On Saturday, we woke up later than normal since we were at the concert the night before. I did some yardwork, ran errands and then went to Heidi's graduation party at Uncle Dan's house in San Leandro. Heidi graduated from Cal State Hayward majoring in Criminal Justice. I spent most of the party looking at photographs and video from the family's trip to a Nascar race in North Carolina and sightseeing in Washington D.C. The Washington D.C. portion was interesting and reminded me of when I was there in 1992.
On Sunday, we went to Napa. There were two reasons we went: 1) Collect a certificate for a free 4 night cruise to Catalina & Ensanada and 2) Go to Copia (a food, wine and art museum Shawnna really wanted to see. The free cruise was an incentive to sit through a 90 minute spiel at RiverPointe, a timeshare. We sat through the spiel in 2003 and got a trip to Las Vegas, so we knew it was legit (you have to wait 12 months before you return). I started off by telling the guy that we had been there before and he asked, "What happened last time?" I said, "The same thing that's going to happen this time. We're going to sit through the 90 minute spiel, walk away without buying a timeshare and collect our gift." He said, "Why don't I just sign your paper right now, you can hang out by the pool for 90 minutes and then collect your gift." So, we took the signed paper, skipped the waiting for 90 minutes part and redeemed it for the cruise certificate. I don't know how they do this and stay in business, but it was really as easy as that.
Next, we went to Copia. This museum is much more interactive than any other museum I've been to. We started off with a wine tasting where the guide took us around the gardens in front of the museum and had everyone taste various plants (rosemary, mint, lemon) to show how it changed the taste of the wine. All of the food and herbs produced by the gardens (it's several acres) are used in their restaurant, Julia's Kitchen. This is the only restaurant that Julia Child lent her name to and it's where we ate lunch. I had the salmon and Shawnna had the pork chops (they had fancy names, but I can't remember them). The food was awesome, the bread they served before the meal was great and the taste of their lobster bisque they gave us was very flavorful - highly recommended. After lunch, we walked around the rest of the museum which included a look back at when various food related products were invented, Spanish & Mexican ceramics, utensils from different Indian tribes and a wall of copper pots from Julia Child's actual kitchen. It was good to experience something different in Napa - we left without going to any of the wineries :-0
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