Arriving in Honolulu Sept 27th

I finally have slowed down enough to up date the blog. I'm not sure how much I will get done tonight but maybe it will give you a glimpse of how wonderful this vacation has been!! We arrived Monday afternoon around 3pm Honolulu time, that would be 8pm Alabama time. At this point JoAnn and I had been awake for 24 hours and counting. I did take a little nap on the plane. It was a 5 hour flight from San Francisco so I got to sleep about 3 hours I think. I got some really great pictures from the plane heading into Honolulu airport of the beach and Diamond Head.

Napa Valley

We arrived in Napa round 10:30 in the morning. Our first stop was St Supery Winery. Once again not a disappointment. We then went to Rutherford Grill for lunch and more wine....and enjoyed some cappuccino on the patio. We then had an appointment with a wine maker that is friends with Bucky at 2pm. Lisa Broman and her father-in-law have a family winery and invited us to their house to try some of their wines. They have a beautiful home tucked away in the side of a hill in Napa. Words cannot really express how beautiful this area is.

Last stop....Signorello Estate Winery

We didn't make it to a lot of wineries this weekend but the ones we did visit were top notch. Lisa hooked us up once again with Danny at Signorello. We arrived around 2 o'clock in the afternoon and enjoyed pizza and wine out by the pool. We made ourselves leave about 4 hours later.....Danny is the bomb. He took us for a tour and then we tasted all the wines. Our glass was never empty and the view was to die for....absolutely beautiful....

The Girls in Lodi

It's been a few weeks since I added anything to my blog so I figured I would get caught up. Here are a few pics from our trip to Lodi. This was Stephanies first trip for wine tasting so we thought we would start her off small. We went to three wineries that day and then into the town of Lodi to the Lodi beer company for lunch and to try to watch the Auburn game.

Girls just want to have fun.....

Ok, we have been looking forward to this concert every since we purchased the tickets. The venue....Ironstone Winery in Murphys, CA. Murphys is about 1 1/2 hours north east of Modesto. It is a quaint little town at the foothills of the Sierra's. It's amazing how many little towns like this exist in CA and all the little winery's stuck out in the middle of nowhere. This area was in the middle of the gold rush. I have been told that this winery is the owner of one of the biggest gold nuggets still intact. It is in the winery in a vault on display. We didn't go in to see it tonight but may go back. The story is that the winery paid 3 million for it, the owners did not want it melted down. Here is a few pictures of us and the venue. It was a great night!!

And Buddy Guy starts the show....

and man what a show it was... This man is 74 years old and still runs the stage like a young man and can play the heck out of a guitar!! The late great Muddy Waters was his mentor but it took him years to get the recognition he deserves as one of the greatest Chicago blues players ever. If you ever get a chance to see this trio I would definitely recommend it...AWESOME is all I can say... And if your into blues I would recommend downloading his new CD Skin Deep.

Let's Stay Together.....and next up Al Green

Buddy Guy was definitely a hard act to follow but Al Green brought his A game to the stage! His voice was as silky smooth as ever and man did he put on a show. The stage was filled with all his band members and backup dancers. And he still had all the young girls screaming!! It's great to see the younger generation getting hooked on blues music to keep it alive. And yours truly was right up in the middle of them and yes I caught 3 roses!!! Watch out Gigi is not ready to pick up her rocking chair and go home:-)