So, this is a revival of the blog for our trip to visit Caroline and Dan in the Napa Valley. Earlier this year we hatched a plan (courtesy of an Air New Zealand special) to visit over Thanksgiving – bigger than Christmas in the US.

We arrived this afternoon after an uneventful (the right kind!) flight from Auckland and had our fastest ever transit through immigration and customs in the US – no queues, no issues with John sharing a name with someone on a watchlist, no delays of any kind.

It was a stunningly clear day and we enjoyed our ride up to the Napa – the vineyards are golden as the leaves on the vines haven’t yet fallen. We’ve had a couple of good red wines and welcome meal with Caroline and Dan tonight and we hoping for some more sunny autumn days for the rest of our stay.