Back Home

We pulled into Abbotsford yesterday around dinnertime, and man, is it good to be home. After two days of highway driving, I was ready for my home.

Have to unpack and get back to normal now! Thanks for coming along on our travels, and hopefully it won’t be another five years before we take another road trip.

Halfway Home

We’re in Roseburg, Oregon tonight at a nice Holiday Inn Express overlooking the Umpqua River. Curt’s still not feeling 100% with the cold hitting his sinuses, but we pushed through and made it past Grants Pass and went an hour further north.

We’re really missing home now, and can’t wait to see our pups and of course, family and friends. The trip was fantastic, but there’s no place like home.

Wish us luck as we try to make it through both Portland and Seattle tomorrow without incident!

In a fog

Not only are we surrounded by coastal fog, but we have both come down with what is sounding and looking like good-old-fashioned colds overnight. I guess the drier inland air and constant sunshine was more beneficial than cool ocean air and fog…

Curt’s worse off than I am, so keep your fingers and toes crossed that the orange juice and rest today will get us both in better shape for tomorrow’s drive.

Breakfast was really nice this morning; with the heavy cloak of fog around Mendocino, we haven’t done much sightseeing. We did drive into Fort Bragg for lunch and a look around, but we’re both feeling pretty icky and wanted to get back to our room for some more rest.

Good news is we have a nice tv and lots of cable stations to keep us entertained, and a gas fireplace to keep the chill off.

Shhh… be vewwy vewwy quiet. We’re hunting wed wine.

We’ve left Wine Country and are nestled in a lovely B&B in Mendocino for the next two nights, before we start the drive home, back to this other reality that has faded into a bit of a blur over the last week. In some alternate life, Curt and I are a couple of working-class 30-somethings – right now, we’re traveling foodies, enjoying great restaurants and beautiful scenery everywhere we look. Curt said as we were leaving the last of our winery visits and heading back to Highway 101 that it felt like we were driving through a postcard. It has been one good thing after another, and I think we both have felt the weight of the world slip away ever so gently.

So, to catch up from our last post, which was a couple of days ago. On Saturday, we went back to San Francisco, but this time we met up with Curt’s cousin, Sandra, and she drove us in and around the city. We are very grateful for her insider knowledge of the city! We drove to Sausalito, parked the car, met Sandra and drove to the Marin Headlands for a view of the Golden Gate from up there. Then we drove across, and stopped at the viewpoint right next to the Presidio. I got some great shots from there, and we were so happy later on in the day that we did stop there because the fog really rolled in around 3:30 that afternoon.

We were able to see many of the places we really wanted to – Mission Dolores, the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (which was a personal favorite – it was fantastic), Coit Tower, the view from Twin Peaks, Lombard Street, Postcard Row, and Fisherman’s Wharf. We stopped for a little while at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, and that was really neat. I can see my in-laws having a great time there – lots of exotic plants there.

The downside was the insane amount of traffic. We got stuck making circles in Chinatown and the Italian district, trying to find parking to go have lunch. We gave up and found a parkade at Fisherman’s Wharf, and ate at the Boudin sourdough restaurant. After walking around the wharf and seeing the sights, we made one last stop at the Palace of Fine Arts, a gorgeous Classical styled outdoor building and gardens. We were there too late to go inside but there were plenty of photo opportunities outside. We finished the day by driving across the Golden Gate in thick fog that left us by the time we got into Sausalito.

Yesterday was a lazy day again, a recovery from all the urban craziness that is San Fran. We had a leisurely breakfast, then headed to Mass at the Cathedral of St. Eugene. I have to be perfectly honest that I was disappointed by our time there. I won’t go into great detail, but I was wondering when we were going to run into a church that had the stamp of American Catholicism that I hear of so much in various blogs I read, the brand of Catholicism that is liturgically tepid, like weak tea. It does exist, and we experienced it. The really sad part was that the Bishop of Santa Rosa led the Mass, on the occasion of his 25th Anniversary of his Ordination. The homily had nothing of the Gospel in it, rather it was a rundown of the Bishop’s accomplishments of the past 25 years, in his own words. That, and a number of other factors, made it a less than memorable event. However, the source and summit was there, present as always in the Eucharist, and that is all that matters.

