Welcome to Napa Valley

It’s conference time.  Today was the first day of Levi and I working the California Alliance for Child & Family Services (CACFS) – a cause that we truly support and enjoy being a part of.

But, first… we fly, land and get our rental car from the Sacramento airport.  Now, where’s the WiFi?  I was scheduled to begin a webinar at 9:00am for an enrollment meeting in Yuma, CO.  Unfortunately, the finding of WiFi was not as easy to do as hoped.  My Surface has been having trouble with accepting (or even noticing) many WiFi signals.  I’m in the Rental Care Depot just hoping that the WiFi there would be found.  NOPE! Then, I’m trying to link to Levi as a hot-spot.  NOPE!  Oh well, “don’t panic” I try and tell myself while panicking.  I call the client, and we decide to do it as a descriptive conference call with no PowerPoint.  Sure.  Why not.  I don’t have any of the packet materials with me, but that’s okay…I’ve practically memorized it all with the frequency of meetings last week.  I love how my brain works sometimes. We hop in the car while I’m already presenting.  Levi drives.  I present.  It goes off perfectly.  I nailed it.  Had my Q&A solid.  I just love it when I know I did something good and helped others along the way.  Call ends and Levi and I high-five the moment.

It’s a 1-1/2 hour ride to Napa where the conference is.  We can’t check into our AirBnB until 5:00 so the first thing we do is get lunch.  We had to pass a couple of hours before our friends, Tanya and Penny from Inland Empire Residential Center arrive.  They invited us to go to a winery in the area they are members of.  Downtown Joe’s is where we eat and man it is good.  We’ve been here a few times before at previous conferences.  They brew their own beers and the food is delicious.  We decide that this is where we will entertain our clients and friends from the conference Wednesday night.  They reserve for us the back room upstairs that sits right on the river that flows through Napa.  Perfect!

We head over to the Marriott Spa & Hotel to pick up Tanya and Penny, and we’re off to taste some wines.

WOW!  Tanya is a member of a very high-end, fancy winery with a tasting room nicer than any other I’ve visited.  I feel very under-dressed.  I’ve got my “shants” on today (short pants…kinda like knickers for men – I’m told they’re very fashionable in Europe – who really knows for sure) and a casual shirt/jacket combo.  Normally fine for anything Californian but this is a posh place.  Tanya made a tasting reservation that proved to be awesome.  So good.  We shared in a private room with four others who are flight attendant friends from Chicago and Wisconsin (I think).  The pairings with cheese, fruit and nuts were amazing.  The red Zinfandel was so good, Levi and I decided that would be our wine for our entertainment planned for tomorrow evening at our rented “Napa home”.
After a great visit to the winery, we head to a store Levi knew about and I get an amazing grilled sandwich.  Delicious.

We drop of the ladies to their hotel, and finally head to our rental.  The home is a quaint 3-bedroom painted a vibrant Yellow-Orange color with a small picket fence entry yard and front porch.  We made a good decision.  Not only are we saving money ($1,100 for 3 nights when the hotel would cost us each $250 a night), but we have a great place to host our dinner party scheduled for tomorrow evening.

After getting unpacked and relaxed, I crash for an hour on the couch while Levi watches old episodes of the office.  Once awake, we both decide that in is where we want to stay so we order some pizza, open some wine and take it easy.  Tomorrow is destined to be crazy-exciting so we shut down early.

Super-Agent out.