Beans & Wine: A Magical Combination

Today was a day designed for spontaneous exploration.  Our first destination was located at:  1 Jelly Belly Drive in Fairfield, California.  This is the home of the world famous Jelly Belly Factory.  Since we are both raving fans and addicts of the Jelly Belly Jellybean, we were as excited as two kids in a candy shop (no pun intended) to take the "free" 45-minute tour.  (It later turned out that "free" equaled $45.00 in impulsive souvenier purchases).

We learned about the history of the Jelly Bean, the 4-step process used to make the Jelly Belly, and the massive impact that President Ronald Regan had on the explosive growth of the Jelly Belly business.  So massive, in fact, that the unexpected demand caused a 77-week backlog in production at one point.

We enjoyed the "free" samples that we were given, (similar to the "free" drinks that you get in a Las Vegas casino) admired the various Jelly Belly artwork masterpieces that consisted of anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 Jelly Belly's, and willingly had our picture taken with Mr. Jelly Belly himself.

It's amazing that a 48-year old woman and a 40-year old man could feel like small children with no worries in the world by taking this tour.  We're not ashamed to admit that we both like the idea of feeling forever young!

After the Jelly Belly tour, we took a leisurely drive through the Napa Valley and Sonoma wine regions.  We were amazed at the amount of vineyards - grape vines as far as the eye could see.  We stopped at a small winery that is owned by Bruce Cohn, the manager of the Doobie Brothers.  Kevin had a tasting and we bought a bottle of Doobie Brothers wine.  We stopped at another larger winery that boasted "Mountain View" tastings, but we didn't see anything special.  We then headed to the Kendall Jackson winery and bought another bottle of one of Kevin's favorite wines.  The final wine destination was the Korbel winery/tasting room as Tina is known to enjoy some Champagne from time to time.  (Have you ever met "Lady T?)  We both very much enjoyed the Korbel tasting as we were able to sample some types of Champagnes that are not available in Oregon.  We ended up buying two full size bottles and a 4 pack of cute little Sweet Rose splits.

We then drove back to SF/Oakland down Highway 101, stopping at the nearest In-n-Out along the way.  We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge admiring the incredible views of San Francisco and the bay.  We slowly drove along the waterfront and over the bay bridge back to our downtown Oakland Hotel. 

To sum it all up:  Another amazing day on our incredible journey of a lifetime!!