After Mass, we finally visited the Luther Burbank Home and Garden, and that was very pretty and informative. We had lunch afterwards at a local brewpub, where the food was very good but way too much! The serving sizes, we have found out, are only reasonable at the very good restaurants, where the quality is superb and the servings are for real people.

After coffee and a nap (the new afternoon habit, it seems!) we started searching for hotels in Mendocino. Took a break from that to head out to dinner at LoCoco’s Cucina, just around the corner. What a fantastic place – authentic Italian through and through. I had chicken which had been prepared under a brick! It was wonderful. We shared a bottle of good Italian red wine, and I made the very funny joke that is the title of this post – “shhhh… be vewwy vewwy quiet, we are hunting wed wine” (of course, I had consumed about a glass and a half by that time)

We left Santa Rosa this morning, after finally settling on a place in Mendocino – MacCallum House Bed & Breakfast. They had some good internet deals, and with several properties in Mendocino, I figured we couldn’t go wrong. Plus, the included breakfast looked great, and that has been a real time-save on the trip, having breakfast all ready to go in the morning.

After visiting two more wineries in the Healdburg area – Bella Wine Caves and Ferrari-Carano – we hit the road to Mendocino. We took the 101 to Willits, then the CA 20 to Fort Bragg. The 20 is very windy, through a redwood forest. Fun, but after the first 15 miles, you start to wonder if you’re ever going to see the other side. Eventually, the ocean came into view, and that made us pretty happy. Another 10 miles south from Fort Bragg, and charming little Mendocino came into view. We found our home for the next two days. We’re staying in the Mendocino Village Inn, just a couple blocks from the main MacCallum House. Very quaint, built in 1882. We got a free room upgrade to a gorgeous Victorian room, large with a gas fireplace and a four poster bed, and a sitting area. When we arrived, there was coffee and cookies for the taking. Is this heaven? Close to it. The only things wrecking it are the aging hippies that seem to be strolling wild throughout the town, and the obvious leftist political bent, but other than that, it’s great.

More pictures tomorrow, after we’ve strolled the town and maybe Fort Bragg as well. We leave on Wednesday morning and will be back in Abbotsford by Friday night, if all goes well. Even though we’re having all this fun, I miss my family, my doggies, and my house. It’s nice to go away, and even nicer to come home.

South of Santa Rosa

Today is a day of rest for Rebecca and I. The trip has been great but day after day of driving, walking and getting lost takes a toll on a body. Since we needed to do some laundry, this seemed like a good day for laying low.

Some thoughts on what we’ve seen follow.

