Copied from Mike’s post at ThisMoment:

On Saturday Jules and I wanted to go on a hike so we drove north in search of a trailhead. We passed by one little lake that only had some fishermen and no signs of trails. Even though I thought Lake Berryessa would have more boat-happy people, we made our way over there.

As it turns out, we were the only ones in the parking lot. In fact, when we got there we didn’t see anyone on the lake at all. No boats, no people. So we decided to walk along the edge of the lake for a while. The water level looked low, but with the recent rains, some of the plants that had started to grow near the water line had become submerged. You can’t really tell from my photo, but there were bubbles forming on the leaves of the plants. Oxygen creation in action?

We continued to hike around and watch the water fowl. Eventually we made our way to a small hilltop overlooking the lake and I gave Jules her birthday present: a small blue bag from Tiffany & Co. I let her unwrap it until she got to the ring case and I promptly snatched it back. I sheepishly got on one knee, opened the ring case and blurted out “willyoumarryme?” at such a rate that Jules didn’t even hear what I said. But she assumed correctly and said yes. At that point I looked at the ring case and noticed I was holding it upside down. Why would the bigger half be on top? That doesn’t make any sense.

After she said yes I proceeded to try and put the ring on her finger. Failure! The ring was too small. So we had to pack it up for later.

After a little while we decided to leave the lake and check out a dam that we saw on the map. The dam itself ended up being fenced off but we got a pretty good view from the parking area. Apparently it has one of the largest spillways of any dam. They actually referred to it on the sign as the “glory hole.” Perhaps they didn’t know?

After the dam we returned back to Yountville to prepare for dinner at Ad Hoc!