The Yearly Monterey Getaway

I started writing this post back in Febrauay. FEBRU-freaking-RARY.

For some reason it just got away from me? Back then, I felt like I was fighting for my life, practically. I caught a cold back in November and by February it still hadn't gone away. Waking up in the middle of the night on this particular trip to Monterey, drenched in sweat from breaking yet another fever from the sickness that wouldn't go away is what inspired me to finally go to an acupuncturist, and get well. And it worked.
I know, random. But it's important you should know this about me: I am random. Maybe. (?)


Original, unpublished post, written in February:
It's becoming a yearly thing, going to Monterey. And if you've been to Monterey, you'll know that is a really good thing.

I had one goal during this trip: I wanted my sister to have a restful, relaxing weekend. She's had a rough year, with a tough pregnancy which ended with an emergency c-section and was followed with thirteen weeks in a NICU (thankfully) tending to her twins. The twins are now a healthy 17 and nearly 20lbs and thriving. (June update: weights pushing 22 and 30lbs now!) And the emergency time is officially over. It was time for a little bit of relaxing and pampering. Sister's rock-star of a husband and amazing mother-in-law graciously agreed to watch the chilluns, allowing us to take off for a couple of nights.

Monterey is a little slice of heaven. Tons of people go there for the aquarium, which is very cool, but I haven't been in my past two trips; there is so much else to do in Monterey! Or not do, if you're in the mood to not do much.

I booked this year's hotels with mileage. I had to use two separate hotels as I had to split the mileage balances between two accounts, so we had a nicely varied weekend.

We started off near downtown, at Casa Munras hotel, a visually lovely property with a great, relaxing spa. Spa treatments, an easy walk downtown, amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from our other favorite Monterey hotel, The Portola, (we stayed there during last year's trip) a long walk along the beach, and did I mention the spa treatments? Heavenly!

Overall, if you are looking for a centrally located, affordable hotel, Casa Munras is quite nice. But our beds were as hard as rocks and the walls were VERY thin, and neighbors NOT QUIET. Not a recipe for a good night's sleep. I'd pick The Portola over Casa Munras any day.

 Relaxation alcove at the Casa Munras Spa

 Outdoor bar and grill

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 As nice as day one was, the absolute highlight of the weekend was our night at the Monterey Hyatt Regency. I've stayed at this property before, and had an absolutely lovely time and was really excited to go back and take my little sis. If you're ever in for a relaxing weekend in Monterey, stay here.

The Hyatt Regency is located about five miles away from the historic center/downtown area, which means you'll need to drive and park when you venture to the pier or cannery row, but this hotel is more of a destination in and of itself than simply a place to lay your head at night.

What can I say about this place? The pictures on Hyatt's website don't do it justice. And since I didn't take any photos the entire weekend (feeling sick as a dog hinders my artistic inclination, go figure), I can't either. (All photos in this post by Kelly Westover.)

 Wonderful, comfortable bed. I wanted to live in it. Forever.

 When I grow up I want a bathroom like this. It's just so... perfect in every way.

Think: sunrise over a perfectly manicured golf course. Fog rolls through the trees and across the green and the rays of sunlight filter through the clouds, creating an ethereal glow. Sparkling pools and hot tubs and fire pits beckon you to make use of the beautifully landscaped property. When you're tired, comfortable beds with crisp, white down comforters will lull you to sleep... I could go on and on and on. I could easily spend a week vegging at this resort and just enjoying the ambiance.

But I guess I'll have to wait until next time. To quote my sister as we drove away, "Hasta La Vista, Heaven!"



I'd count my mission a success.

There Are Worse Places to Wake Up...

 ... Than an off-the-beaten-path campground on the Northern California's coast.

Even the Roosevelt Elk would agree, it seems, as they had no problem making themselves right at home among the campsites.

But first you have to get there:

California State Park's directions to our campground told us to look for mile marker 90.88 and turn. 

Well, the mile marker wasn't there, but after we drove too far, turned around and went back, we saw this spray-painted on the road.

 Six miles of dirt roads and forty minutes from hwy 1, and you'll find yourself at Usal Beach.

