Napa Valley

Wednesday, Sept 29 (I know...This is a little out of order!!)

I got up early and did a bit of writing in the journal, while Ade slept.  Next, I took an early morning ‘scoot’ downtown to explore.  This place is a real treat to visit.  There is a river flowing through town with many buildings strategically located on it.  Many of the stores are small old buildings that have been renovated to give that old small town feel.  One of the buildings was the Firefighters Museum.  I, instantly took a shine to it. 

Inside this building were fire trucks that dated back to the 1920’s, as well as equipment of that era.  It is a miracle that four of these vehicles actually still work.  The ladder truck dating back to 1930 was enormous,



 complete with all the accessory equipment and an enormous power activated wood ladder!!  The curator was a retired ex-firefighter who was born and raised in the town.  Obviously he had many stories to tell me, since I was his only customer at that moment.  He actually gave me a Napa Valley fire department crest and hoped that I would send him one of our Wilson’s Landing Crests for his collection of several hundred that were laid out in a very organized book showing departments from around the world!!

My adventure downtown continued until after noon, then it was back to Ade and our camp spot.  She had a really good snooze and was ready for another great day. 

By 1:30 we were on the road to “wine tasting heaven”.  There are two roads that parallel each other, just north of town.  One these roads are many, many small to medium sized wineries.  Like in the Okanagan, most of these are family owned and managed.  They often have spend millions of dollars constructing a site where the buildings and landscapeing all blend together to produce a very memorable experience focused on some sort of theme. 

For example the Peju winery (thanks for the recommendation Steve) had gorgeous grounds and statuesque art in the entry area.  Then you entered buildings constructed to give you a European feeling for the experience.  It like many others was a perfect environment to experience the many wines you might want to taste.  However, tasting at Napa is not the “value” that we, in BC, get in the Okanagan.  It costs $15 to $20 for each session (about 6 or 7 different wines) and only a small part of this charge goes to the purchase of your bottles!!  Also, the cost of the wines started just above our wines, but quickly went to between $40 and $80 per bottle.

One bit of a disappointment was that we still had 7 bottles in reserve in Rita, and since it was so hot we declined purchasing any bottles for now.  We were told that the heat greatly reduces the quality of the wine so we must start drinking our own inventory a little more quickly, and then we can stock up on the American vintages!

After our little tour of a few hours, we were back to the campsite and Emmi-Lou Harris was our next treat that evening.  Again it was back to the Opera House for the 8:00 pm show.  Once more we had a wonderful time.  Her voice (at 60) is still perfect as her and her background group performed for more than 2 hours without a break.  It is hard to describe her music as she leans from country to folk throughout her performance.  Her voice is so pure that a number of songs were done solo, and she did one song without even using the microphone and song enhancers!

Once back at Rita for the night, we sat under the stars, enjoyed a drink and talked about how luck we had been to see these back to back shows at such a unique venue.  The SKYLINE PARK campsite that we are staying at

Napa Valley (Tuesday, Sept 28)

By 9:00 we were on the road to Napa.  This is the jewel of the American wine industry, so we decided that we wanted to take a couple of days to investigate the area.  Also, we lucked out a month ago and were able to purchase a couple of tickets to see Joan Baez at the Napa Valley Opera house.

Since our tickets were this evening we could not be late.  We arrived at about 3:00 and went to the Opera House to confirm our tickets.  What a beautiful old building.  It had seating and a balcony that sat only about 500 people and every seat in the house was just great.

While we were confirming our tickets for the 8:00 performance, we learned that Emmy-lou Harris was performing tomorrow night.  As fate would have it, we got the last set of 2 tickets for her show!

From the Opera House it was to our new base at Skyline Park about 2 miles out of town.  The park is a unique place with camping, an native Indian garden, archery target practice range, a rodeo ground, picnic area, community hall and miles of hiking trails—and RV sites for $30!  In addition to the RV hookups, Skyline also has a wonderful nature garden filled with native California plant species.  One of the unique parts of the park is that it has miles of mountain bike trails that traverse the hills of the outback of this enormous piece of land.

We set up camp, and then I unloaded the Scooter and checked out the town for parking, etc later on in the evening.

Napa Valley Opera house is a gem. It dates back many years, but went abandoned for decades and then was restored about 10 years ago.

Joan Baez (often referred to as the Queen of Folk Music) put on an incredible show in a very intimate venue, where 500 people (a full house!) sat in true comfort to enjoy and participate in the show.  She performed her own music, plus some from Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and others, even the old Eric Burden tune, “The House of the Rising Sun”.  Many of the songs she did with no musical accompaniment other than her guitar, and on some songs she had her son on a very unique drum that he sat on while playing!  Also sometimes she used her friend “Dax” as background music. He played quite an assortment of instruments, depending on the song.   The 500 people who included her 97 year old mother (front row of course), and Emmy-Lou Harris (who was seated only 4 seats to the side of us) all had a wonderful time.  So much so, did Harris enjoy the show that she referred to it many times in her own show the next day!! 

It is quite amazing how someone over 60 can maintain such a beautiful voice and still have the energy and drive to perform.  Being very socially aware, Baez does many concerts to raise money for socially responsible groups ranging from dog shelters, to protesting Arizona’s recent segregation laws that are resulting in the deporting of Mexican labourers from the state.