Napa in 3.6 Hours

Here’s the good news about my job: I get to travel extensively. Here’s the bad news: often I don’t have time to see anything. Do you know the New York Times travel column “36 Hours” - 36 Hours in Barcelona or 36 Hours in Montreal? Some lucky journalist gets a weekend – all 36 hours – to wine, dine and explore.

Well, my version of that would be a column called 3.6 Hours in ... take Napa for an example. I was there this week for a meeting. A long meeting. An interminable meeting which is longer than a long meeting. Didn’t see a thing. However, here is why the trip to Napa is worth a few blogging minutes and a bit of your time, dear Reader.

Regular travelers frequently use “secondary” airports to avoid crowds, rental car queues and unruly bartenders. Here are some examples:

Flying to Boston? Try Providence
Flying to New York? Try Newark
Flying to Washington? Try Baltimore

I took this little gem of a secret to heart when I visited Napa this week.

Flying to San Francisco? Try Oakland (no thanks!)
Flying to Oakland? Try Sacramento (no thanks!)
Flying to Sacramento? Try Reno (bingo! – and with gambling pun included at no extra cost).

Why Reno? Rental cars are still $19 per day (vs. $64 in San Francisco). Cheap food everywhere. My airport hotel in Reno last night (the Peppermill Casino at $79 compliments of Hotels.Com) was the best deal in town. I saved several hundred dollars by avoiding the big California airports.

However, here’s the other reason I chose Reno. To get to Napa I had to drive west. A minor hankering for a journey of sorts. Perhaps following the spirit of the Pony Express? the Cherokee Trail? Too much romanticism for you, Reader? Well then, in our own time, remember Walter O'Malley moving the Brooklyn Dodgers to L.A. in 1958? It runs deep in our American blood, you know.

Westward Ho! Here I go.

The drive out of Reno is pleasant – an hour along side the meandering Truckee. Across the river, trees turn gold and red in the autumn air. The car moves up swiftly past the blue waters of Lake Tahoe. Suddenly, the peaks of the high Sierra Nevada appear. At the very top and with a nod to Lewis and Clark, a vision of the distant Pacific. Thru the open windows, the pine trees seem to whisper – "go west, young man".

Now down through the broad, verdant valleys of central California. Napa beckons. There’s a warm and lazy, late afternoon sun. A vineyard set back in the hills. A cold glass or two of best local chardonnay, if you will. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath open on the table.

Ah, were it true, dear Reader. But here’s other version.

My ratty little $19 Honda Civic begins to shimmy not twenty minutes out of Reno. The engine strains on the open highway. The lovely mist covering the distant peaks becomes a steady rain. Despite the sharp turns and steep incline, BIG TRUCKS roar past.

At 4,000 feet the rain turns to sleet. At 5,000 feet the sleet turns to snow. More BIG TRUCKS roar past splattering the little car with mush. The wimpy windshield wipers struggle against the oncoming storm. At 7, 239 feet (the BIG TRUCKS roar on) an old and ominous sign declares “crossing the Donner Pass.”

Wait a minute. Wait one minute. The Donner Pass? That rings a distant bell. Grade 11 American history, I’m sure. The Donner Pass? Snow storm? Trouble, very big trouble, don’t you remember?

Dizzy and disoriented I drive off the road into a snowy field. Ahead, a dozen BIG TRUCKS circle, laager-style, around a couple of pathetic $19 rental cars. We’re trapped.

The burly drivers haven’t eaten since Salt Lake City or – even worse – St. Louis. Their bon-fire is fuelled by yesterday’s newspapers, old maps and girlie magazines. A Honda Civic driver is like a morsel of filet mignon to the wild men. It’s 1846 all over again. Trapped in a blizzard and out of food, the desparate pioneers, including George Donner and his brother, turned on one another. Frontier cannibalism in the high passes. I’m going to be a human kebab.

The snow gives way to rain again. The central valley is foggy. Heavy, slow traffic crawls along the busy freeway north of San Francisco. My small Yahoo! map doesn’t show the side road to the hotel. Another hour goes by. I’m lost. I’m tired. Finally, I return to the original exit and there it is – the Marriott. Better to park in the rear, I think, away from the Land Rovers and Volvos.