 This is what Jeeps are for.

 Home, sweet tent.

Usal Creek outlets to the ocean here, creating an amazing contrast of eco-systems and providing the perfect place to encounter gorgeous Roosevelt Elk. (The largest breed of Elk in the world, they can weigh up to 1,200lbs!)

These campers woke to a campsite full of Elk.

Seals play in the waves.

 Sunrise over the hills.

 The buck that decided to have a rest... about ten feet from my tent. He was soon joined by about eight friends.

 Hanging out in Usal Creek. Loving life.

It All Started With Jurassic Park

I studied film at University. I really enjoy the factoids and tidbits about movies and frequently read up on movie trivia on IMDB. One random day, a couple of years ago, I had followed a random wild hair of inter web surfing/playing movie degrees of separation and found myself reading all about Jurassic Park 2 and the fern canyon location used in the film.

(Pride & Prejudice>Sense & Sensibility>Mansfield Park [you may see a pattern emerging]... distracted by the oh-so-yummy Alessandro Nivola in Mansfield Park, leading to: Jurassic Park 3, which made me curious about Jurassic Park 2> Filming location. Bam!)

I was all kinds of intrigued to find out that one of the most beautiful scenes in the gore-fest/ dinosaur film were shot in Northern California! And more kinds of intrigued when I found out that not far from there (Fern Canyon) was a 20-ish mile coastal backpackers hike and a rural car-camping campground along a section of California's coast called The Lost Coast. It sounded brilliantly idyllic! And since that day I've wanted to go there, if not to backpack, then to car camp for a few days.

I'm not a fan of most of California's camping. You have to make reservations for most places months and months in advance (6 months) and when you get there, instead of a relaxing, solitudinous escape, you find that you, and a zillion other people have simply relocated everything but the kitchen sink out to the wilderness to "camp" in extremely close proximity to each other. No thanks. Not my cuppa'.

If I go camping, I want space. I want to explore without running into a ton of people. And I want a campground with no advanced reservations required because most people don't bother to drive so far out of the way, or off-road. So when I discovered the Lost Coast, is was just the ticket.

This past weekend, I found myself with some rare down-time. So I packed up my jeep and hit the road with my travel pal, Heidi and drove five hours north to the best camping spot I've ever found. Shhhh! Keep this one a secret!


Sunset over Usal Beach:

Faraway Fantasy Friday: Sinkyone Wilderness

Around five hours north of my stomping grounds lies Fort Bragg, California and a California State Park that is under-utilized called Sinkyone Wilderness. It's named after the Sinkyone Indians, who lived in this area for thousands of years. Locally, the area is simply known as "Lost Coast."

Lost Coast is a camping/backpacking dream come true. Set in a verdant, cool (sometimes downright cold, so pack accordingly), climate on the Pacific coastline, Sinkyone Wilderness State Park offers a remote respite from all cares.

You might actually recognize certain locations as being used in the movie Jurassic Park 3. Yah, it's that gorgeous. Parts are covered in lush, green ferns and blankets of plant life.

Today I'm dreaming of a camping/backpacking trip to the Lost Cost, where I intend to get good and lost.  And not eaten by dinosaurs.

 

All images from:

http://www.parks.ca.gov/mediagallery/?page_id=429&m=brochures

Where do you want to be today?

2012 Calendar Project: January

San Simeon, California/Hearst Castle

“My buildings will be my legacy... they will speak for me long after I'm gone."
Julia Morgan
(Architect of Hearst Castle)

California Missions Project/Dedicated Parenting

Recent visits to a couple of California's Missions brought to mind grade school. Grade school, you question?! Yes, Grade School.

In the fourth grade we studied the missions of California. And we visited Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, California. I vividly remember standing beneath a large, old tree in the courtyard behind the mission. I don't know why it made such an impresion. But visiting the same place recently brought me back to that moment, around twenty years ago, that stood out so starkly in my memory.

