A Day in Napa

Last weekend we made an impromptu trip to Napa. Napa is about an hour and a half away, but the drive seems to go quickly because of the beautiful scenery.


Our first stop was the Napa Riverwalk. This was actually really disappointing though. There were several nice looking restaurants, but very few stores. The whole area was actually really deserted for a Sunday afternoon. I suppose most people go to Napa to wine taste, but I expected there to more going on near the river on a holiday weekend.

After walking around the riverwalk and nearby downtown area, we drove a short distance to the Oxbow Market. This place was pretty cool. We purchased some AMAZING lemon pita chips and fresh blackberries. We also tasted some olive oils, browsed a spice shop and ate a couple of cupcakes.

We then drove around trying to find some more things to do. We felt like maybe were just missing the "happening" Napa area, but it turned out to just not exist. I did find a World Market to shop at and there was a pet store nearby so Jake spent his time there. He purchased a new bed for Zulu, but she's already ruined it!

Our next mission was to find a place to eat, but we couldn't find anything that seemed appealing. Now before you go crazy on me for not being able to find a place to eat in Napa, just hear me out...I'm well aware that Napa is home to several famous and probably delicious restaurants, but we wanted something low key and we were definitely not dressed in proper attire for a nice restaurant. So we headed for St. Helena to go to a place we've been before. We ended up at what used to be Taylor's Automatic Refresher, a Triple D place. It's now called Gott's Roadside, but they have the exact same menu. Ironically there's a Gott's right next to the Oxbow Market, but we didn't realize it was the former Taylor's and we passed it up because we weren't very hungry after going to the market.

The next time we go to Napa it will definitely be for wine tasting and not shopping/walking around. It's a beautiful place, but we should have put a little more research and planning into our spontaneous trip :)