The Wine Train

To celebrate our first wedding anniversary (hooray!), we decided to book a tour on the Napa Valley Wine train, an old-fashioned fancy dining car that takes its passengers deep into the wine country. Now, you may think it was odd for us to take a trip on the wine train since we don't drink alcohol. Well, it sort of was. But we've decided the train is the best way to travel with the baby - spacious, relaxed, no driving, and a meal -- so we thought it could be the perfect thing.

It's hard to describe exactly what was so odd about the wine train. The scenery was beautiful, with the grape leaves in their fall colors, and the train itself was pleasant enough. I think the oddity came from participating in Tuesday afternoon tourist culture. As soon as we entered the large hotel-lobby looking "station," with old-fashioned plush benches smattered with middle-aged tourists and three gift shops, we realized we were in for an experience. With the old West themes, wandering photographers, and a robotically-delivered "seminar" on wine-tasting, we realized, as Hannah put it, this was a "Disney ride for adults." (To get a sense of the banality, we think this video really says it all. Note Alma's face looking around as if to say: "Whose idea was this, anyway?")

And so it was. Slow, pleasant, with a constant food intake, it should have been perfect for a nursing mom and, well, me. But instead we felt like teenagers just a little too old to be at Disneyland. Probably several glasses of wine would have helped us feel more at ease. (Where's the Kombucha train, people? It could run from Fairfax...)

Anyway, we took our pretty-good gourmet meal - that tasted suspiciously like every other pretty-good gourmet meal I've ever had -- and camped out in the back of the car to reflect on a busy and overwhelmingly grace-ful year of marriage.

Alma Noor was in top form as usual. Orating, playing, and giggling away, she never lets us take things too seriously and is a constant reminder that life is funny, frustrating, amazing, uncomfortable, luminous, and so much more ... sometimes all at once.