• The MacBook has been a fantastic addition on this trip. The last time I did a driving trip like this one was about 15 years ago. I think I may have still been a student at the time. We did not have a portable computer and even if we had, there would not have been wifi hotspots all over the place. The MacBook has been even more useful and fun than I imagined it would be. We can (and are!) posting pictures on the web for friends and family to see on the same day they are shot. We are using Skype to call home for free. We are using Google maps to find our way to various sites, and also to find simple, needed things like food or other supplies.
• The food has improved a lot since we left the I5 interstate. That seems to be a world unto itself, with food only children and truckers could enjoy for more than a day at a time. Food in Napa, Sonoma, San Francisco and Santa Rosa has been very good, and much healthier.
• We saw San Francisco yesterday, for the first time since we came down to Santa Rosa, our home base during this stay in California. We drove south east to a town called Vallejo and walked on to a ferry there. That turned out to be a fantastic decision. I remembered how stressful being a stranger in a bustling big city can be from my last trip and wanted no part of it. It made the day one of our best on the trip. The ferry dropped us off at the San Francisco Ferry Building Pier One, a beautiful location with lots of Granville island style shopping and eateries (Vancouverites will know what I mean). The city was jammed with people, people, people everywhere doing everything very, very quickly. The taxis honked at just about anything.
• We walked over to Market Street, which cuts diagonally across the city, and made our way to Stockton St. What was at Stockton, you ask? One of the premier Apple Stores, of course. There is an Apple store here in Santa Rosa, in walking distance from where we are staying, but it is just a small white cubicle, not at all what I had heard about. The SF store did not disappoint. It was two floors separated by a very cool glass staircase. The lower floor was about models and sales and the upper floor to software, accessories, and teaching. Yes, there was a movie theatre style lecture area with big plush chairs and a young Apple nerd named AJ giving a demonstration of how to use iDVD. It was great – I wish there was one of these I could visit close to home. I’m pretty sure Vancouver could support one of these; it has a good community of techies and art geeks.
• After were were done with AJ and his talk, we hopped on a historic street car (not a cable car) that rattled and squeaked all the way back down to the waterfront. We got off at Pier 39, which is a big fair with shops, food, and a carousel. It wasn’t highbrow but it was big fun. We got gifts for the family, saw Alcatraz and the ferries, and Rebecca was taken with the Sea Lions. We had dinner in the Sea Lion restaurant with a window seat so that she could watch them bellow and wrestle with one another as they fought for the best sun tanning location. I sat facing Alcatraz and watched the boats come and go.
• When dinner was done, we were in a hurry to catch a ferry back to Vallejo and since there were no street cars in sight, we took a ride on a pedi-cab. Since it was a short ride he gave us a deal on the fare and peddled us right to the commuter line for the ferry. Try that in a car! The drive back was uneventful except for one thing. Vallejo sits on the north east side of San Pueblo Bay. On the way out we drove past the swamp in that area without giving much thought to it. It looked like a bird refuge; nice but unremarkable. One the way back the sun went down and all the flying bugs that make their home in those waters came out. We thought the pop pop pop noise was a few large raindrops hitting the windsheild at high speed. We qucikly learned that the pops were bugs hitting the windshield and making a big mess. In the daylight today I saw what there were – they looked like very large, very healthy misquitos. Yuck.
• On Wednesday we drove the coast (highway #1) from Sebastopol to Muir beach. This was an odd drive. It started out nicely. The area west of Sebasopol is sparsely populated farmland, with rolling hills, scattered trees and lonely cattle. We stopped to take pictures of two old Catholic Churches. The first, St. Teresa of Avila, was small and looked deserted. It turns out that Hitchcock filmed part of The Birds here. The second, The Church of the Assumption, was much more attractive. We took some nice pictures of the stained glass and stauary inside.When we got to the coast things got less interesting in a hurry. The road was so windy and slow it was nauseating. There wasn’t much to see except fishingboats and bicyclists. In truth, this was a road better suited to them than our Ford Escape. Eventually we left that part of the road. The highway climbed rapidly after Stinston Beach. It was still narrow and windy, with no guardrail in sight. It freaked Rebecca just a little. I can’t imagine driving it at night (no lighting either). Muir Beach was nice, and it has a tremendous overlook, were we saw some retired naval guns and a Bhuddist Monk taking pictures of the sea.
• From Muir Beach we got onto highway 101 north, and stopped in San Rafael for lunch and a visit to the Mission there. This one, unlike the one in Sonoma, is still in use. The original buildings are long gone, rebuilt in ~1949. We got some nice pictures there as well.
• People here are friendly and the weather has been fantastic – sunny in the high twenties celcius everyday! There are roses blooming in just about every store and home. The palm trees are a nice touch.
• We are probably going to see San Francisco again tomorrow, but this time my cousin will will meet us and act as a guide. I hope to see gardens in Golden Gate park, the Mission in San Francisco (even nicer than the one in San Rafael), and a few other standards like Coit Tower. The city has a wealth of old buildings, making it a real pleasure for the eyes.

 

The Coast

It’s been a busy couple of days, so busy that we’ve been totally bagged by the time we get back to the hotel! We’re sleeping well, though, and really enjoying our fabulous breakfast buffet each morning. What a way to start the day – fresh fruit and orange juice, nice scones, great coffee…

Yesterday, we wanted to go off the beaten track a bit, and boy, did we ever. We headed west, through Sebastopol and out to Hwy 1 along the coast. We actually passed through a town with a population of just 30 (Dogtown, CA) Now that’s a small town.

