Todays visit to Calistoga was one I've been excited about for some time, due to my beloved fainting goats that live there. These goats, as the name implies, faint. It's a form of hilarious narcolepsy that is triggered when they're excited. What's better is that they don't collapse but go rigid, falling to the floor like some kind of hairy table. Search for them on YouTube and tell me you don't find it funny.
The venue that houses these goats also has Old Faithful, an apparantly famous geyser that erupts every 10-20 minutes. Now, in a perfect world, the geysers eruptions would render the goats excited, and they'd do their funny fit and collapse, and the situation would repeat itself indefinitely. This didn't happen, and instead we were left with a moderately tame geyser and some rather indifferent goats.
The goats didn't even respond to my claps or shouts either, and so none fainted. I was slightly disappointed until we found a brilliant sign that made the whole journey worth it. It's always the unexpected little things that save the day.
After this rather brief visit we travelled to Rubicon Wine Estate, owned by none other than Francis Ford Coppola who directed the Godfather films.
There we took part in a wine taste, sampling five wines made on the estate. Here I felt rather guilty as I'm not exactly a conisseur and my definitions ranged from 'nice' to 'tasty' to 'very nice', which I felt was quite a disservice to bottles of wine that cost 150 dollars. Still, it was quite an experience.
Again, a fantastic day made better again by the small details. I'll let this picture highlight how easy I am to please.
