Wine Tasting and Great Food - Ain’t Napa Great?
Posted January 29th, 2008 in Food, TravelWe had been working our tails off since mid December and throughout the holidays, and it was time for us to take a little breather. This weekend, we headed up to Napa with Margie and Jim for a little wine tasting, fine dining, and an adventure in the African safari (next entry).
The weather threatened to rain all day Saturday, but surprisingly the rain never came. We got a chance to go around Napa without having to dig out the rain gear.
For dinner, we made reservations at “FARM”, located at the luxurious Carneros Inn. (On a side note, given the potential bad weather, we thought there may had been cancellations at The French Laundry - no such luck.) Nevertheless, the dining experience at FARM was wonderful. The ambiance of the restaurant was modern, colorful, and stylish. The food was fantastic - but I’ll stop there. Peggy and her friends are starting another blog to chat about all of our dining experiences/reviews and all the cooking parties they plan to organize to try out recipes from various (famous) cookbooks. So, I’ll leave the food review to them and crosslink later.
That evening, we stayed at Railway Inn in Yountville. These were converted from the original railway cars and the interior was cozy. The only drawback was the noise from the AC/heater unit - woke us up a few times throughout the night.
The next morning, we grabbed breakfast and coffee at Bouchon Bakery across the street from the Railway Inn, but before I had a chance to take a picture, a bite was already missing from the fresh, warm croissant. It was that tempting! Afterwards, we wandered our way over to The French Laundry. While it was only 9:00AM, we could already see a lot of people working feverishly in the kitchen (through the back windows). Across the street from the restaurant was a garden of vegetation - we saw chefs from The French Laundry coming out to the field to fetch the freshest ingredients. One of these days, we’ll make it there…
Posted in Food, Travel
No Comments
Safari West - African Safari in SF Bay Area!
Posted January 28th, 2008 in TravelWhat a great weekend for us! We got to spend Saturday up in Napa wine tasting and had a wonderful meal at the “FARM” of Carneros Inn, but I will blog about that tomorrow. Today (Sunday), we headed up to Santa Rosa to experience the safari!
We braved the weather for a 3-hour tour at the Safari West in Santa Rosa. Fortunately, the rain stayed off most of the time, and the slight mist was chilly but refreshing. The animals were roaming freely across the fields, and we got to see most of them! Turned out it was a good time to visit during these slower winter months. First of all, the traffic in and out of the preserve was very light - we were the only tour for the day and was joined by another family of 3. There were only 7 of us in the truck! Supposedly in the middle of the summer, there could be up to 9 trucks running simultaneously - you’d probably see more people than animals. Secondly, unlike the summer months, most of the animals were out grazing in the open fields without having to dodge the hot summer sun. The truck ride was an adventure in itself - we got to sit on the top of the truck and it definitely got my heart racing a bit as we traversed the uneven grounds! It was a great experience, and I highly recommend it!
They did have lodging on-site as well, I included a picture here. We didn’t stay there though…
Posted in Travel
No Comments
It’s Christmas in January!
Posted January 13th, 2008 in Random ThoughtsThe combination of a new tax year and generous rebates from Canon prompted us to add more equipment, mostly adding to our backup equipment and getting ourselves ready for the upcoming weddings this year.
2x 1TB Western Digital Pro II External Hard Drives - FIREWIRE 800 rocks!
2x Lexar FIREWIRE 800 Compact Flash Reader - this adds to the two I currently have. I can now simultaneously download 4x compact flash cards at once, really important when I normally shoot about 12 to 16 CF cards a wedding…
Canon 5D and grip - Another backup camera. With all the rebates from Canon, this should come out to around $1700-$1800, a bargain compared to $2600+ last year. Canon is gearing up to introduce the next generation 5D, rumored to be this month. Can’t wait!
Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS - 2nd one. A great (and extremely heavy) lens, but a must for any wedding photographer. Now, both Peggy and I can have this fun lens to shoot with, no need to fight over it anymore!
Canon 24-70 F2.8 L - Lovely images, beautiful bokeh effects!
Canon 50mm F1.4 - (not pictured) not here yet, extremely shallow depth of focus, should make for some great effects
24″ monitor - the second monitor
2x PocketWizard Plus II - I want to introduce more off-camera lighting in my images this year
Tamrac 614 Bag - 2nd one, with 4 cameras and up to 10 lenses, this is desperately needed
Canon 580EXII - 3rd one (not pictured)
Posted in Random Thoughts