Since arriving

Alright so now fast forward to the present:  Jimmy and I officially live in Santa Clara now.  As you figured out we didn't have internet for the first two weeks of being here so we had to find other ways to amuse ourselves besides buying fresh produce and cooking delicious elaborate dinners using an actual stove and actual knives (as opposed to a tiny camp stove that doesn't agree with the subtle art of high heat vs. low heat and camping knives).

Our first trip wasn't really a trip.  We just drove to a movie theater to go see the last Harry Potter.  Great story, Meg, I know.  No, but the important part of the story is that the movie theater we went to just happens to be right at the heart of Santa Clara.  As in, this is THE movie theater that just happens to be right next to Yahoo, Net Logic, Intel, McAfee and other tech giants that I don't even know because, let's face it, I've been living in Vermont.  It was kind of cool to be right in the center of it all.

Our next trip was the requisite trip to the Pacific Ocean.  We took a day trip and drove on down to Santa Cruz... which is pretty much everything you'd imagine from a California beach town. Hippies? Check. Flipflops everywhere? Check. Tourists? TripleCheck.  It actually seemed pretty small too but I think that's also partially because Santa Cruz beaches are all in the bay so there aren't a lot of good surf areas.  We're going to have to go farther south to find those.  We did find a really nice road that winds its way right along the water, with the only other thing between the road and the water being a bike path and then some short cliffs.

We walked all around the Santa Cruz boardwalk (which reminded me a lot of the NJ boardwalk just with less fake tans and more people) where we snacked on some Garlic Fries (it's genius, try it someday) and I snapped a picture of this lady before we drove out to a beach and laid in the sun reading for the rest of the day:

Our third day trip was a trip to Napa Valley to see the vineyards, northern California and, obviously, try some wine.  We set out a little too late in the day (left around 10am, takes an hour and a half to get there, had lunch and then finally set off to wineries... most of which close by 5) so we only got to stop at two wineries but all in all it was lots of fun.  We got to really explore the area- starting with Napa and then driving up route 29 to explore the wineries

I guess route 29 goes up for about 27 miles before you're officially no longer in the Napa Valley.  We didn't get up that far but we stopped at V. Sattui Wines (they only sell from their winery, they don't sell at any wine/beverage stores anywhere in the US) where we got to sample 6 wines and Silver Oak (they only make Cabernets) where we tried three very good cabs AND got a free glass.

walking up to V. Sattui

the archway of Silver Oak

tasting room for Silver Oak

Silver Oak

Looks kind of nice, huh?  You should tell my Uncles Steve and Ron that so that they'll come visit me out here and not in Burlington and we can all go sip some West Coast wine.

Basically I guess our conclusions so far are: going back to Napa Valley, definitely... although we are going to try to get to know some of the other wine regions of the state as well.  Next beach we go to will need bigger waves annnd next trip we go on will be to San Francisco!