bobmacliberty

Long day today, starting with snow in the mountains. Loved seeing the Redwoods in Muir Woods. Amazing. Spent time photographing the Golden Gate Bridge from several places. It’s like the Eiffel Tower in that you can see it from everywhere and it always takes a good picture. I’ll post about the rest of the day another time, but we finished with another excellent meal…this time Chinese at Fang. I’ll leave you with these for now.

Yup.

More cold today in Napa, low 30s to start and high of about 49F. Rain was off and on but not bad enough to really impact is so all in all, not too bad. On the way to our first winery, we passed the famous Welcome to Napa Valley sign and of course had to stop for a picture We started at Castello di Amorosa, which is a castle winery built in the 90s but that looks a lot older. They imported some old timber, stone, and things like battle helmets from Europe, but the rest is much newer. It was built, and is owned, by Dario Sattui, who also created V. Sattui previously and sold 49% to help pay for the castle. We again were the only guests in our tasting area for almost an hour, which meant 1 to 1 attention. We told our host where we went yesterday, and where we were going later today (which have more expensive cabs), so he broke out their more expensive wines for us to taste. He wanted a fair comparison. Works for me! We stopped at Gillwoods Cafe in St Helena for lunch and had huge burgers. I should not have eaten the whole thing as I felt full the rest of the day (even though I kept eating, just like cruising). Our second winery stop was the Del Dotto Estate. They are known for excellent (and expensive) wines. It’s a very impressive facility with imported Carrara marble columns and tiles, and Murano glass chandeliers which reportedly cost $100K each. Yikes. Mustard flowers blooming at Del Dotto Their cabs were excellent, especially the Villa del Lago. It should taste good at $350 a bottle. Double Yikes. 😳😳😳 We had planned to also visit Grgich Hills but decided to cancel. It’s just too much wine. Dinner tonight was Italian at Bottega. Another excellent meal. I had the Tagliarini Bolognese Al Centro…a great pasta dish with a veal/pork sauce. Very tasty Micheline went with Spaghetti all Sophia Loren. It’s interesting how her name keeps popping up after our discussion comparing her vs Raquel Welch. The chef made this dish for Sophia using wheat from a field that she played in as a child in Italy. The sauce is served on the side so you can taste the pasta with no sauce. We’re checking out tomorrow and headed to San Francisco. I’ll summarize my Napa thoughts when we get home next week.

We walked to the restaurant last night and stopped at a wine shop that did tastings. We enjoyed some good wine that was more reasonably priced. The owner had her dog there…a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Charlie. He was a very good boy. I took pictures since he looks a lot like @Sea Dog’s Charlie. Dinner was at Bouchon Bistro, a sister restaurant to The French Laundry. What a great meal. Micheline had the fish special with cod in an artichoke sauce. I had the mussels in a saffron wine sauce with truffle fries. I was a little wined out and went with a local IPA. Absolutely fantastic. Chef’s kiss. Three wineries today and then dinner at what is supposed to be a great Italian restaurant.

We visited two wineries yesterday. First was Laird Family Estate. Micheline had a flight of mixed whites and reds, while I went all reds. The wine was OK but I wouldn’t want to pay what they were asking for a bottle. Their vines reminded me of a menorah, although with more branches. We were literally the only guests there. It was sort of like cruising right after Covid. No crowds but no “energy” either. Laird must also be very nice in the summer/fall. I think this will be a recurring theme. Our second winery was Baldacci Family. We did a cave tour in addition to a tasting. We liked this place a lot and their cabs were fantastic. Their tasting area was built less than 2 years ago and was very well designed. There were a few other people there but we had the cave tour all to ourselves, which also meant a private tasting with a dedicated host after the tour. Cave entrance. Although we were tempted, we decided to wait before making any impulse purchases. $$ 😳

Decent first day in Napa. Bouchon Bakery was great for breakfast. We wandered around town and saw many interesting sculptures. This first one is called Muse with Attitude. Our hotel is great. Very large and comfortable room. Our private patio. A little too cold for us to enjoy it. Nice common areas. This place must be great in the summer.

Unfortunately, we’re in Napa right now with very cold weather. 34F when we woke up. We were supposed to be on a hot air balloon ride right now but they called yesterday and cancelled. It was very windy yesterday but today is calm so not sure why they cancelled. Wouldn’t think that too cold would be the reason. 100% chance of rain tomorrow. We brought rain jackets, umbrellas, and cold weather clothing so we’ll be fine. We’ll just miss out on some beautiful views. Sounds like we’re getting the same weather that Dani had in Venice. 🤣 On the plus side, our hotel room is great. Very large with a fireplace (that’s coming in handy right now) and a decent sized, private patio that might be good for enjoying a glass of wine later today if it warms up enough. Lots of art around here. We stopped to see the Grape Crusher statue. And this statue is outside of our hotel room. Water is pumped to the top and drips down from the umbrella. Appropriate for tomorrow. Our first winery stop is at 12:30 today so we’ll wander around town a bit this morning. The concierge told us that not much happens here in the morning. Everyone is still recovering from drinking wine all day the previous day.

