A couple of weeks ago, Doug and I decided to take a long weekend and visit Wine Country in California. We had originally hope to participate in the Napa Valley Marathon, but it had sold out before the end of last year. Doug had already ran the Napa Valley Marathon and I swear he talks about going to Napa Valley All.The.Time. So when the opportunity arose, we went!
When we landed in SFO, I figured we would head straight up to Calistoga since the drive is a few hours, but Doug surprised me by taking me a different route so we could drive over the Golden Gate Bridge! It was foggy and we were in a hurry to check in so we couldn’t get out and hike or go for a run across the bridge. Instead we just did the touristy thing and stopped and took some photos:
Fun Fact: Doug nearly ran over the nice old man who took this photo as we were leaving the parking lot 
The next best thing I saw on our way to Calistoga was a In and Out Burger/Krispy Kreme. Doug said that we COULD NOT stop and eat there. Sad face
A couple of hours later we arrived at our Bed and Breakfast. The last time Doug was in the area he stayed at the Wine Way Inn and could not stop talking about how amazing their breakfast was so of course I wanted to see for myself. The Wine Way Inn was excellent! We arrived late afternoon so we couldn’t really hit up any wineries, but Nick (one of the innkeepers) brought us out some of his home-made wine to drink when we arrived. They also had lots of games and books in the “living room” area which was great.
After our welcome glass of wine we headed out for dinner. Nick recommended to eat a JoLe, but their menu didn’t really have a lot of things on there that we were in the mood for, and it was $$$$$$$$ and it was my turn to pay. Instead we ate at Barolo. We showed up just in time to get a glass of wine before Happy Hour ended. Instead of us each ordering a meal, we ordered a bunch of smaller plates. I took some photos:
Our $5 Happy Hour Wine! I love a “big pour”!
First course: beet, goat cheese and toasted almond salad and truffle fries. Both were amazing!
Second Course: Some sort of Ricotta Cheese balls. They were meh.
Main Course: Veggie Bruschetta—OMG seriously, it was AMAZING. I want to make this every day. I want to eat this every day. I wish I didn’t have to share it with Doug…sorry Doug
Dessert Course: Some sort of chocolate thing with genache and a caramel center. I obviously wanted to dig in as that is my fork. It was AMAZING. I wanted all the caramel. It was really rich though so we couldn’t finish it.
After dinner we walked back to our B&B (another great thing–it was within walking distance to “downtown” calistoga!), had some more of Nick’s wine and then played some trivial pursuit and another wine type game before calling it a night. In our defense we wanted to keep it low key since the next day was going to be jam packed!
