A Second Wind for California

I go through phases of interest while I'm in a place, whether visiting or living. Most people do, I would imagine. When I first arrive in a place I need to explore every inch of it. I want to see what is around me and know what's available before I make important decisions, like where my favorite hike is, or what my favorite pizza joint is. You know? When I first moved back to Northern California, more than six years ago, I was on fire for exploring this beautiful region. From Hearst Castle to Alcatraz. From the Martinez headlands to the Mt. Diablo foothills, and Mendocino to the Point Reyes seashore. Yosemite. Tahoe. The Lost Coast. I got around. I got out. I did stuff. (Not even mentioning the international and intercontinental travel I did in that time) Somewhere in the middle of those six years here, I grew complacent for touring my homeland.

Things become stagnant after a while, don't they? And, I've (re)discovered, it's not the place, it's ME wherein the problem lies. So last week I got in my car and drove down a street I hadn't explored, nor had I realized that I hadn't explored it. And what an afternoon! I drove from the tail end of Walnut Creek, down Danville BLVD, through Alamo, turning right and left into every little road that wasn't marked "private" and taking a gander at the beautiful homes, the gorgeous scenery and just enjoying the little life scenes that unfolded.

And then I happened upon the ultimate reward (for me): The loveliest hiking trail in all of the area. (Ringtail Cat trail off of Hemme) Seriously. It.Is.Perfect. A hiking photographer's dream. And it makes me sad that I've only discovered it now that I'm leaving in ten (TEN!!) weeks. Que Sera. Here's to exploration and continually finding the unexpected!

Photo from: http://www.examiner.com/slideshow/las-trampas-hike-beckons?slide=44266061#main

(I'll post my own photos soon)

What's the last thing you did to get out of your comfort zone and shake things up a bit?

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.

Hiking the Lost Coast Trail

If you like Backpacking and you're looking for an out-in-the-middle-of nowhere trail, check out the Lost Coast trail. About an hour north of Fort Bragg, California, off-road from HWY 1, you'll find Sinkyone State Park, a state park so remote that it's mostly left alone by the state, which means rugged, challenging conditions. Starting out at the Car-camping-friendly Usal beach campgrounds is a 22-mile long trail that is a backpacker's paradise.

 Just one of the gorgeous floral species along the trail.

 My travel-pal, Heidi, trying to hike through a blackberry bush that had taken over the trail-proper.

You Should Know:
-This trail is one-way. There is a shuttle service for hire that will pick you up at the end of the trail and deliver you back to your starting point, or you could just hike the whole way back.
-Depending on how fast you hike, plan on around three days to hike one-way.
-There are no established water sites and no trash collection bins, so bring a water purifier (there are creeks) and haul it out if you packed it in.
-You'll need a bear-proof canister to store your food in.
-Make sure you fill up your gas tank before heading off-road. It may only be six miles in to the trailhead, but driving that six miles takes about forty minutes. 4x4 vehicle recommended, especially in wet weather. (And this place normally has around 300 days of rain per year.)
-Pack for cool, wet weather and bring long sleeves and long pants. Even if you manage to avoid rainy days, the weather changes quite rapidly here and the trail conditions can be extremely overgrown with prickly plants.

NB: I seem to have developed allergies to Northern California this year. So if you're an allergy sufferer, do not, under any circumstances, forget your allergy meds like I did. This place set off my allergies like nowhere I've EVER been!

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:

The Beach Makes Everything Better

In case you were curious what playing hooky from work to go on a field trip with your sister, her three-year-old and ten-month twins to the beach is like, I've prepared this post especially for you.

1. A car ride through the winding hills whilst said toddler excitedly asks repeatedly "Mama, Tete, we go to beach? Play in ocean?" AKA: "Are we there yet?" but cuter.

2. We arrive at the beach. Toddler's eyes nearly pop out of his head as he gleefully beelines for the water. I think he might burst wide open from the look of sheer, unadulterated joy on his face.

3. The twins repeatedly try to escape the confines of their large blanket/prison and eat sand.

Rhys (left) Uh, hey guys, it's really bright out here. I can't tell what flavor this baby food is. Avery (Right) forget the tube, there's miles of food to test out on the ground!

4. Waves attack the toddler, who couldn't be happier, but is now soaked. Since he is essentially a string-bean with no body fat, toddler loses a layer of clothing in the interest of trying to stave off hypothermia. But we all know kids like to run around stark-raving naked anyhow, so, come to think of it, the waves and the toddler might be on the same team. Those sneaky devils.

 I'm suuuuuper soaked!

Uh, I can't move in these wet pants, guys. Waddle, waddle...

5. Flinging, hurling fistfuls of wet sand comes next, which is the best thing in the universe a boy can do. (This is quite an amazing progression for wee MasterQ, who, until recently, HATED the feel of sand on his hands and feet.)

6. More rogue wave attacks and one shivering little boy require retreat from the water's edge.

7. Toddler spends the rest of his time at the beach literally swimming in the warm sand and being buried by his auntie and mama.

8. Impromptu beach day: Massive success.

Through the Tall Grass

There is something so magical about Northern California this time of year... the land hasn't yet shriveled and changed colors under the summer sun to make it resemble its nickname, The Golden State. Greenery grows in abundance. Tall grasses and flowers dot the hillsides and all is verdant.

NephewQ hung out with me for a bit the other day. We had a grand time dying in the water and dying in the fire while playing Mario, and then I packed him up for a romp outside. (Which he was none too happy about, until we got there.)

To see this boy take off down a tiny path, overwrought with glee at the thought of exploring! He was an intrepid scout, a safari master, the king of the world! A three year old boy, literally with the world at his feet. And he LOVED it. He and I, we blazed trails through knee-high greenery and were the masters of the moment.

Instinctively, NephewQ seemed to understand it better than most adults. He knew: This is the good stuff. This patch of earth and sun and dirt and flowers and grass. This. This is it.

And then he reminded me that he was three when he turned toward me, started repeating "brains, brains, brains..." in a low, guttural, mimed voice and then began to gnaw on my leg in jest... (Plants v Zombies, in case you haven't played it...)  A good upside-down tickle restored his curiosity for the path ahead and off we shot again. We threw dirt and I told him about fruit blossoms and how bees make honey and he collected the most amazing green grass stains on his knees, grass stains that would be the envy of every little boy and tom-boy around, I tell you!


Oh, to be three again!

Northern California: Muir Beach

There are loads of beaches to visit in California, but if you happen to be in the Northerly part of the state, and you happen to be touring Muir Woods, you should definitely drive the extra ten minutes and visit Muir Beach.
This tiny beach is one of my favorites, cozy and intimate, extremely relaxed. Part of the landscape leading up to the beach is actually a habitat to help facilitate a species of endangered Salmon.

Be sure to visit on a cloudy, overcast, cool day (most days along NorCal's coastline) and pack a picnic, bonfire makings, blankets and a volleyball. Then just sit back and enjoy the sand and the chilly surf. Don't forget to wear sunscreen. Those overcast days will do some real damage if you're not paying attention.

If you don't have a dog to play catch with, don't sweat it, this one cozied right up to me. He was content to stick with me for as long as I'd throw the ball for him.

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?

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!

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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??

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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: