Although I know that most of my readers were there or heard about it over the phone, I think that it would be good o write a little about my birthday.
Since my birthday fell on a Monday this year, we took the family to Napa on Sunday when Dad could go. First, we stopped in Calistoga, a town famous for its mud baths, spas, and over-priced glasses of wine. Despite the roller coaster-esque drive into Napa valley, we stopped and had lunch at a place called Bosko’s Trattoria. It’s a pretty good little place with fresh pasta but mediocre service. The food was good, but a little salty.
After lunch we wandered around town for a while. We had been in Calistoga a year ago for my last birthday, although Mom was not with us then. There were some new things and some cool things from last time. The coolest place by far was the hardware store. Not actually the inside, but the bronze gate for the front patio. It was one of those custom ones with wine vines and flowers. It also had money wrenches, saws, anvils, drills, and hammers. Only in Napa county (and maybe Marin).
My favorite part by far was the Bale Grist Mill between Calistoga and St. Helena. It is a 150 year-old mill with a wooden water wheel and French quartzite mill stones. It could clean, mill, and sort corn and wheat automatically. Also, it could create a ton of flour per hour. Here is a video I made of it. Sorry that it is on its side. I do not really have the video mode on my camera down yet.
You can hear Dad in the background at the end doing mill geek math. Incidentally, I think that they can run a lot more water through that thing if they want to. They run it slow and also have to use a recirculating pump for get the water. At one point, the water came from a mill pond.
Anyway. We spent slightly more than an hour at the mill and then moved on to St. Helena. That is a cool town. I thought that Calistoga was cool, but St Helena (pronounced St. Hel-ee-na because St. Hel-en-a sounds less expensive) is a fun place. Unfortunately we did not get there until about 4:45 on a Sunday. Everything was closing, but we still made it to the chocolate shop. Woodhouse Chocolate is a chocolate shop to end all chocolate shops. Never have I spent more money on or enjoyed chocolate more. Also, it was for my birthday so I got some macadamia bark too.
So I had a great birthday. You can see my wishlist tab for updates.
