I had a nice little vacation this weekend - both Chuck and I did. We *finally* took the time to go up to the Napa Valley area (although we didn't go to Napa, but went to Calistoga instead).

So we planned this whole thing on Thursday - very short notice trip. We had a hell'u'va time picking out a hotel that didn't have bad reviews and settled on the safety of a good ole chain franchise. It turned out to be quite decent though - nothing bad (but nothing really excing either). So yeah, we headed up on Friday through some congested traffic, but not a bad drive overall.

After checking into the hotel we had a great BBQ dinner at a little place called Buster's BBQ. Good down-home BBQ - you order outside through a sliding screen window, and eat off of paper plates in an outdoor (but enclosed) area. And damn good baked beans and ribs... We took a nice dip in the pool, and hot tub, and got hot and bothered in the steam room. I always liked steam rooms. The hotel's steam room was pretty decent once it got going too. So yeah, just a relaxing night to prepare for a long Saturday.

We had our complimentary continental breakfast after we were up and showered (I had an incredibly sweet banana nut muffin...don't feed those to your kids...). Then we headed out to Clos Pegase! Our first winery of the day!! We got there at about 10:40, just in time to do a tasting before the tour started. It was all reds, which I'm not *too* keen on, but they were still good. Chuck really like the Pinot Noir, so we got a bottle of that. Oh, and bear in mind that I know very little about wine, so if I sound like I have no clue what I'm talking about in some places, it's probably because I don't...have a clue... Anyways. We went on a tour of Clos Pegase - saw all sorts of artwork displayed around, heard the story behind the color scheme and architecture, saw all the casks and huge steel vats, heard about how the wine is made, saw the underground dinner theatre, etc. It was quite an entertaining tour. I think my Mom would have liked it. Once that was over we hopped on over to our next stop.

Twomey was much smaller than Clos Pegase, but had great people there. The wine-ista (I have no idea what the wine-taster-helper people are called...so that's the name I'm giving them) was very personable, was more than happy to let us have second tastings to compare flavors, reccommended other vineyards to visit - just really nice people. So nice, in fact, that we bought a $60 bottle of wine! Another red, but a very good one. A 2002 Merlot. AND! We got to keep the wine glasses!!! How exciting!

Next we headed over to Bennett Lane and had our first taste of some white wines. I liked them - they all had hints of pineapple (and I like pineapple). And my favorite had a nice warm butterscotch flavor, so we had to get a bottle: 2004 Primus Chardonnay. Verrrry yummy. We saw some people who had been on the tour with us at Clos Pegase and they playfully accused us of following them. Oh, gotta love that tipsy commeraderie! Naw, we weren't tipsy! Maybe...

Moving on. Next stop was Calistoga Cellars. Got to try some more white wines as well as a port. The guy working there was really nice and didn't charge us for a tasting. He even recommended a good brewery nearby when we mentioned that we like beer as well. He wrote a little note to his buddy, the manager at the brewing company, asking him to give us two beers. Very nice! And on top of all that we bought two bottles (how could we not?) - a Sauvignon Blanc and a Cabernet Sauvignon Port. Oh, and somewhere in all that wine tasting we stopped for lunch (at Buster's BBQ again - it was too good).

So we took a break at the hotel to let the wine work it's way through before heading out to our next exciting stop - the "special" hot springs. I make it sound like we were drunk - I promise we weren't, but I know I was starting to feel it at least. And I was stuffed with BBQ... But we made the 30 minute drive even further north just past a little town called Middletown to our hot springs.

We had to go through a whole check-in process and got maps and fliers and booklets, told the rules, etc. So let me take a moment to tell you about Harbin Hot Springs. It's a little...natural resort type place. Not fancy - no cell phones, no cameras, no meat in any form in the kitchen area. There are 5 pools. All the water is from nearby natural springs and is filtered through a very specialized filtering system (no chlorine or any of those nasty chemicals) so that it's pure and crisp mineral water that you're swimming in. There's a normal pool, like your average swimming pool. Then a heart-shaped pool, which is a warm pool (not hot) that kids and adults can enjoy. And *then* there's the quiet pools where your not supposed to speak at all. If you need to speak, you have to whisper. One is warm, one is freaking hot as hell, and the third is practically an ice cube. Oh, and did I mention this is a clothing-optional facility? Yeah, it's clothing optional! How fun!

So we made our way to the pools and saw all sorts of naked people walking around, swimming, and laying out. Old, young, skinny, large, big boobs, small, shaved, not shaved, attractive, not attractive, etc. It was really neat to see all these different people in their natural state. There was nothing sexual about it and I didn't get any creepy feelings. Some poeple had on swimsuits, or parts of swim suits, but most poeple were quite comfortable enjoying the sun and springs in the buff.

So Chuck and I took a few moments to get ourselves...kinda used to our surroundings. Then we changed into our bathing suits (yes, in the middle of all the people) and took our first dip. Then I got brave and took off my top and had my first "public", topless dip. Then Chuck got *really* brave and took off his suit. It took me a while until I finally managed to work up the guts to take off my bottoms too, but I did. And when I did, it was really nice! We mainly hung out in the heart-shaped pool, but we did try all of them. Even the hot-hot one (which I nearly couldn't get in - it really did burn the crap out of your skin) and the cold one (very cold - but I don't think it was as cold as, say, the Pacific Ocean in Australia in the winter - but still cold especially after you just came out of the hot pool). On top of that there were kids hanging around and quietly playing (one mom with her absolutely adorable 5 month old baby), and people relaxing and chatting. We even chatted with one girl who gave us her card so we could maybe hang out some time (she lives in Marin too). So it was neat.

We had massages there too, somewhere in between all our mineral-bath soakings. Very nice massage - got all slick and oily. I tried to rinse it off before getting back in the pools, but that oil is hard to wash away. So, needless to say, the combination of great mineral water and oily skin gave Chuck and me some really nice soft skin for the rest of the night! Harbin Hot Springs was definitely a really nice place to go - very relaxing, natural, comfortable, nice people, etc. We'd really like to go back sometime. But our visit ended around 8:00 and we headed back to the hotel.

We ate a good dinner at the Flatiron Grill in downtown Calistoga. We were gonna go out and see if there were any bands or anything anywhere, but ended up staying in again. Maybe next time.

Next day (Sunday) it was time to leave. We checked out feeling kinda sad, and headed off to do a big more sightseeing before heading back to Marin. We went to the Petrified Forest, which was neat because it had petrified trees that were knocked down in a lava slide 3.4 million years ago, but really wasn't very exciting over all. That's ok though. Then we headed to the Silverado Brewery where we had been directed for some good locally brewed beers. I had an Oatmeal Stout and Chuck an Amber Ale. They were good and I really enjoyed my Oatmeal Stout (they had really good onion rings too, by the way). And they were nice enough to actually give them to us complimentary, thanks to our "buddy" down at the Calistoga Cellars. I thought that was very cool of them.

So that was it. We headed back to Marin after a nice weekend. Good times. We hope to be able to do that again sometime in the not-too-distant future!