We dined at a very romantic (ie touristy) restaurant on our final night in Kauai. It was a nice Italian place overlooking a bay and had the moon reflecting on the water. The receptionist had suggested we visit Kauai pasta, and we think they were recommending places that they go to eat - good food, reasonable prices, just stuck in a 1970's time warp with the Formica tables and usually situated in a strip mall between a nail bar and a drug store! To be fair the food was always pretty good, but sometimes you want a lovely setting too...and don't mind paying a few extra dollars to get it!
We checked in online for the flight and for some reason we couldn't get a seat assignment. We got to the airport good and early, and it was just as well as it was pretty chaotic! There was a huge queue to check luggage. We asked about our lack of seat numbers and were told to check at the gate for seat assignments. Oh oh! We're on standby and the flight is oversold!! Stephen eventually managed to get us seats, but they didn't seem to recognise we were a "party of 2" so they weren't together. He said "there is a crap seat and a really crap seat". As they were nearly finished boarding the flight I took the boarding pass with my name on it and headed to the really crap seat - at the back of the plane, wedged between two blokes. I had assumed my seat was crap because it was a middle seat at the back of the plane, but no! My seat was the crap seat because the other one was a middle seat in Economy Plus!! He had omitted to mention that part to me!! He spent the 5 hour flight in relative comfort, whilst I spent it squished between two guys who insisted on sitting with their knees spread far apart (and encroaching on my space!). Also, to make matters even more delightful, the guy to my right was eating something really offensive and the woman in front changed her baby's nappy on the seat in front and it was a stinker!!! I thought there was somewhere you could take little babies to do that???
We drove up through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate bridge. It was a perfectly clear day and the views were stunning. We stopped at the view point on the north side to take some photos. Actually as it was blowing a gale and freezing I stayed in the warmth of the car as he had a jacket to hand and I only had a t-shirt on! There was a bridal party having photos taken and the bride was looking a little cold and windswept!
It was a lovely drive to Napa past miles and miles of vineyards. The hotel is gorgeous! Its a B&B style hotel - antique furnishings and individual style of rooms. The grounds are stunning too. Even better (as we were starving) was the fact that there is a superb Italian restaurant about 100 yards down the road. We had a superb dinner there last night.
Breakfast is included (unusual in an American hotel) and it was served by a lovely Mexican lady who didn't speak much English. Bacon, Eggs and Potatoes was on the menu and we both ordered that (well, we had wine to taste and didn't want to do that on a slice of toast alone!). It came with scrambled eggs, and Stephen wanted fried.... "Can I have fried eggs?" - blank look - "Can I have the eggs over easy rather than scrambled?" - "over easy?" - "yes, over easy, fried eggs over easy". Off she went, then back she came with the menu in hand. "Potato over easy?" - No - "Bacon over easy?" - No - "Eggs over easy?" - Yes!!! It was a pure Fawlty Towers moment!!! Stephen's gentle accent strikes again!!
We've driven up Napa Valley today, and toured a couple of wineries. The first one was fascinating - our guide really knew his stuff, and they seemed to make really "select" wines. The other winery was a little more larger scale, but it had a cool cable car ride up to the top!! We had tastings at both places - quite interesting to compare the different varieties and styles. There was a big focus on red wines though, and I'm much more of a white wine gal! I forced it down though!!! We've tried Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Zinfandel....Mmmmmm!!
We also went to see the "Old Faithful" geyser. It had gone off around 10 minutes before we got there, so we had to wait...a whole 15 minutes or so!! The eruption was preceded by a lot of steam and a bubbling noise, then there was a little spurt, then it finally did its thing, which it does faithfully every 30 minutes or so, and spurted water about 40 feet into the air!
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