The coast highway surprised me just outside of Stinson Beach; I was checking the map, and when I looked up and out, I nearly passed out – we were up high, and right on the edge overlooking the Pacific. Note to self: one trip on the coast highway is enough. It was very pretty, mind you, but it was freaky driving all the same. Curt did really well, took it easy and was very careful, even with his wife white knuckling over in the passenger seat.

We decided to forgo heading further down south and went to San Rafael instead. San Rafael is home to the 20th mission on the 21 California Mission Chain (San Francisco Solano in Sonoma is the last one, #21), and it was a beautiful visit. We had already bumped into two beautiful country churches on the way out – one in Bodega, St. Teresa of Avila, which we found out later was used in Hitchcock’s The Birds; and the second in Tomales, the Church of the Assumption. It was open for us to go in, and very inviting, even though there wasn’t a soul around. I think both Curt and I felt both the sense of history (it was built in 1860) and a sense of peace there. It was hard to leave.

We left San Rafael and headed back to Santa Rosa in the late afternoon. We went over to Santa Rosa Plaza for a bit, shopped a bit, ate a little, came back and chilled out. It seems we keep sleeping in later and later every day – it’s going to be hard to get back to our regular routine, but it’s been fantastic sleeping in and staying up late watching American TV.

Today, we hit San Fran – but more about that tomorrow!

PS: Pictures are uploading on Flickr – make sure to check them out and make comments there or here as you like!

Two Days – Two Valleys

Yesterday was Sonoma, today was Napa. Tonight, we’re tired!

It’s been a great two days. Tons of pictures on Flickr (I think about 100 between yesterday and today) so be sure to check it out.

So far, this is where we’ve been:

• Ledson Winery, just east of here in Kenwood
• St. Francis Winery, just down the road from Ledson
• Sonoma, including the historical landmarks of Mission San Francisco Solano and General Vallejo’s Home, and also ate lunch there yesterday
• Domaine Carneros Winery, east of Sonoma on the way to Napa, a breathtaking French style chateau
• Artesa Winery, just down the road a bit from Domaine Carneros; built into the side of the hill like a 60’s bunker
• Napa, for lunch today
• Robert Mondavi, close to St. Helena; beautiful combination of old and new
• V. Sattui, just up the road from Mondavi; a lot of fun, and really pretty

So, six wineries, two valleys, two days – two tired Canadians! We haven’t been tasting at every winery, mostly because it’s getting expensive – some places want just $5 for a nice tasting, others want $15, or in the case of Mondavi and others, $25 – although, that includes a tour. We just walked around at Mondavi and took lots of pictures. We have six bottles of wine to take home so far. The towns are all very close to each other, but the traffic is quite heavy even during the day and the weather is pretty warm, so by the time we got back tonight we were super tired. We ordered pizza to the room and have just been chilling out big time.

We’re thinking about taking a ferry from Vallejo to San Francisco tomorrow – not a lot of driving involved, and it will get us to the Wharf at San Fran for a walkaround. Or we still have a couple of places close to Santa Rosa that we want to see, so we’ll see how things look in the morning.

Anyway, it’s late but here are a few of my favorite pics from the last two days – enjoy!

From the top: Me with Charlie Brown; Ledson Winery; St. Francis statue at St. Francis Winery; vines in Sonoma; Domaine Carneros; Water and Sky at Artesa.

Hope everyone is doing well – we’re having a wonderful time, although I think we overstimulated our senses today! I think our original plan of no more than two wineries a day is a good one to stick to. Or maybe we just need to head to San Fran for a change of pace. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Whirligigs

It’s been a long day, so I’ll post pictures tomorrow morning before we set out on our adventures again. In the meantime, here’s a short (9 second) video of some cool garden whirligigs we came upon at St. Francis Winery, one of the two wineries we visited this afternoon (just hit play to watch.)

