We are driving! We, we are driving!

It's the morning of day 3 of the vacation and we are heading to Napa.  My husband thought it would be more memorable to rent a convertible car, so that we could drive around Napa and Sonoma with the top down, rather than a regular old sedan.  What did we end up with?  A gray convertible Ford Mustang.  (Thank goodness it wasn't one of those bright yellow ones!  That would have been laughable/embarrassing, but we'd never be able to forget where we parked...lol.)  It was fun for vacation driving, but I don't think that I would want to drive that boat everyday.  It was huge!

We loaded our bags into the trunk...or tried to anyway.  We ended up with one suitcase in the trunk and the other strewn across the backseats.  The car was huge.  The trunk, not so much...lol.

While loading the suitcase into the trunk I found this.  It's the escape pulley for the trunk.  If anyone can possibly fit your, not already dismembered, body into the trunk of this car you can escape by pulling this pulley.  According to the directions depicted on the pulley, you pull it, the trunk pops open, you jump out and run for your life.  Good to know...lol.

Using Google maps on my husband's iPhone we successfully made it to our hotel, The River Terrace Inn, in Napa.

Driving to Napa.  Top up because it was still really cold in SF when we left.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving, with the top down, around Napa and through all the little towns surrounding it trying to find our bearings.

The driver.

The Passenger/Navigator (thanks to Google Maps).  I'm bring hats back people!  Floppy hats are always a classic sunny vacation accessory.

La'akea driving.  I love the lighting in this pic. 

One of the towns that we passed through was called Yountville.  It's a pretty small town, so we passed through it in a matter of minutes.  When we finally decided to head back to our hotel we figured out that we would have to pass through this little town again.  La'akea being the internet research guru that he is, remembered that there was a restaurant there called Bouchon that was supposed to be amazing.  He looked them up on his iPhone and called to make a reservation.  They said that they could squeeze us in if we came in the next hour, so we raced on over there.

We were greeted by a full house.  When they said that they could squeeze us in, they literally meant squeeze us in!  To get into the the table that we were seated at, the server had to physically move the table, have me sit down, and move the table back in front of me.  There would be no bathroom breaks for me that night...lol.  We were comfortable none the less.

 See?  Not too bad of a space to work with.  At least one of us could move around...lol.

The taste of the food more than made up for the lack of mobility.

 

Croque Madame: Toasted ham and cheese sandwich on brioche, fried egg and mornay sauce served with French fries

For only $16.95, it was a steal of a deal!  Yum-o to the artery busting extreme.

You know I can't say no to dessert!  Cork-shaped dark chocolate brownies with a rum flavored ice cream topped with a black cherry compote. To die for!

Now that was some wonderfully delicious French food! 

*Note: If the only place that you ever travel to is the 9th island (Las Vegas for all you non-Hawaii readers), rest assured for they are also blessed with a Bouchon restaurant.  It is located in the luxury mall attached to the Venetian.  Now you have no excuse not to eat great quality French food!