Long and Winding Road

The terrain is hilly and so the roads are narrow with very few straight sections. Ken is a saint for driving us while we all talk and he is given contradictory commands simultaneously.

One lane bridge over the Russian river

Easy to take a picture since we were driving slowly 

Lots of water in the river this year 

Where are my water wings 

Winding up and down

J for bubbly

J Vineyard is known for its bubbly. Everyone but Ken and I got the sparkling flight. I got a Pino Nior flight and Ken sipped some of Kims. The winery had an adjacent restaurant called the Bubble Room. We will have to have lunch there next time.

Impressive foyer 

Impeccable grounds

A bridge over the water feature 

Bring on the bubbles 

A sign made from bottles 

Pour on!

Ariel view. We laughed because the bubbles created little rings on the tops of the glasses.  No one had ever left their glass alone long enough to see these rings before. 

We thought it did that they would pour all of the glasses at once

My selections

Lovely long table

Interference patterns in the glass 

Heading out past the roses

The vines 

Who is next door?  Mr Strong is!

Back to the house for dinner

We had arranged for a woman to come and make us dinner. Her name was Carrie and she made us dinner. We spend some time down at the pool had a little bit of Brie cheese, then came up for some soup then there was the main course and then breakfast desert. We stopped a couple times to take pictures in the movie Starlight and then we finished up by watching sideways. One of these wines was featured not so prominently in the movie.

All fancy and ready for dinner

Cheers to Kim

Maria had his loaded up on the wine!

The moviestar lighting

Teamleip

Grasshopper

The gang's all here

The Star

Sunset

Dessert

Medlock Ames part 2

After Alexander Springs we swung on by Robert Young Vineyards. We did not stay long as it was very tiny and mostly just for club members. We went to Medlock Ames during the actual tasting hours but just barely because it was 4:25 and they stopped at 4:30. It was quite delightful and the Chelsae at the bar knew about us already. Her boyfriend John was up at Iron Horse and had already told her about us and our less than disciplined ways. We had tasty wines and had to finish up quick because we had the lady that was going to cook us dinner back at the house.

At this point we do seated wine tastings. Not due to a lack of balance, or is it?

Very cool open-air setup.

Both Dan and Chelsea helped us out with our wines

 Chelsea is thinking about the end of the day. It's only minutes away

Alexander Valley Vineyards

This was a free tasting and not everyone was enthused with the quality of the wines. Since they were zinfandels I was more than happy and Ken of course thought they were great. I think that was wishful thinking on his part. We didn't stay long but we had a great time. It was starting to get pretty hot so we moved on to the next place.

Nice entryway

We ramp right up into the wine tasting

It was pretty busy so they sat us outside.

Apparently the other wineries called ahead so they had advance notice of our arrival

Since they knew we were coming they decided to get out more wine. 14 barrels seemed appropriate

Jimtown Store and Cafe

We decided to start out with lunch today as opposed to having some wine first. It was a brilliant idea and we stopped at the gym Town store. He quaint little store with all kinds of old timing knickknacks on the walls and great service. They're just so very sweet and wanted to make sure that we got everything that we desired for our lunches.

Very tall ceilings with cool Windows all around. Makes for a very bright dining experience

Pastel colors and things all over the walls

Lunch time!

The bird has flown the coop

The light has funky little strips of colored fabric. The kind of strips that we used to make pot holders for for Mother's Day when we were little kids

A mini hike up the hill to the end of the road.

Ken, Maria and I got a good stretch in and then decided to head up hill. It was maybe a mile or less but it was fairly vertical. There were some beautiful homes up there. One in particular really stood out with lots of sculptures and extensive grounds and A View to die for it. Found a couple of funky-looking pinecones and decided to make a little sculpture for the house. A great time was had by all.

And one and two and stretch and bend and 1 and 2 and stretch and bend

It's actually uphill

 

Maria and Ken

We three beings

Cool bird sculpture 

Someone added pine cones as a tuft of hair

In silhouette

A wind vane kinetic sculpture

Either redwoods or Western Cedars

The wind vane and they're very cool metal gate

A very serious Weathervane. This giraffe was at least three feet tall

Some sort of nut that I used for the eyes and the beaks of the owls

My owl sculpture