Breakfast of Champions

One of the reasons I chose this hotel, after much searching and comparing on the ‘net, was the breakfast that is included. I figured we’d save about $20 a day if we could get a good meal included with the room. But we all know how most contintental breakfasts are usually nothing to write home about, right?

I’m definitely writing home about this one – it was fantastic.

Of course, I took a picture.

Freshly squeezed orange juice, strong coffee, scones, toast, fruit, cheese, cereal… plus there are bagels, rolls, meats and hard boiled eggs to choose from.  Much healthier than IHOP or Denny’s, that’s for sure! And if we want a hot breakfast, there is an Omelette Express that the front desk recommended, just around the corner.

I like it here.

Santa Rosa at last

Well, we made it! Had a few funny moments today – like I misread the map and we ended up on a real goat trail of a highway, going the wrong way… but we got here – and that’s what matters!

Our room is great; roomy, with a fantastic comfy bed that will be hard to get out of in the morning, I’m sure.

The Hotel La Rose is beautiful, everything I thought it would be. Made up for the less than stellar hotels the last couple of nights.

We splurged and ate dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, Josef’s. On check-in, we were given a coupon for 2 complimentary glasses of wine at the restaurant, plus 15% off a meal if we eat there. We figured what better way to start our vacation here than with a great meal? And it was. I took pictures, of course. And pictures of other things too, so make sure to check the Flickr page.

I think we’re going to have a great time here!

A little sampler of our day: dinner at Josef’s (with fantastic dessert); our hotel; Curt with Charlie Brown and Snoopy; the church we went to in Redding this morning – Our Lady of Mercy; a statue of St. Francis

Shasta and Redding

Today was way better, travel wise. Traffic was awesome, so much that we made incredible time and were able to spend some time exploring the area as we got closer to Redding. We stopped in at Mount Shasta for a pit stop and ended up visiting the Visitor’s Center. The fellow in there gave us a great tip on driving up to Mount Shasta, about 20 mins each way. Perfect! We did it, and it was so worth it. A picture is worth 1000 words, and as you can see by all the new pictures on my Flickr account, I have a lot to say about how beautiful it was up there.

After that, we drove on into Redding and got to our hotel – a Quality Inn, nice little place, nothing too fancy. The front desk gal let us know about a place called Sundial Bridge, a unique pedestrian bridge nearby. It was pretty unique – check out the pics on Flickr for yourself.

And, of course, there are the requisite self-portraits. It was very windy up on Mount Shasta, and I also had a fun time trying to hold the camera straight. I’m pretty happy with how the pictures turned out today, so I can’t wait until we get to Santa Rosa and wine country. That’s where the real fun begins.

By the way, wireless internet is *everywhere* – best bet for travelers is to find a Motel 8 parking lot, park and pull out the laptop. Email made fast, easy and free. I love it. Santa Rosa has wireless hotspots all over town, according to their city website, so there will be lots of opportunities for keeping in touch. It’s been great for emailing back home to our parents, letting them know that we’re safe and sound. Mom and the dogs are doing just great, enjoying the house all to themselves. I fully expect that Darwin will weigh about 5lbs extra when we get back – that’s okay, with the portion sizes down here, I probably will too. I am astounded at the amount of food they serve you in restaurants – I’m hoping that Santa Rosa and surrounding area is a little better, but so far it’s been enormous plates filled with food everywhere we’ve eaten. We got smart and stopped in at a Safeway and picked up some apples and water and juice, which has helped.

I still can’t get over wine and beer being sold in gas stations and grocery stores. It’s so strange.

Oregon, oh my

Today was day one of our trip and we got off to a great start. We crossed the border early, found no lineup at Sumas and had no trouble getting across. We were able to get toiletries at a Walgreens pharmacy at a very early hour. Twenty four hour pharmacies might have a place after all. We made good time all through Washington state, although Seattle’s morning rush was somewhat congested. Even caught a glimpse of the Seahawk’s new stadium, Qwest.

