Las Vegas – Stefania Wine

July 27, 2014

Utah Pictures – Set One Valley of Fire to Zion

We left San Jose on a Thursday afternoon and spent the night between San Jose and Las Vegas. Our first goal was St George Utah to spend the weekend with family there. We loaded up the FJ Cruiser and packed in all our Primal food. We were a little worried about finding non grain food in Southern Utah but it turned out to be pretty easy, especially inside the Parks.

Our first stop was the Valley of Fire out side of Las Vegas. I really enjoyed it and we hiked for about 4 hours total. We got lost once and had to use the GPS on Map My Walk to get us back to the car. I really recommend this if the weather is right, especially if you’re like me and don’t really enjoy Vegas very much.

There were all kinds of great rock formations and tons of rock art in the park. We were late for cocktail hour in St. George or I could have done 2 more hikes there easy!

After a great weekend with family we headed into Zion on Monday. That’s Angel Landing below and we climbed that thing. My day job actually called about 1/2 way up and wanted to know if I could get on a conference call.

A view of the trail and valley about 1/2 way up.

A good part of the hike includes climbing along chains. My knuckles were banged up for a couple of weeks.

We also hike up the Narrow a bit and did the complete bus tour of the valley. We spent the night just outside of the park and the next morning headed out towards Bryce Canyon with a stop to take a picture of Checkerboard Mesa along the way.

September 28, 2011

Harvest is Upon Us

It has been a combination of getting used to the new blogging tool and being really busy that’s limited our writing. Neither Stefania nor I are really comfortable yet with the new blogging interface so we’re not writing much. Hopefully we’ll pick it up some in the next few weeks.

We did get to Vegas and had a fantastic time at Rock and Roll Wine. Train was much better than I expected. The concert was a blast and we partied and hung out in the cabana all night. The next day we swam and sunned and watched the football games outside. If you can make it to Vegas next year for the event, it’s highly recommended.

Offer letters have gone out and orders are humming in. Almost everyone seems to want more Haut Tubee and I don’t think we’ll have enough to go around.

We’ve also been out checking on all the vineyards. It looks like Pinot Noir will be first up this Saturday, then the Crimson Clover vineyard next weekend. Stefania and I will be in the winery Friday getting everything cleaned, prepared and ready to go.

We’ll try and pick up the blogging some more as we harvest and work over the next few weeks.

August 9, 2011

This Years Training Camp

Each summer we start a ‘training camp’ to get ready for harvest. Normally it’s more time at the gym and a regular hike schedule. It gets us ready for the long days up and down the hills in our vineyards that are coming up.

This year we’re starting with something new though and a little extra motivation. The picture above is the base of Communication Hill in San Jose. There are 56 steps and a 2 block walk up to the main stair case. The main run is 224 steps that cover about 180 foot climb. We’ve been on a schedule so far of about every other day and are up to 5 consecutive climbs. We’ll keep working towards being able to do the flight at least 10 times in a row.

We also have a training plan sent to us from a personal trainer in Colorado. The extra motivation is a plan for us to climb a 14,000 peak in Colorado next year. We’ve picked Mount Belford as our target climb and late July as the date.

I’ve added in some other local hikes that we’ll do over the next year to help get ready, including climbing Mission Peak here in Milpitas and the 10 mile Bald Peak trail at Calero Park. If all goes well we will also try and work our postponed Grand Canyon hike in either before or after Mount Belford (I want to try April, Stef wants to do it after in September around the time we’re usually in Las Vegas).

The hardest time for us will be November and December. In past years we have been in good shape going into harvest and then done well through October. By the middle of November though we’re exhausted from harvest work and just as we’re finishing up cellar work when Thanksgiving and then Christmas are on us. We might only get to the gym 2-3 times in those two months. This year we’ll have to stay on a schedule though to be ready for our 14,000 foot climb!

July 21, 2011

Wine Amplified – Rock and Roll Wine

Saturday September 17th we will be pouring at our only public event for the year. This will be the second year in a row we are attending Wine Amplified by Rock and Roll Wine on the Beach at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The headline band will be Train. For more event details and ticket information see:

http://www.wineamplified.com/

For the event we have a full cabana at Mandalay Bay with room for up to 12 people to hang out and watch the concert. We don’t really consider this a promotion trip as much as a great concert and a really fun time. This year we’d really like to open the cabana up to friends to hang out with us. No extra charges or strings, just show up and drink wine with us in the cabana. It’s really a great experience and we’ve asked for a cabana next to the stage. If your interested and will be in Las Vegas drop us a note.

We’ll be sending out a note via email to our mailing list members as well. We hope you can make it. It’s really a great event!