The sixth date was significant to us because of several reasons.  It was the first all day date, neither of us had been wine tasting in Napa before, and it was the date of our first kiss!

Some of you are saying... TOM!  What were you thinking, but you have to understand that we started planning this date on our second.  I knew it would be a big romantic day and I would have lots of opportunities.  It also became a challenge to see if we could make it to the 6th date for the first kiss.  I knew it would be so much more memorable this way.

I picked Tamara up in the morning and we headed to Napa.  We really had no agenda, we didn't know when any of the tours were going or what winery's we would even go to.  We stopped in Napa to get a map of the winery's and decided to head up Highway 12.  About midway between Napa and the winery's we stopped at a little town and had a nice lunch at a little bistro on the patio.

That's Tamara trying to decide what she will have.  It was really nice, all the flowers were in full bloom as it was late April.  

After Lunch we headed down the road and stopped at one of the touristy winery's "Mondavi".  It was nice, but very commercial, crowded and we would have had to book the tour 4-hours in advance.  So we did the self tour, and decided to head down the road while we still had enough time to visit some others.  We stopped at "St Supery" because Tamara was familiar with the wine from her job at the restaurant in Old Sac.  We did some wine tasting and still had about 20 minutes before the tour, so went outside to take some pictures. 

There we are on the porch of the Historical house at the winery.  Of all the wines we tasted, one sticks out in our minds the most.  It was called a Muscato.  It was very sweet.  They called it the "mother-in-law wine" or the "lemonade of wines". 

Of course you may say, but Tom those pictures could have been taken anywhere... Well OK, here's a picture of the Opus One winery.  The building is very unique and there definitely is only one of these.

Oops!  I've got to go, I will continue with more later...  Ok after about a week or so, I'm back.  You know how tight time gets around the holidays.

Lets see, where was I...  After doing the wine tasting at St. Supery, we took the full tour.  Nothing was in production so a lot of the tour was staring at idle equipment.  But the the whole thing was a lot more fun and interesting than I thought it would be. 

After the tour, we had done all the NAPA stuff we could fit into one day, so we decided to head over to Point Reyes, on the coast to try to catch the sunset at the beach.  Upon getting to the highway, we found out that traffic gets bad out there in the evenings.   After about 5 miles of stop and go, we knew we needed to get west, so we took a turnoff (shortcut).  We got lucky and the road we took went all the way through to Highway 101.  The problem was that we weren't sure if we needed to go north or south to get to the highway that would take us out to Point Reyes.  I was pretty sure that we needed to go about 5 miles north.  So we headed north, but after about 12 miles we still hadn't seen any signs that we were headed the right direction.  If we were going the wrong direction we would be losing valuable time and probably miss our sunset.

Tamara, finally insisted we pull off and ask directions.  Not ready to turn this into a big issue, I agreed, But I told her she would have to do the asking.  We pulled up to the only structure at the exit, it was a local bar.  We went in and Tamara asked the directions.  The guy told her she needed to go another mile north on the highway, and we would see the turnoff.  

Now here's the funny part...  without any coherent thought on my part, it was just a brain burp, I said "I told you!", and embarrassed Tamara in front of the complete strangers.  Grhhhh!  Yep, you know it she got real mad!  I apologized, and told her she could choose her time for revenge.  She says that she then grabbed my hand and held it.  Although we had held hands before, it was the first time we didn't just let go after a few seconds (so she say's - should be on the "she said" page).  When we got back in the car, we discussed the hand holding and Tamara told me "that is why she always sat in the car with her hand near the gear shift lever...so I would think of holding her hand while driving too". 

The things us guys just don't know!  It always made me nervous from a safety standpoint that her hand was so near or on the gear lever.  You would think by now that women would understand that it takes at least 1-year before a guy can truly start to read your mind, and he will never be able to read the things you think are really important, and that he should already know and that you shouldn't have to tell him.  Geewiz!

She held my hand near the gear lever, the rest of the way to the beach, then home, then on the next trip... and ever since. 

So we got back on the highway and made the turn.  Now we knew we were about 45 minutes from the beaches and about 60 minutes from sunset at this point.  About ten miles down the road, we stopped for some cheese and crackers.  We had some wine that we picked up at the winery (remember, we were just there).  We hurried towards the beaches, but about 10 miles from the coast we started to pick up fog.  By the time we got to the coast visibility was about 1/4 mile, but there was no sun.  The water was dark, with big thundering waves.  I guess that had it's appeal to me.  Or maybe I just didn't want to make that drive without at least getting out (or maybe I had another plan), so I offered that we should at least get out and go down to the beach with some crackers and cheese.

Upon getting out of the car and feeling the cold breeze, I knew I needed a trip to the facilities.  I told Tamara to wait for me, but when I came out, I didn't see her.  So I headed down the path to the water.  At the bottom of the path was Tamara, with tears in her eyes.  All I could say is "I wasn't gone that long, what's the matter".  She proceeded to tell me how she decided to walk down to the beach alone, and was watching the water the whole way down.  That's how she didn't see the rock she tripped over.  She landed knee bone to rock contact and ripped her new blue jeans open at the knee.  There was a little bit of blood, but mostly I think there was some pain, and a lot of hurt pride.  

I asked her if she just wanted to go home, or if she still wanted to go down by the water.  She said she could go down by the water for a little while.  

It was really cold down there.  We tried to enjoy some cheese and crackers, but it was really cold.  We tried to share a little wine too, but it was to cold for that.  Finally, Tamara said she was too cold to stay unless I had anything else I wanted to do.  

I said that there was one more thing I really wanted to accomplish out there on the beach. So I kissed her.  It was our first kiss!

Why did it take so long... I wanted it to be a special memory.  We had been planning this trip since our second date and I knew it would be a special opportunity.  It was a defining moment in our relationship.

So we packed things up (forgetting our bottle of wine somehow), and headed back to the car.  I carefully made sure Tamara saw all the rocks on the way back, and held onto her so she wouldn't fall again.  Now that we had that first kiss thing out of the way, we had a real nice conversation on the drive home.

After this trip I wrote an e-mail to Peter describing Tamara as "cute in clumsy way".  She'll never let that phrase go, and reminds me of it often.  But she would have to be the first one to admit that she has her clumsy moments.