Always Napa

I optimistically took a right onto Silverado Trail, which is big and fast and newly paved. Then I turned onto a street which was thin and curvy and full of holes. After winding around among the trees and rocks for 3 miles, I started to ascend a hill. About half way up I was engulfed in the thickest fog I've seen in quite a while. I could only see 10 or 15 feet in front of me. That's a little disconcerting when the edge of the road drops steeply off into a ditch. It's also disconcerting when the cars coming the other direction seem to be impervious to fog and feel plenty comfortable driving mach 4.

After coming down out of the fog I came to the end of the road where there were maybe 16 hand-carved signs pointing down a smaller dirt road. Each sign had a house number and name on it. The one I wanted pointed me down the road. Eventually after carefully trying not to knock any wheels off in the potholes/craters, I came to another hand carved sign pointing down an even less paved road. I drove through an open gate past a sign saying "No Trespassing!"

After heading a few feet down this last road I came to regular looking ranch style house. While the house was seemed normal, the yard was not. In front was a concrete octagonal patio, one edge of which was occupied by a guy huddling over a fully functional fire pit. On the side of the house was a huge pile of rocks. The pile was 15 or 20 feet in diameter and probably 7 feet tall. That's a lot of rocks.

When I got out of the car I looked over toward the fire pit and the huddling guy was gone. Ok, no problem. I knocked on the door, went in, and set up the mattress. The people inside were very nice and not very weird at all. We made pleasant small talk about the freaky "tooley fog."

When I came back out of the house the guy was huddled over the fire again, but by the time I had turned my van to nose slowly down the drive way he was gone.

My luck and past experience tells me I'm going to get to revisit the whole scene on Monday when they call to tell me to come pick up the mattress. I guess being The Grim Reaper of Napa Valley, I should get used to all the creepiness.