atmostphere, good food.
Garden Court - small cafe with awesome breakfast menu (yummy honey bun french toast)
Figone's Olive Oil Co. - serveral olive oils to taste, we purchased an orange and lemon flavor- it is sooo good!
Chateau St. Jean Winery - Beautiful gardens - we did not wine taste here.


Kendall-Jackson Wine Center - very large, impressive wine center. They just introduced "Avani Chardonnay", it is a light crisp wine, great for summer.


Rodney Strong Winery - we fell in love with this wine at a
wine maker's dinner at Whistler during Cornucopia so had to stop here, we but did not taste, just a looked around at the tasting room and toured the different wine storage areas.


Castello di Amorosa - a castle winery in Napa valley - very impressive!!!














Wine Spector Greystone Restaurant at the Napa Culinary Institute - interesting to watch food prep and had a great lunch here.
















Black Stallion Winery - the newest winery in Napa, it was beauiful and the wine tasting was good.



















Back to the hotel for afternoon wine tasting courtesey of VJB Vineyard - again one of my favorite wines of the trip

Lasalete Restaurant - highly recommend by our friends, the food was delicious, I would return to this gem. Loved the "Trio of Chocolate" dessert.






YES, we did all this in less than 48 hours, a lot of driving, tasting, eating and even relaxing in the evening - a great getaway!

Special Gift

Happy St. Patrick's Day. My good friend Robin from Bellingham Travel gave me a special gift my last day working in the office. She made this awesome present by drilling a hole in the glass block, putting in a LED light string,and then added the bow, wishing me "Good Luck" with my new ventures in life. What a great idea--it can be a great Christmas gift too! Her "love langauge" is "giving gifts", she is the best! I will miss working with her and the other girls in the office. I was at the office yesterday setting up an "outside sales" position with Bellingham Travel. I am looking forward to planning trips outside the office.

Early Retirement & Fat Little Hippo

Early Retirement and and fat little hippo -what more can a girl ask for?!? Well, I got it!

I didn't really ASK for the early retirement, actually, I was a little shocked last Friday morning when I was "let go" from Bellingham Travel after almost 24 years of employment. However, the more I thought about it, the more excited I got, I was so excited I felt bad about it--really, who is excited about losing their job?!?

Today was my last day and it was great! I felt very loved and appreciated by my co-workers (love them!), my husband, friends and family. Jeff took me out for lunch at my favorite place - D'Annas, and brought me 2 dozen roses (24 years). The girls at work brought yummy food to munch on, flowers,special gifts, kind words, and Abby made an awesome chocolate cake. FOOD was the theme of the day. After all those years together they know me very well!

I always thought (to myself), "when I leave Bellingham Travel I'm taking the fat hippo with me", well, I did! Just a little reminder of my years at Bellingham Travel.

I don't think I'll give up travel consulting completely, my boss offered me an "outside sales" position. I guess that means having my favorite clients over to my home for a cup of coffee, planning their travel, and make money doing it - how cool is that? I'll keep you posted on that as my life settles into retirement. I'm going to take a few weeks off to clean closets, paint our ceilings, watch Wyatt's Lacrosse games, and take a trip to Napa with my honey for our 20th anniversary.

The Travel Industry has changed a lot in the last 30 years. I started out in the 1980's without a computer, phoning in reservations to the airlines and typing itineraries - now days anyone can be a "Travel Agent", booking their own travel on personal computers. It's a hard business to be in today. However, not everyone can be a "Travel Consultant", which I consider myself to be after 30 years of "Travel" experience. I hope you will still need me to "consult" you on your future travel plans from time to time.