Calistoga

Calistoga is a quaint, charming little town within easy driving distance of all the Napa Wineries. We are staying at the Cottage Grove Inn which consists of 17 separate cottages, each beautifully appointed with everything you ask for. They serve breakfast each morning—wonderful made to order waffles, quiche, scones, fruit, cereal, yogurt—and regional wine and cheese each evening. If you are thinking about taking a vacation in the Napa area, I highly recommend this place.






























Today we drove into St. Helena—another charming town, but a little more upscale than Calistoga, stopping to see the Geyser on the way. What a disappointment. While this is one of only three “old faithfuls” in the world (the others being in Yellowstone State Park and New Zealand), it certainly isn’t worth $8, for once you’ve seen it erupt, that’s pretty much it. There are some terribly smelly goats, sheep and llamas for those of you with children looking for something to do in Napa other than drink wine, otherwise I’d suggest passing this up.

















We did a bit of gallery hopping in St. Helena and then headed back to Calistoga for our mud masques and massages at Lincoln Avenue Spa. This is what a vacation should be... great wine, good food, and lots of relaxation. The mud masques are prepared with different blends of herbs depending on what you want from your experience. We were escorted into the “mud room” were we slathered ourselves with mud and then laid down in our steam beds wrapped in a sheet. Our attentant then closed us in with only our head sticking out, added eucalyptus and rose oils (again our choice) to the water and then tented a towel over our heads so that we were totally engulfed in the steam. We steamed for about ten minutes when she came back in, added more oil to the beds, and put a masque on our faces, leaving us to steam for another tens mintues or so before showering and heading off to our separate massages. Heaven!

Since we’ve been in Calfornia, we’ve noticed that people don’t really acknowledge each other the way wedo in the South. You know, like when you’re walking down the street and you pass someone? In the South you smile and say “good morning” or “how ya doing?” or something. Our experience so far has been that we rarely get a response. Even in some of the stores the salesperson doesn’t acknowledge you until after you’ve made an effort to engage them, and sometimes even that fails. Tonight while we were having wine on the patio there was a couple checking in, when I went in to refill my wine glass the gentleman and I met eyes he gave me a hearty “How are you?” I went back outside and said, “I think they’re Southern” to which Mr. Man laughingly replied that this was also his first thought as he could hear us from outside. Sure enough, once they joined us on the patio we discovered they are from North Carolina.