As a finale to our studies of the Missions, Each student was required to make a model of a Mission of their choice. An actual, phsyical model made by hand, not computer (this was back in the day when The Oregon Trail was the game of choice on old Macintosh LCs and had to be booted manually from floppy discs...)
(OHMYGOSHIAMOLD!!!)

I really can't remember which mission I chose. But I do remember exactly what it looked like and have a perfect aerial view of it in my mind's eye. It was white with a red roof, had brown wooden pillars and a chapel and a fountain and fields...

Yah, you're right, I'm describing EVERY Spanish Mission.

If given a photo, I could pick out my mission. So there. Nyah. (Okay, I just looked it up, it was the Santa Barbara Mission.)

Anyhoo. My Mission project was simply stunning. It was the best of the projects. Not that I'm biased. It simply was the best of the projects. Making this thing was a BIG darned deal. I dragged my mother down to the local art supply and spent more than an hour walking around the aisles, trying to decide what to construct my project from.

And after careful consideration and much thought, I decided that my Mission would be modeled from a very large, rectangular, gray slab of damp clay sitting encased in a large plastic bag in the center of the store.

My mother tried her best to dissuade me from the clay, for some reason. I don't know what the reason for the resistance was, but I do remember her being displeased with my choice.

But I stuck to my guns. It was to be the clay. It HAD to be the clay. What else would give my project such an authentic look? I couldn't think of anything. Sugarcubes wouldn't cut it. Neither would styrafoam.

So we got the clay. And white paint. And red paint for the roof. And dried peat moss for the fields and fake fences and little tiny plastic farm animals.

And I took my slab of clay and accessories home and then began to fret. And worry. And realized that I had NO idea how to attack/build my project. I was/am a VERY literal child/person. In order to know how to work with mediums I needed to actually see the materials worked with. I stressed about working with the clay, about it drying out or becoming too wet and actually shaping it into the large, long, rectangular shape I was after, with a proper roof and a chapel... Oh the stress! It was huge and traumatic for my ten-year old (?) self.

But I vaguely remember a large knife to cut the clay pieces with, and a large piece of plywood for the base of my model and a bucket of water to keep the clay damp.

And past that, I really don't remember anything else to do with the building/shaping of my model. I remember applying the peat moss and plastic fencing/animals, and maybe shaping some clay windows and doing a bit of painting.

Each afternoon I'd dabble a bit and each night I'd go to sleep. And in the morning I'd come back and be amazed at how my project had progressed... And my ten-year-old mind somehow believed that it was due to my own amazingness.

Uh... Right. My not-ten-year-old mind understands what really happened.
I'm sure you understand what I'm getting at.
My Father took over. (Maybe my Mother too, but I think it was my Dad) My Father, the builder of all things that needed to be built. The fixer of cars and washing machines and shoes and bicycles. My Father, who could do anything, figure out anything and explain anything! (Same Father who, two years later, built me a Roman Chariot for a project on Rome... yah, it was SO SWEET.) (My Mom was pretty rad too, in her own ways, in case you were wondering.)
And all of this explanation leads me to the point of this story, which is: Parents are cool people.

Exploring Life's Symmetry in Sonoma

Revisiting one's childhood can be a fun thing.


When I moved away from California at the age of twenty to go to College on the East Coast, I never expected to live in California again. My family moved up to Northern middle-of-freaking-nowhere-Idaho when I was seventeen and I had no one left out on the Left coast to lure me back. But that's not the whole story of my separation from California. Before moving back here I lived in Virginia, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Las Vegas and Mississippi, with long stints of time spent at sea/in Florida and in foreign countries. I have in my head routes to internet cafes and grocery stores for hundreds of different places. I can find my way to an airport by train or cab or metro easily in most any language. There was a lot of time and space, education and mileage and growing pains and picking myself up and pressing on done in the years I was not in California.

And when I arrived here again I was different. And it felt like I'd passed entire lifetimes away from here. And yet (nearly five years ago now) I moved back to Northern California, and in a strange little twist of fate or irony or serendipity, whatever you want to call it, I now live about 15 miles away from the city I grew up in. And believe you me, I think that surprises me more than anyone. Because... of all the gin joints in all the world... here is where I ended up. (Not to stay permanently, mind you. I've always known that. I have many, many more miles to travel in this daily-growing-older model body I'm sporting.)

