Goin' to California

A huge relief is having found and purchased cross-country airfare for a steal of a deal. Southwest has always been my favorite airline, especially now when it's one of the few that don't charge fees when you need to check a bag or two (I'm still grumbling over the $165 fee I had to pay two years ago when I first went to Alaska). This will come in handy when I'm wanting to bring back cases of olive oil from the country's leading producer. As I've been reading Tom Mueller's new book, Extra Virginity, a highly informative olive oil primer, it's becoming increasingly important that I get the firmest handle on my business as I can. This means taking a sensory evaluation course where I learn to accurately detect different oils' unique taste characteristics and can speak more knowledgeably about my own products. Customers like that. So I pinpointed a great course offered by UC Davis' Olive Center, housed in the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the most advanced sensory laboratory in the world. I feel like I can learn a thing or two here. The great part is that Davis is only an hour's drive from Napa, home of dear friend Bruce, who will be hosting us for the week at his olive tree-surrounded ranch. Airfare was $159 each way from Dulles International Airport, a mite more expensive than fare from Pittsburgh, but since we're opting to leave Olive with my parents (a difficult choice), this made more sense. I wanted to bring her, but it was illogical: paying a couple hundred dollars for her plane tickets (she will be over two by March, the age at which most airlines began charging for non-infants), subjecting her to a 9+ hour flight and jet lag, and the having to work around her nap schedule while trying to make the most of our short time there all sound like bad ideas, aside from the joy of having her near. It's going to be pretty wild and weird to be away from her for so long. After all, this is less of a family vacation than it is an educational business excursion that will be written off of next year's taxes. I think she'll really enjoy the time she gets to spend with Mimi and Pop Pop, though; she adores them both and I think we'll all be thankful for all the time they'll get to spend together. And Rob and I will return (if we do decide to return from spring in the Bay Area) with a heightened awareness of the industry in which we've found ourselves and undoubtedly an even greater appreciation for our daughter, who I'm already missing terribly.