Road Trip

In June, 2019, my wife and I took a nice road trip to northern California.  Our original trip was just to visit the wine country but we added a number of additional stops which only made the trip that much nicer.

As I said, our original stay was just in Napa.  To break up the long drive, we stopped in Fresno where my ex-wife and my daughter live.  We took them out to dinner and had a nice evening talking with them over good Mexican food and Margaritas.  The next day we drove to Napa and stayed in an interesting resort that was made up of mobile homes called Riverpointe.  Adjacent to the place we stayed was a nice river walk which we took advantage of several times.

Riverpointe

Our first full day in Napa was, as you would expect, a day visiting wineries.  Long gone are the days when wine tasting was free so we took advantage of three two-for-one coupons that Riverpointe had to offer.  After three wineries, we were ready to head back to Riverpointe.

Months after we had made reservations at Riverpointe, I saw on Facebook a fraternity friend of mine, Frank Mello, who I had not seen since the late 1960's.  Frank and his wife, Judy, are now running B. Bryan Preserve.  The preserve is "a private preserve actively committed to the breeding and preservation of African hoof stock.  Our various species of zebra, giraffe, and antelope range from critically endangered to endangered, and range in large, open fields on our property in Point Arena, California."  We stayed on the reserve for two nights in the wonderful homes that were made of many antique items such as windows, staircases and more.  On our full day at the reserve, we were shown around by Frank and had a wonderful tour of their endangered animals.  You can learn more about the reserve, the animals, the stay and the tour at this web site:  bbryanpreserve.com.  A stay and tour is highly recommended.  Some of the endangered animals can be seen here:  bbryanpreserve.com/the-animals-1.

Frank and I were very good friends during our last year in college.  After we graduated, I spent the summer traveling with Frank to different cities because he was learning to be a meat grader and I was free for a few months before I would be joining the Navy.  At the end of the summer we each went our own ways.  What is really interesting to me is that each of us went on to earn a Ph.D.  Frank received his Ph.D. in Animal Science at the University of Wyoming and I received mine in Environmental Statistics at the University of Washington.

After our stay at the reserve, we drove back to Riverpointe in Napa.  One of the very interesting wineries is Castello di Amorosa - Napa Valley Castle.  An interesting youtube video to see more about the castle is youtube.com/watch?v=cLMAbLwTvFU.  We spent most of our day at the castle.

Castello di Amorosa - Napa Valley Castle

After an additional day in Napa, we started to head home.  Again, to reduce the long distance driving in one day, we stayed in San Luis Obispo for a night.  California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo is the college that Frank and I went to in the 1960's.

Another good part of the trip was that my Prius got 60 miles to the gallon on a trip that was over 1000 miles!