Sometimes a déjà vu sense of strange familiarity slash completely unknown washes over me when I encounter the places and things around me, here near my childhood stomping grounds, and it surprises me. After all, I live just far enough away from my childhood haunt to completely blaze new trails through the days of my life here. Yet, I still wander back to the old neighborhoods and establishments from time to time.

Last weekend I revisited a couple of places I've wanted to see (again) for a while but hadn't yet made the time: Lachryma Montis and the San Francisco Solano Mission in Sonoma, California. And while the feature at the home of General Vallejo that I remember the most of anything - a large arbor of hanging multi-colored fuschias that were so profuse that they covered an entire porch  (As a visiting twelve year old, I was enraptured by the sight and still picture it in my mind today as one of the loveliest flowery sights I've ever seen.) - was now gone, the trip was well worth the drive.

More on Sonoma soon. (Meanwhile, you should really go and visit.)

Here's a peek:

Floating

I have found a small piece of bliss...
Nearby at the Lafayette Reservoir, there are great little floating piers equipped with picnic tables. On a particularly stressful day, I found myself laying on top of one of those tables, floating and bobbing away, relaxing and finding my center. It was the nearest thing I've found to being out on a boat.

What relaxes you?

Faraway Fantasy Friday: Crystal Cove

Well. I'm fairly excited for this Faraway Fantasy Friday because I actually just booked it. Woohoo!

Today I booked a my Birthday getaway for June.

Why in the world would I plan something SIX MONTHS OUT?

Because I was forced, that's why.

I mean, really, if you had the opportunity to rent a beach house in Southern California (right next to Newport Beach, CA) for $65/day, wouldn't you do it?

Let me explain. (Imagine your best Bogart/Film Noir, fast-talking dective voice) There are these Beach houses, see, and they are all very popular, see... They were built in the '30's and well, the feds (*ahem* National Park Service) took 'em over, see! It's a racket, I tell ya! A racket! (It kind of is... except it's really a steal for us common folk who can't afford to spend a few hundred thousand on a summer beach rental.)

End scene.

So really, the Cottages are historic and have been restored to their hey-day glory. And you, yes you, can stay in them. The reservation system opens up for an entire booking month the first of each month, six months out. So for the month of June, reservations started December 1st, at 8am. It's all online.

SO what you do is login to the reservations system (you have to create a profile) and point your browser to the cottage you want. Or maybe two browsers to a couple of choices... I'm not saying that's what I do... Because really, I can't giveaway all of my beach-house-securing tips, can I? ;) Then around 7:59 start clicking the "reserve" button... it won't let you actually reserve the place until 8am... but there's a margin of error between my AT&T wireless' 8am and their server's 8am (and it's ALL about their serve)... so better safe than sorry.

For me it was about 7:59.5 when my browser refreshed to the "you have 15 minutes to complete this reservation" page.

And oh, boy that was an exciting moment.

Because if you remember, I tried to get a reservation at this place a year ago, failed, and ended up in gorgeous Florida for my last birthday (No compaints either way, really... definitely a win/win situation.)

Ya See. Six months out.

Here's the little haven I'll be holed up in for my birthday this year:

Doesn't it look posilutely DREAMY????

And here's more info on the place, in case you want to attempt braving the reservations system:
http://www.crystalcovebeachcottages.com

Where do you want to be today?

Calistoga Field Trip

I was born in the Napa Valley. (Yes, as in snooty-falooty "Nah-pah, dah-ling.") And though I grew up in a neighboring village, I spent quite a bit of time out in the valley at various church and social activities during my childhood and teen years. (Think: cars full of teen friends driving down a dark highway verrrrry fast with the windows rolled down, howling at the moon on their way to dancing activities and Denny's for french fries dipped in strawberry milkshakes... yum!)


You never value what you grow up with while you're doing the growing. 

That's really my point. Well. For now.

You take it for granted. Childhood, that is.

SO.

