Saturday and Sunday in California

Saturday was GORGEOUS. Perfect temperature, sunny sunny skies.

We got a late start and started off at Mumm. They had a few options for tastings and we went with the patio, snagging a table all the way in the back, which meant we had an uninterrupted view of the mountains. You're going to get sick of me saying how gorgeous Napa is, but it really cannot be said too much.

Karin & Lori are master negotiators and managed to talk our server into one free tasting if we bought the two most expensive ones. So we got two of the most expensive and one of the next cheapest. And man, were these good sparkling wines. Prices weren't too crazy either - my favorite was $55 and that was from the most expensive tasting option.

Next up was Flora Springs, where Karin had a hook-up. She had made a reservation for a tasting & tour (free!) that ended up being with a foursome who also had a hook-up. Pair all of that with a kickass employee, Travis, heading all of this and we ended up spending almost 2 hours at the winery. Travis let us taste every wine available and gave seconds whenever someone asked. He also let us have the leftovers from some business lunch so we also got some free sandwiches and cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. It was so much fun.

But we spent so long at Flora that the rest of our day was a little cramped. We managed to squeeze in tastings at two other wineries - V. Sattui and Frank Family but it was the end of their days so we didn't get the personalized treatment the way we did at Mumm and Flora, even though Karin had hook-ups at both places. Oh well. The wine at Frank Family was really good - I'd like to go back when I wouldn't be so rushed. Plus they have these picnic tables set up outside their tasting room which would be great for lunch, though the trees were awesomely moody at dusk.

By this time, all of the tasting rooms were closed and we were all exhausted from running around all day. Time for dinner. Lori wanted Italian so we went to Don Giovanni where we sat outside. It had gotten chilly with the dark, but they had lots of heat lamps. And it was nice to be able to still be outside. We had some awesome homemade pasta, went home and watched a movie. This was why it was so great to have a cottage instead of a hotel room - Karin crashed first and Lori & I were able to stay up without disturbing her.

Sunday was another gorgeous day and our last in California. So sad. We took our time getting ready and closing up the house so I had a few minutes to read out on the front porch. Loved that they had grape vines lining the front path!

We went to Boon Fly Cafe for brunch. There was a bit of a wait, but they had free coffee out on the porch and we were able to walk over to the hotel's store that had all sorts of gourmet food and cute little gift items. As well as a large wine selection, natch.

To start, we got a half dozen of their signature donuts. Little two-bite cuties covered in cinnamon sugar and served piping hot. They were so good I almost forgot to take a picture. But I caught myself before they completely disappeared.

After brunch, we had a little bit of time before we had to get to the airport. We debated which cute little town to visit. We had already wandered around Napa on Saturday and drove through St. Helena so we decided on Yountville.

Unfortunately, Yountville didn't have a whole lot going on. A few shops, but nothing to write home about, at least not that we were able to find during the short time we had available. So then we walked up the street to look at the outside of the French Laundry

and saw their gardens across the street. A perfect way to waste some time. We wandered through the rows looking at all of the cool fruits and vegetables they had growing. Things we had never heard of or had only seen once or twice.

And then we went to see the chickens. Towards the back, they had a coop with maybe 10 chickens, all different types. They were so freaking cute with fluffy feet. Do all chickens have fluffy feet or just these? In this picture, there are three different colors going on, all with fluffy feet.

They were super friendly and came running over to us when we approached. We fed them pieces of grass and talked to them. Could've stayed for hours. I can so see why backyard chickens have become so popular.

But finally we noticed the time and headed out to the airport. Our quick little weekend was over and we were sad to see it go, but so happy that we went!

Friday in California

We woke up Friday to clouds and rain. Not a heavy rain, but an off-and-on spitting type of rain. My least favorite type. But we didn't let that dissuade us from our plans for the day!

Since we had skipped the good dinner option the day before, today we were determined to do better. For lunch, we headed over to somewhere for a food truck rally. We were a little concerned about the rain, but they had it under an overpass and even had a few tables set out. Score!

I went with a sandwich from the Bacon Bacon truck.

LGBT - lettuce, goat cheese, bacon and tomato. Mmmmmm.

 this picture is from Bacon Bacon, but mine looked exactly the same

Washed that down with a Mexican Coke made with real sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup. And I could really taste the difference. Even having it in a glass bottle made it that much better. It was delicious.

All that eating made us hungry so we headed over to the Mission for Tartine. We grabbed some coffee and assorted pastries for our trip up to Napa.

I went with a lemon tart, though I did wait until we were at our cottage to eat it since I was the driver. I wanted to savor the lemony goodness. It was well worth the wait. The coffee was fantastic as well (that I did drink on the way).

We hit some traffic, but still, the drive was super easy. Living outside of DC, I always feel lucky that I'm just 2-3 hours from the beach, but man, if I were only an hour outside of Napa? I'd definitely be the luckiest girl in the world.

