November in Napa

November 1, 2012

A break from football weekends allowed us to book a week trip to Napa for the first week of November. What could be better - Napa in the fall in low season.
Psyched for wine.

Our trip from Madison to Napa was derailed a bit by some Halloween tricks. We thought we'd be ok getting out of Madison because we were headed west and the Hurricane Sandy devastation was all to the east of us. If they had a plane, we reasoned, we should be able to fly. Well, sort of.

Turns out our plane arrived with something malfunctioning in the landing equipment. We waited while the mechanic looked at it, then waited longer while a part was sent from Detroit to fix it. Finally. 3 hours past our departure time and long after our Sacramento flight departed, we were on our way to Minneapolis.

Not a total loss as we stayed with Christie and Alex and got to see all the changes going on at their house.

Since our flights were messed up, we had to rebook. Delta managed that with minimal difficulty thanks to cell phones. However, our new tickets required pre-flight check-in for seat assignment and as could be figured, we were sitting in the very last row, middle and window.

I arrived in Sacramento in a foul mood. Picked up our rental car - Ford Focus with no GPS (Dave wouldn't pay the extra $50 for the week's rental.)

One hour drive got us to our hotel in Fairfield, just a few minutes drive from Napa and lots cheaper.

This is our first Orbitz trip. We usually make all our own plans, but this was a really cheap vacation package - basic hotel, basic car, and round trip ticket for just over $1200 for both of us.

Lunch at a salad buffet place improved my humor a bit. Fresh clothes and a change of shoes helped more.

We spent the afternoon in Napa getting oriented via the tourist office and our guide books. We found wine, bread, and cheese at a deli, then picked up napkins, plates, etc at Target before heading for the hotel for an early night.

Tomorrow we taste!