Napa Valley Touring

Well, it's Saturday and it's our last day in Napa. We all leave tomorrow morning, so today is a Big Day. For our last time, we again enjoyed our coffee and breakfast on the backyard deck, enjoying the sunny pleasant weather. We fianally found the "waterfall feature" we had heard about. It wasn't the obvious fountain, but was part of the Jacuzzi! I don't get it. The "waterfall" fell about 4 inches and the only way it works is to turn on the jets and bubbler, so you can't hear a gentle waterfall. We all deided that had we REALLY wanted the sound of falling water with our morning coffee, we could have just turned on the hot tub. Somehow, that thought just didn't cut it! We are so fussy!
We decided to drive the Napa Valley from Napa to St. Helena, shopping and wine tasting along the way. One of our first stops was in Yountville, a cute little town with gift shops, wine tasting rooms, and restaurants. We had lunch on an outdoor patio at Pacific Blues Cafe. We had a very nice lunch of a BLT, Salmon Burger, and Polish Sausage with Sauerkraut. We just wanted a plain lunch, so did not eat at Thomas Keller's French Laundry. Maybe next time. After lunch, we got off the beaten path a little to visit the Grapevine Store in Rutherford. I bought a cute heart-shaped hanging wreath made of cabernet vines. We all bought a bunch of stuff and just shipped it all home.
We drove on to St. Helena and at the far end of town, found the Holy of Holies: The CIA Greystone. For you non-foodies, that would be the Culinary Institute of America - Greystone, sister to the one in New England. It looked like a large grey castle on a hill. Inside, it STILL resembled a castle. We got to spend a lot of time in Spice Market - their store. I bought a couple hundred dollars worth of cookbooks to ship home, and sampled some wonderful Myers Lemon Viniagrette.
On the way home, we stopped at several wineries for tastings - I was designated driver, so I watched and enjoyed vicariously Nancy and Joyce sip all kinds of wines and buy some. We stopped at BV (Beau Jous Vintners), Berringers, Menage a Trois, and a couple others whose names escape me at the moment.  When we got back to Napa, we ate dinner at a hamburger place called Gotts Burgers - really excellent burgers on the pricey side. We spent $44 for 3 burgers, 1 fries, 1 malt, and 2 cokes.
We finally got back to the house, got all packed up to leave in the morning, and then hung out for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow for me: Amtrak.