JeremyOswald.com

So Napa was a great time. We stayed at the Best Western “Inn by the Vines.” When my father inquired as to where the vines are, they directed him to the fence that separated the hotel from a Shell station. Here are the vines:

Here are vines from an actual vineyard at Goosecross Winery:

Here are some Cabernet Sauvignon vines from Goosecross. That’s what the “CS” stands for. I don’t know what the other letters and numbers mean.

We hit a lot of great wineries, and as I predicted, I was sucky at taking pictures, even with my new camera. My brother is a pretty talented photographer though. This is one of my favorites of his self-portraits:

While in Napa we hit some of our usual favorites including Cakebread, ZD and Goosecross. We also hit a couple of new wineries, my favorite of the trip being Miner Family Vineyards. Each of their wines was fantastic and I was surprised to find out that the grapes in their Viognier came from Simpson Vineyards in Madera. When the tasting room host told us that the grapes for the Viognier came from “the Valley” I was sure that he meant one of the valleys in wine country, not the Central Valley. Incidentally, the wine pourer had family in Fresno and my mother knew them. Wine is such a social lubricant.

When I woke up on Sunday, I was convinced that I’d damaged my kidneys, since my lower back hurt. I’m not sure if that’s where my kidneys are located, but it was all I could think of. The entire drive back to Fresno, that evening and the next morning my lower back hurt. Monday morning I worked at my desk for a couple of hours until I had a shooting pain in my lower back. I tried to move to the couch but my body vetoed that decision and I hit the ground, unable to get up. I spent about a half an hour on the ground here:

Visions of EMTs breaking down my door and putting me on a stretcher entered my mind and I quickly started making some phone calls. My father came and picked me up and took me to the doctor, who prescribed me some serious painkillers and muscle relaxants, so I spent the last three days on my couch, in and out of sleep surrounded by my computer, my phones and a lot of water and meds.

Yesterday I visited the chiropractor. Today I feel so much better, with the exception of the fact that now that I’m no longer heavily medicated I must come to terms with the fact that I’m old enough to have my back go out. Brutal.