Hard Labor and Great Rewards

I now know why fruit is so damn expensive... it's freaking hard work picking it!!! I sweated and burned from the hot hot heat, and then sweated some more out in Brentwood today, picking peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, and cherries. 

Wow, in hindsight it actually sounds quite impressive.

Anyway it was hard. labor. 

a) I know nothing about picking peaches... they were all rock hard and I like my peaches soft so I was very confused. (Like... why are they telling me I should be picking these peaches that are hard as rocks and then asking me to pay $2 per pound for them???)

b) it was about 2,000 degrees outside. Ok, small exaggeration. I still managed to sweat off probably all my water weight... if any of my weight can be attributed to "water" as opposed to the McDonald's that I frequented while at school... :)

After we picked (and ate) enough fruit, we decided to head over to Napa--Mom wanted to visit the wineries she hadn't seen in years, and I wanted to drink. Perfect. Except, well...

I know it seems like common sense, but farms are dirty places. Literally, there's a lot of dirt. And hot air blowing the dirt around. So as you can imagine, I looked super sexy rolling up into Domain Chandon, the beautiful champagne winery, completely sweaty, clothes wrinkled, red cherry juice all over my brand new Rainbows, dirt on my toes, hair attempted to be smoothed down... Oh you know, no big deal. Nothing like going to a swanky place looking like you slept amongst the hogs and the hay last night. I love it.

Ignoring the fact that we probably smelled worse than wine gone bad, we visited three vineyards, did two tastings* (well, I did two, Mom got too "happy"** after the first one), and walked away with two bottles. Success!

Then we pulled into a little burger place on the side of Highway 29 (forget the name, sorry! But right across from Merryvale winery if you ever go) that had the best garlic fries ever. Just enough garlic to get the taste but not too much that nobody wants to touch you with a ten foot pole ;) 

After dinner we walked around downtown Calistoga (which looks a lot like downtown Saratoga--one short street of quaint little shops and restaurants) and visited the Indian Springs, a collection of cottages that we stayed at once when I was a kid. Oh, memories... as in, the memory of Sam and I sitting in the hammock outside our cottage... and then flipping over and landing face down in the grass. Yay.

Day trips rock: fun fun fun and then home in time to get clean and jump into your own bed at the end of the day :)

*Don't worry, Sam was the DD ;)

**Mom never gets "drunk" she just gets "happy" as she likes to call it. We play along that we believe her.