Oregon, on the other hand, was a mess. The $#@! hit the fan when we crossed from Vancouver, WA into Portland, OR. The I5 south was completely closed to all traffic due to an accident on a bridge. We didn’t find out what it was until much, much later, but it turns out a truck dropped a 20 tonne pipe on the bridge deck. I imagine getting equipment onto the bridge to move it was a real problem. Some cars under the bridge we damaged by debris. As you can imagine, getting around this was not easy for a couple of kids from Canada. Get around it we did, but it was s-lo-w. I think we lost well over an hour here.

Once we were past it, there were two more accidents on the I5, none of which were all that serious, but they did slow us eve more and they added to the frustration. Luckily we were not going north as there was still another accident there that had traffic backed up for miles. When we finally got into Eugene, we missed an off ramp in trying to get to our intended stay, near the University of Oregeon. We had quite a time trying to get back to it, as none of the roads seemed to run through and we were thoroughly turned around and frazzled. On finally getting to the Campus Inn, we were told straight away that there were no vacancies because the University team had a huge game this weekend and there we about 4,000 out of town fans. They told us we would have a hard time finding any accomodation in Eugene at all. I think the Oklamhoma Sooners are in town. Y’know, in Canada, no gives a hoot about college sports except maybe family members. In any case, so far Oregeon is not making a favourable impression on either of us.

We contined south on I5 and when we pulled off for gas we bumped into a Best Western that did have room for us, and a nice mom and pop restraunt out front. So we took the room, even though it was a two bed, larger and more costly than we needed. It was just good to put all of that stress behind us and get a bite to eat. And so, here we are.

Our trip so far reminds me of a book I just finished, Patrick O’Brian’s The Fortune of War. In that story, Aubrey and Maturin set sail and make fabulous time south from England until their boat gets stuck in the tropics with no wind. The crew then suffers from disease and the voyage goes quite awry from there. I hope we have better luck tomorrow because this afternoon was not something to wish on anyone.

Observations.

#1. I knew you could buy wine and beer in the supermarket here, but it’s very odd for a Canadian to see wine next to the cookies in a Safeway. And the stuff is so cheap too! I saw a bottle I saw selling at home for $16 selling for $6 here. I knew we were getting roylly screwed on “sin” taxes in Canada but wow, that is an awakening. And then there’s the fact that we can only buy the “sinful” item in a government run store.

#2. It is a bit of a challenge to find restaurants that sell good, healthy food here. If you want greasy food packaged for children, you will have no end of choices. I was really pleased to see the restraunt at our final stop because it offered more than fried junk (although it had that, it also offered “home” style fare).

- Curt

Olympia!

Just had late breakfast at Denny’s in Olympia – discovered wireless internet courtesy of the Super 8 behind us in the parking lot, so I had to post. Technology is so cool.

Of course, people still have to do stuff to make technology work – case in point, as we were driving through Seattle I thought “hey, let’s take a picture of all the traffic!” – and promptly found out that I had neglected to charge my camera battery. I have the charger along, but it’s a long way to Eugene (or Grant’s Pass, wherever we get to tonight), so I hope there’s nothing too scenic or picturesque along the way.

Back on the road!

One More Sleep

Alright, the packing’s almost done. We’re getting tired, and hopefully will be able to sleep okay tonight! The dogs are pretty freaked out, they’ve never seen a luggage set before. Sarah probably thinks we’re moving again.

So we’re not sure where we’re going to stay on the way, but we are set to check into Santa Rosa on Sunday. If I don’t post anything between now and then, it’s because I haven’t found a wireless hot spot to tap into.

Wish us luck!

Three days and counting!

Okay, now we’re down to the nitty gritty. Three more days to get it all done, ready, packed, planned and prepped.

Then, it’s two weeks of me and my dear husband in our red Ford Escape on the open road. Watch this space for pics and stories, starting Friday the 15th!

Getting Ready

Welcome to our travel blog – our first, but hopefully not our last.

We are 15 days away from our trip to Santa Rosa, California. Yes, I’m counting the days. It’s been a long year and I really need a vacation!

We’ll be posting here from now until departure, and then with any luck our wireless internet in our hotel room will work just peachy and we’ll be updating from California. Pictures, of course, and lots of plans and itineraries for our days. It’ll be a blast.