Travel is such a broadening experience.
Especially when you eat as much good food and drink as much good wine (well, not that much, really) as we did. Plus, the mud helped sweat some of the toxins out of our bodies, or so we like to tell ourselves.
And it certainly helps to give us new perspectives on life (at first this image was loaded sideways – almost left it that way). Anyway, the images will soon be loaded in a new album in my gallery. They will include some rather scary mudbath pictures as well as pictures of Steve eating the entire "small plates" menu at All Seasons, Calistoga. N t to mention a bunch of pictures from the Stinking Rose. In the meantime, I've had a couple of cups of delicious jasmine pearl tea that was a gift from David's friend Adam Sah. He had bought it on his walk from his office to the restaurant; he may have stopped off somewhere like this place to purchase it. And yes, the tiny pearls of jasmine-scented tea really do unfurl as the tea brews; it's a heavenly scented infusion, too. I have a feeling that I'll be buying an Asian-style tea service soon, as my sturdy British teapot and bone china mug from England aren't quite the right style.
One of my favorite places is Napa Valley. Have you been up Spring Mountain. Some of the greatest wines are coming from Pride Mountain Vineyards…. and All Seasons is my favorite place to stock up on picnic stuff before heading off the beaten track somewhere!!
Hey, Allan! I was wondering if you’d wander over – the grapes were not really bait, but they functioned that way. No, we didn’t make it up Spring Mountain; where is that? We stayed pretty much in the Calistoga area, which means we have a lot more places to discover on our next trip. We only had dinner at All Seasons, but the other hot picnic place in town seemed to be the Palisades Market, which had a lot of really amazing imported foods. They also had a lot of eclectic picnic gear. David had to drag me out of there so that I didn’t go overboard.
How’s the convalescence going? Hang in there.