Imagine my surprise, when I moved away, at learning just how much EVERYOOOOONE else and their dog loved the San Francisco bay area, especially Nah-pah and the surrounding area.
I mean, I knew it was pretty, but pretty much could care less.

Ya know?

When I moved back here three years ago, I made sure to go on expeditions back in the Napa hills and reacquaint myself with my old stomping grounds. But I really haven't gone back since.

Until last weekend. It was time. I hit the road, fully intending to go hiking at Point Reyes along the beach.

But.

Instead.

I turned left. 
Because I felt like it. And isn't that really the only reason for a thirty-year old single woman with time on her hands and a full tank of gas to do something fun? I think yes. (Narcissism is mandatory on pointless, spur-of-the-moment expeditions, you know.)

And I went out towards Napa. And at a loooooooooong stop light I googled hiking places in the Napa hills and ended up driving along lovely highway 29, out past Napa. Through St. Helena and Oakville and Yountville. Right on to Calistoga.

And let me tell you, I could have done just the drive alone and been a happy camper. Gorgeous! Stunning! Breathtaking! I sure don't drink, but I LOVE me some wine country.

I stopped at two fabulous places on my drive: Oakville Grocery, where I had the (hands-down) best sandwich I've ever eaten in my life. Truly. When you're out that way be sure to stop for the Roasted Chicken and Gruyere panini. It changed my life. Okay, just kidding. But sandwiches will never be the same again.

Lunch. Check. Delicious. Check.

Hike. Fun!

I am an accident-prone girl.

It was a good bleeder. Not serious. Patched it up with Neosporin and a bandage. 

Nothing like hike triage.

Seriously cool and not-shy lizard.

The tree in the middle is my favorite.

After my hike I stopped in at my first Dean and Delucca in Sonoma. What an experience.
Okay.
I live literally a block away from a Whole Foods Market.
Soooo... Dean and Delucca just seemed like a slightly posher version of a Whole Foods. It didn't exactly live up to the Felicity-hype that I thought it would. And the people in it!  

Holy funny circus, Batman:

It started in the parking lot. I hopped out of my cute Jeep. Bandana on head, hair in two messy, post-hike braids, wearing a sweaty t-shirt and cargo shorts coated in fresh blood from my knee injury. As I'm walking into the store, I walk past a couple exiting their Mercedes and the woman looked me up and down with disdain. I just smiled at her and went into the store. The kind of smile that was really me laughing at her because of how silly she was. Dare I call it a smirk? Yes.  

Because, really, pretentious people deserve nothing more than just to be laughed at.

And then inside! Oh! A store full of frenetic people trying to convince themselves that they beloooong in that yuppy store, dahhhhling! I walked around with my face all scrunched up as I observed silly human behavior.

And then I was distracted by the pastry counter. Like any good girl ought to be.

 


I have a ridiculously demanding sweet tooth. Normally I only feed it sugar on Fridays. But there are exceptions, such as this particular Saturday. Because clearly a trip to Napa (and the afforementioned pastry counter) was an exception to the no-sugar rule, I couldn't resist buying two things: A petit Gateau to rival any desert at the Cheesecake factory, and a brownie concoction that was actually a shortbread cookie covered in vanilla custard and topped in hardened chocolate. DEEEE-vine! I was seriously sugar high driving home. And for the rest of the day after, as I fed my inner sugar-monster bites of the day's take over a video-type time lapsed blur (in my mind). Yum.

Go to Napa, people. Better yet, go to Calistoga, Yountville, Sonoma. Explore Northern California's wine country. It's gorgeous. Eat. Hike. Drive. (But obviously don't Drink. Drive.)

And maybe you'll figure out for yourself why the region inspires the overly-voweled use of the word darling.

Pickin' the Zin

Facebook can sometimes be a great friend in and of itself. Friday afternoon I *just happened* to be browsing through the numerous and varied subjects posted as status updates when I happened apon this jewel:

Anybody want to come help pick Zinfandel tmrw am @ Landa Vineyards? Will be food, fun, wine and bocce after! Let me know, they need help!

Seriously?

Really?