I’ll share some info and a few pictures as we go…hopefully.

At the airport waiting to board our flight to San Francisco. Weather will be a little cooler with highs in the 50s and a couple of days of rain. Nothing that a little wine can’t fix. With all of the talk here about No Shoes radio, I decided to give it a try for a few days. I’m not a big country fan but do like Kenny Chesney’s island songs. When you say that there’s a mix of musical styles, you weren’t kidding. Nothing like a little Drop It Like It’s Hot at 5:30am 🤣🤣🤣

Ship’s WiFi should be fine. Bad guys look for a place like Starbucks where they can get in and out easily.

Wow. It's been a few years since we've been to Labadee, but I don't remember the suite area being anywhere near that crowded. I completely agree with this. The Smoke Rings cocktail is worth a trip to the Wonderland Bar. On Oasis class, Wonderland is a much nicer area. It's 2 floors with the bar on the top floor and then walking down steps to much bigger dining area (compared to Q class) with a view out the 2 deck high windows (although overlooking the Boardwalk area).

That's an important message about public WiFi. It's common to use what's called a Man in the Middle attack. You think you're connecting to a public WiFi network but you're actually connecting to a bad guy who is pretending to be a public WiFi connection. The bad guy is connected to the Internet so you end up going through him to get to the Internet, but you never know the difference. The bad guy can "see" everything that you do. Any web sites that you connect to SHOULD use encrypted traffic, at least when sending your username and password, but not all do. Even if the bad guy sees the encrypted version of your password, there are ways to decrypt it in some cases. All it takes is to buy a $120 device called a Wifi Pineapple. You set it up to pretend that you're the Starbucks Wifi, or the Kroger Wifi, or Panera Bread Wifi, or the Lowes WifI, etc. Moral of the story...use your cellular connection to the internet unless you must use WiFi for some reason. Edit: Using your home Wifi is fine. I'm talking about public Wifi connections.

I'd manage to survive with the Buffalo Trace.

Looks more like medium to me. 😜

We like hanging out at Boleros. The music is enjoyable and some amazing dancing happens there.

It's been a long time for us also, but the sea lion show was great. Very funny and I think perfect for a 10 year old. The penguins are also fun to watch. The Manta and the Kraken are both great roller coasters but she's probably too young for them. If you're into coasters and can get some free time, I'd highly recommend either. We also really enjoyed Sea World's Discovery Cove. It's across the street and a completely separate ticket though from SeaWorld. You'd need to choose one or the other. Discovery Cove has some man made beaches and encounters with dolphins, sharks, stingrays, otters, birds, etc. Food and drink (including beer and wine) are included. My kids loved it because they could get up close and personal with several of the animals. It's an all day thing and may not make sense if you need to leave early to get back to the ship.

With all of the concerts discussed here, I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Dave Matthews Band. I've never been able to get into them personally, but I've talked with several people who love them and have seen them in concert multiple times.

Completely agree. It was always a hard song to dance to. It started off as a slow dance song and then picked up pace until you were no longer really slow dancing, but not quite fast dancing. And I never quite knew what to do in the guitar solo. Congrats on your anniversary! What a great story.

And they seem to have aged well. Never would have guessed that. 🤣

Purely for voice, I'd add Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, and Adele. Any mention of Heart or the Wilson sisters makes me think of their Stairway to Heaven tribute to Led Zeppelin during the Kennedy Center Honors. Jason Bonham played drums. It's impossible to beat the original Zeppelin version, but they came close. I get choked up watching it.

Wake up! It's cruise day! Bon Voyage

Every time that you post pictures of Sydney, I want to immediately jump on a plane and go there. It looks like such a beautiful and interesting city.

I haven't been to a lot of concerts, but I did see Springsteen in 1980. Unbelievable energy over almost 4 hours. He did 2 sets and the first song of the second set was Hungry Heart. The entire audience sang the first verse and chorus (Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack...) while Springsteen just smiled and played. He finished with Jungleland, which was my favorite song for a while.

Farrah Fawcett (had her poster growing up) and Bo Derek are definitely in my age group, but I didn't even think of them for some reason. Farrah would definitely be on the list somewhere (I was more of a Jaclyn Smith fan), but Bo seems more like a flash in the pan. Maybe she did other things that I'm not aware of. Our other top 3 are all significantly older than us. Don't know why.

I'm in. Looking forward to another DaKahuna review!