New Baby (Car) and Balloons

There are several of these "and the wine is bottled poetry" signs introducing tourists to the Napa Vally. Kaz and I pass them everyday to and afro work. Apparently in late fall all the vines turn color and look pretty. Right now they're all green.

I get to see lots of balloons every morning on the way to work. I've counted anywhere between 6 to 14 of them, and sometimes they get real close to my car:)

Speaking of car, this is our new baby in the driveway with sister Sally in the background. His name is Sherman Tank. Named after the primary American muscle tank of WW2 used by the US and it's allies, Sherman's a little Japanese Scion xA '05 that gets about 32 miles/gallon in the city and 37 on the highway. Instead of a high caliber gun for head on enemy engagement, he's got Yakima racks for our eventual canoe and mountain bikes.

From the inside, Sherman's pretty sci-fi looking:) He's got an iPod adapter and a pioneer sound system that pumps 160 watts. The manual transmission keeps my antsy nature somewhat satiated, a higher seating postion allows you to see stuff better and your legs extend down as well as forward when seated. He's like a mini mini-van station wagon spaceship!

I made the drive across country in 3.5 days with all of our stuff from the storage space in VA. Now we have a bed, chairs, kitchen table, drums, glasses, dishes, lamps, silverware... and lots of accumulated junk-stuff from our combined lives. We've been going through everything when time allows and finally have most everything organized:) This is a shot from the loft of a beautiful quilt that Karen's maid of honor, Sarah, made for us as a wedding gift. I found a real MacGyver way of hanging it in the "great room" using random materials laying around. Looks real good!

Ran into some unexpected snow in Wyoming on that trip cross country. I named the Penske truck Leonard. He was only 1000 miles old when I got him. He's a Man now. I'm still a terd though;)

Here's the front of Clos Pegase, the winery where Kaz works. Story goes that when Pegasus, the winery's namesake, landed on Mount Helicon his powerful hooves ripped open the peak and released the waters within. The Spring waters irrigated the vines and wine was born; the Muses were "inspired" by wine and art was born.

website--> http://www.clospegase.com/
location--> Calistoga, CA (population 5,214)





Karen swears that this guy is not one of her co-workers, but how could she REALLY tell with that crafty disguise? I jest not, keep one eye always wide open when working and playing lute in the wine caves.

"Hark, the owl of Dionysus doth see best in a cellar." -Unknown

Anyway, Kaz does her best not to knock over the artwork in the caves when she's driving the forktruck. It seems to me that if she accidentally chips a piece of old Pegasus here and there they'll just look more authentic, right?