How cool is that?!! It was posted by an old friend of mine who I hadn't spoken with for over ten years. So I typed in a quick query about the event and was soon answered back with all the pertinent info.

This is the kind of stuff I love to do. Random. Pretty much unplanned. Great chance to learn something new and see something interesting. Not to mention a great opportunity to lend a hand to a small, family-owned and operated business.  I knew I was going to go even though it meant that my once-weekly ritual of sleeping in on Saturday morning would be nixed. Oh well. I sent txt messages to a couple of people inviting them to come along but only one person could come: my adorably preggo little sister. Fun!

We were up well before the sun this morning. I frequently say (and think) that I really can live without seeing the sunrise. I'm not a morning person. Ughh. Alarm clocks are sources of real pain and frequent torture. Kels lives about fourty minutes away from me (in the opposite direction from the vineyard), so she took BART to where I am, I picked her up and after a quick stop at a coffee shop for some hot cocoa (and a bathroom - I could blame the pregnancy hormones, but just as much of it is that small bladders run in our family) we were off!

Have you ever experienced Bay Area traffic? It's gotten progressively worse since I started driving at the age of 16. Back then (in the olden days, when we walked to school in the snow, uphill, both ways) outside of rush hour the freeways were reasonably clear. Not so any longer. Now there is bad traffic during any time of the day or night. Especially traveling along the 580 to 101 corridor. Today we discovered the secret to traveling quickly along said route: Leave early in the morning. Aparently Bay Area-ans are not morning people in general. We were on the road by 7am on a Saturday morning and made fantastic time! We rolled up to the vineyard in Sonoma County by 8:15.

 My long-lost friend Sarah greeted us, introduced us to the vintner (a fabulously laid-back man named Jim who wore a soft Aussie-style hat) and then (after another bathroom break) we hopped into a few rows of Cabernet Sauvignon and started snipping away with our clippers at the vines.

Kels and I picked a few rows of Cab with Sarah and one other fun couple and had a great time chatting and catching up. I had a chance to learn a smidge about a couple of different varieties of grapes. For instance, Cabernet Sauvignon grapes tend to grow in more sporadic clusters while Zinfandel grapes are darker in color and grow in tight bunches. The tight bunches of the Zinfandel grapes posed a problem for the Landa vineyard this year because just as the grapes were going to be perfect for harvesting we had a random, massive, two-day rainstorm blow through. The rain affects the sugar levels in the grapes (the brix) adversly. The sugar content goes down, so the grapes had to stay on the vine another couple of weeks for the brix to rise to the proper level again. 

Doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is because the fruit can (and did) get moldy if it sits damp. Sadly, a good portion of the fruit we picked was fairly moldy! We picked around it, snipped moldy sections of fruit out and still managed to get a decent harvest. But just imagine what it could have been like! This experience really made me grateful for farmers. (That combined with my attempt at growing tomatoes, bell peppers and Lima beans this past year). Imagine putting your heart and soul into efforts to grow and tend crops only to have something like a freak rainstorm take out all of your hard work just as you're about to see it pay off! Heartbreaking!

Thankfully, Landa vineyard is more of a hobby for the family. They have careers outside of wine, so they're not counting on this as a cash crop. But there are seriously thousands of vineyards of varying sizes through the Napa/Sonoma/Solano area. They all were hit by the rain. And what about other crops? 

...We finished up the harvesting around noon and headed up the hill to the house, where the grapes were put through a machine to remove them from the vines and the juice and squished grapes were collected into giant tubs. The concoction will sit for ten days and cure, at which point the juice will be strained through a sieve and then bottled. Voila! Wine!

A fabulous pasta lunch followed sitting around on a gorgeous back deck with an amazing view for a good while nourished the body and soul. Excellent morning!

--

Oh, by the way, I don't drink. I don't advocate drinking or alcohol in any way. But I did thoroughly enjoy this day and had a great time learning about a famous regional industry.

What did you do this weekend??

 --

Favorite non-PC quote of the day (overheard while harvesting): "I'd make a good Mexican. I'm picking. And I love tacos... and tequila." 

 Wow. 

Photos: