Day 1: Napa Valley and the Permaculture Farm - June 15

We’ve been planning and talking about this trip for so long it didn’t quite feel real when we set out this morning to start our adventure.  While Vancouver is our destination spot we are taking a pretty circuitous route to get there.  

Our first stop was in Yountville, home of several Thomas Keller restaurants.  Rachel would love to dine at the French Laundry one day and I hope she is able to realize this goal, but for now she is satisfied with a trip to Bouchon Bakery and a stroll through the gardens of the French Laundry.

From there we went to our favorite restaurant in St. Helena – it is the only restaurant we have ever been to in St. Helena but the food is unbelievable.  Jim and I took Rachel on a day trip to St. Helena in January and she declared her meal one of the best of her life – and today's did not disappoint.

Marilyn and Rose took to Julia and Rachel quickly!

We continued on through Calistoga and into Middletown, stopping a spring along the road to fill our water bottles with some great water.  In planning this trip I was looking for some place affordable to stop between our house and Lassen National Park – and stumbled across a listing on airbnb for a stay on a permaculture farm (I still don’t really know what that is) but decided it sounded like a fun adventure.  If I wanted this trip to be about experiencing some of life’s differences, I couldn’t have picked better.  The farm is super remote (our driving instructions went on for quite a while after the one that said “follow until the road ends”) and the woman who owns it is building a cob mud house on her property in the shape of a boot that she plans to move into when complete.

Buddy, the dog with nine lives!

The owner is away tonight and so instead we are being hosted by her daughter Natasha and her two lovely girls (ages 4 and 18 months).  The  three of them are the same ages as me and my girls, just 13 years younger.  It feels strange to have this window into my past, especially given the struggle I've been having lately with my girls growing up.   But it has provided great memories of how wonderful it was to have them little, and reminders of how great it is to have them old - the adventures are just different.  Her little girls couldn’t be more thrilled to spend their time with my teenagers - and vice versa.  Their whole family is super loving, including the dog Buddy who was shot in the eye last week by a neighbor when Buddy wandered onto her property.  So, needless to say, Julia will not be going for a jog in the “neighborhood” tomorrow morning!

Dining at a little Mexican restaurant
in Middletown