Hotels in Napa Valley aren't well suited for three women. There are lots of bed and breakfasts, all with just one bed per room, and a few regular hotels that have double or queen beds. But we picked a weekend that was not only a holiday weekend, but also the Napa Film Festival. So we were out of luck when it came to hotels.

On to rentals. I checked out VRBO and VRConnection and the latter had an adorable little cottage on Cross Street that was available our weekend. Two bedrooms, a stocked kitchen, grill out back and a short walk to downtown Napa. All for less than what a hotel would be. Score!

As soon as we go to the house, Karin & Lori went off to find a winery before their tasting rooms closed while I took a nap. Then we went to Mustards for dinner and had a really delicious steak and root vegetable gratin and drank a bottle of this ridiculously awesome wine Karin & Lori had bought from Miner where they also got a coupon for free corkage at Mustards. Score again!

Thursday in California

Hi, I'm Debbie and I'm a bad blogger. And the only pictures I have are the ones I took on my phone.

But I wanted to jot down the places I went in San Francisco and Napa before I forget and in case anyone reading this is heading out there. Because really, I had a fantastic weekend. Mimicking my weekend exactly would not be a bad thing at all. We did a heck of a lot so I'm going to split this up by day.

Here's Thursday:

Lori and I flew out from Dulles together. Our flight left Dulles at 5am and arrived in San Francisco at 10am. Only benefit was seeing the sunrise through the clouds.

this was after the best colors had already faded, but it took me a while to realize I could take pictures while my phone was in airplane mode

Took the BART to the Hotel Nikko and dropped our bags off after talking ourselves into upgrading to a suite for a reduced price (three mid-30's girls + city-sized hotel rooms = bad news). Walked down Market St. to the Ferry Building, stopping to get our eyebrows threaded on the way. Pored over every stall before sliding up to the bar at the San Francisco Fish Company with a view of the Bay Bridge. Totally did not suck and neither did the Thai-style mussels that I had. Totally ridic.

And the artichoke we shared as an appetizer was also so good I forgot to take a picture until it was almost gone

Needing coffee + something sweet + a long walk, we headed up to North Beach. Walked and walked and walked and walked and finally found Caffe Roma. Cute, not crowded, working bathrooms. Had a slice of super dense cheesecake and a large coffee, which was such a perfect combination. And they had brown sugar to put in the coffee. Not Sugar in the Raw, but straight up light brown sugar. It was a fun combination.

Then we walked and walked and walked and walked through Chinatown trying to find a place that did scalp massages. Doesn't that sound like a dream after a cross-country flight & walking for hours? No luck on the scalp massage, but we saw some ridiculous vegetables while dodging the masses doing their daily shopping and walked down some interesting little alleys and side streets. And walked some more. Eventually we ended up about 6 blocks from our hotel and at Stages, an Aveda concept salon. They had 30 minute head, neck & shoulder massages available for $60. About twice what we were expecting to pay, but by this time our bodies ached even more so we were willing to pay. And our masseuse, Eric, was phenomenal. Like Lori wished she hadn't already named her first born son Eli so she could name him after Eric. Plus they were all just super nice and friendly and didn't care that we just walked in off the street.

By this time, Karin's flight from Chicago had arrived so we all met up in the hotel lobby. Our suite was quite swanky with a TV in the bathroom and everything.

Yup, I watched Jeopardy while curling my hair.

We scoured the internet looking for a place for dinner. Karin & Lori didn't feel like taking a cab so we didn't go to the pop-up restaurant and instead went to Trace in the W Hotel. Okay, this is one place where you should veer from my plan. I wasn't impressed. The food was very good and our waitress rocked, but it just had that whole hotel-restaurant vibe going on. Very posh combined with a whiff of sterile. We left kicking ourselves for not going to the pop-up. Oh well, next time. And there will definitely be a next time.

None of us could imagine being awake for a second more at this point (and Lori & I had been up since 3am Eastern) so we hopped in a cab and went straight to the hotel.

Side note - if you upgrade to a suite, you can convince the front desk to send up a cot for free. So everyone can have her own bed. Man, we are getting old.

More adventures to come!

California's been good to me...

Just got back from a long weekend in California - one night in San Francisco and two in Napa. You'd think that flying 3,000 miles for just three nights would be a bit ridiculous, but it's not. I've now done this trip four times and always feel the long flight is 100% worth it.

I'll have more details on my actual trip once I collect the very few pictures from our various cameras (I went with two girlfriends) and look up the actual names of the various places we went (while "the coffee shop in North Beach with the coffee roaster in the front window" worked for a native San Franciscan, I'm assuming the rest of you would like to have at least the street name if not the name of the cafe itself).

In the meantime, I thought I'd give you some of the music that was in my head all weekend. The main one was Tom Petty's "California" (hence the title of this post), but I couldn't find it online. So here's "Walls," also from the "She's The One" soundtrack (all Petty and fan-freaking-tastic) and was also in "Larry Crowne," which I watched on the flight home. Here's a link to the official video http://www.tompetty.com/video and then here's another lovely version with lyrics: