Napa and the Redwood Forest

Napa was beautiful, and I drank more than my fair share of wine in the three days we were there! The first day, I bought this Downtown Wine Tasting Card (which I highly recommend) that gets you free samples at twelve different tasting rooms, and spent the day reading and tasting wine at three of the tasting rooms (Uncorked, Taste and Mason Cellars). That evening was the Chef’s Market, a weekly block party with music, food, drinks, booths of stuff for sale and chef demonstrations. I was pretty excited about the latter of those, but the “chef demonstration” was literally a guy making hummus in a food processor. I was less than thrilled. :( Had an AMAZING chile releno at Bistro Sabor with Sam’s uncle Bill and his wife, Lauren, and when Sam finally could break away from work, we checked off another wine tasting at 1313 Main.

The next day we had lunch and possibly the best sangria I’ve ever had at Pica Pica, which was one of the restaurants in the much smaller Napa version of San Francisco’s Ferry Building. I found out that celebrity chef Morimoto had a restaurant in town, and decided that the cheapest way to try it out was to dine at happy hour, and I could not have enjoyed it more! We had a “pizza” which was literally covered solid in raw tuna, anchovy aioli, baby cilantro and jalapenos, a “Mori Cristo,” which was a yellowtail sandwich fried in tempura batter, and Hamachi Tacos, which were encased in tempura “taco shells.” It was IN. SANE. I have not freaked out that much since eating at Abacus in Dallas. Or at possibly since the last time I was in New Orleans! 

We crossed a few more tastings off the list at Ca’ Momi, Silo’s and the Vintage Sweet Shoppe, where I bought this amazing lemon chocolate. We finished off the day watching Shakespeare in the Park’s Twelfth Night, which, and this will only be appreciated by my good friend Lindsey, I was able to understand mostly from watching She’s the Man so many times. Yes, I admitted it on the internet, do your worst.

On Saturday, Sam finally had the day off so we were able to hop in the car, drive down the beautiful valley and do some wine tastings at the actual vineyards. It was awesome! Our favorite wine was at the Chimney Rock Winery, their 2008 Terlato Galaxy, which was $85/bottle. Maybe one day! After three vineyards, we decided we’d had enough of paying for expensive tastings and headed back downtown to finish off our Tasting Card for the trip at Bounty Hunter, Stonehedge and Napa General Store, which in addition to our free tasting of two wines, we cashed in a FourSquare deal for two for one tastings, and tried 10 more! We came back (a little tipsy) to a delicious dinner under the stars on Bill and Lauren’s patio, as we had gotten to do several times on this visit. They are such awesome people!

From there we headed to Redwood country, where we’ve been parked in front of a river for a few days, Sam working, me crafting, and counting down to actually getting to hike around in the forest. (Bears and mountain lions live in these woods, so they recommend hiking with friends, so I didn’t feel comfortable going in until Sam was able to come with me.) Let me just say… it’s amazing how many different kinds of beautiful things there are out there! The Redwoods are so incredible… it’s like a jungle, right here in the states. The state has managed to keep the trails pristine while leaving everything around the trail virtually undisturbed. And the trees, of course… we couldn’t help but dream of the epic tree houses such enormity could contain! These pictures don’t do it justice, but I’ll put them on here anyway. If you look closely at the first picture, you can see the tiny people!

We’re heading to Eugene today to finish up final details of our (my) costumes and head to FaerieWorlds tomorrow! I can’t wait!! Here is a preview of my two latest craft projects, and I'm almost done with a new pair of Moon Faerie wrap pants, which I can finish up as soon as I buy a new sewing machine.

 

Cognitive Awakening

Cognitive Awakening was awesome! It did not, however, go as planned. I was super excited about participating in all the yoga and meditating and workshops and such, but it was really freaking hot and we ended up meeting some awesome people and making a camp we just didn’t want to leave. In the end I decided making new friends was a perfectly reasonable compromise. Kind of a cool “coincidence” happened right at the beginning… we ended up camping next to and ultimately creating an awesome camp with a couple we met at the Bounce a few weeks ago! Our new friend Christie was there with her parents and their RV, and we spent the scorching days hanging out with Christie, her boyfriend Travis, her parents Molly and Dave, and a constant stream of their friends from Tahoe, including the besties, Samantha and Michael. At night we walked at least a hundred miles to the main stage and rocked out (excuse me, RAGED) to some awesome music. Christie, or Crispylicious, played a super dance-worthy set out in the sun on Sunday, and brought the lounging crowd to their feet despite the blazing temperatures. Michael Heltebrake is also an amazing artist who we’ve been admiring for several festivals and finally got to meet! Check out his work here: www.michaelheltebrake.com – seriously, this guy is phenomenal.

“Bee”- This Bee, the ultimate giver of life, flying down through the clouds to pollinate our existence.  He is unaware of thetrap he is flying into.  Acrylic on stretched canvas.    8’ tall by 6’ wide

  

Overall, a great weekend! Afterwards we headed to Petaluma to see my friend Richie, who ended up having to work the whole time to get ready for a 3:00 am flight. We got to check out Taps, a trendy beer bar with fantastic cheese fries, and had dinner at Dempsey’s Brewery. The next day I had a great time getting to know his super cute daughter Pascale, who took me to Della Fattoria for a delicious Italian lunch. Finished the day off thrift shopping around town and headed to
Napa, CA.

We just left Napa yesterday, and really had a great time! We parked in the driveway of Sam’s Uncle Bill and his wife Lauren, who are the sweetest people, and had several days of wine country adventures. More to come!

The Celestine Prophesy

I just finished re-reading the Celestine Prophecy. For those who haven’t read it, it’s a novel which describes a manuscript containing nine “insights” into human consciousness and how we’re starting a new phase of evolution in which we actively participate, and describes the future of the world if we manage to become conscious. It was given to me years ago (by Lindsey, probably), and it was completely mind blowing. Everything in it felt so true, from his description of our growing restlessness as a race, our awareness of the “coincidences” that have the power to guide our lives, and our ability to begin to see and affect the energy around us. I wanted to see if it meant anything different to me if I read it where I am now, and it was funny how much this time around it felt so rudimentary. I spent most of the book thinking yep, yep, that’s what I’ve been believing for years! This time, however, I was really impacted by the last few insights, which describe a drastically different way of interacting with people, namely, pouring positive energy into them rather than feeling the need to steal it. It’s love, in concept and in practice, and it seriously has the power to change everything! If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. If you have read it, and you agree with it, read The Power of Now. Seriously, do it. That’s the book that’s most recently changed my life, and I should probably write about that one day as well.

P.S. If you do go out and buy the Celestine Prophecy (there's a thousand copies at Half Price Books), there's a rule that you can't keep it. You'll know who you're supposed to give it to. :)

On that note, we’re heading to a festival called Cognitive Awakening today, and I’m freakin’ excited! We’ve been to two festivals since Lightning in a Bottle that were fun, but not at all spiritual. This one has yoga and workshops and speakers all day. I’m ready to use it as a practice area to seek out and pay attention to coincidences and try to be fully conscious the entire time. I have no doubt I will not be disappointed with the quality of interactions and experiences there. The true accomplishment will be when I can go to the festivals that are not attracting the spiritual type and still remain conscious.

San Francisco, Part Deux

Last Monday we got to see Mates of State at the Independent, which was awesome! They always put on such a fun show, and the venue was cool. 

On Tuesday we went to Fisherman’s Warf, which is the super touristy part of SF, but I wanted Sam to at least see it. It is quite the spectacle, and we had a mediocre, overpriced seafood dinner, but we got to watch the sun set over the ocean, so I still call it a pretty good evening.

Sam had the 4^th of July off, so I had a whole day planned of outdoorsy things I still hadn’t done in the city. We started out at Golden Gate Park, where we spent most of our time in the Botanical Gardens, which are impressive. We probably wandered around and explored the meandering forest full of various regional plants for three hours. 

From there we walked all the way to the beach and ate at the Cliffhouse, which my dad has been telling me for years is his favorite restaurant in the city, but I had never made it before. I really enjoyed it! Plenty of windows overlooking the ocean and waves crashing on rocks. Not a bad way to enjoy a sangria and some super fresh calamari! Afterwards we hiked the coastal Land’s End Trail, from which you get an amazing view of the ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge, which was just breathtaking! The evening did not end up as planned… we tried to hike the rest of the way to where we were going to watch the fireworks, which said three miles, but we did not anticipate that 1) a lot of the trail was in sand, and 2) Google had some trail listed that was not actually there. We ended up exhausting ourselves and not even coming close to making it to the fireworks. When we finally found a bus station to get home, they were running ridiculously late because of the firework traffic, and we ended up sitting in the freezing cold for at least an hour waiting for it. It was an incredible day, though, so I’m going to try to mostly remember that part. :)

On Thursday, the Lotus Moons were playing in Oakland, and since everyone had been raving so much the weekend before, we decided to check it out. We bar hopped a bit before the show to get a feel for the area, and we were completely blown away! Everyone was so incredibly nice, and all three of the places we checked out, Bar 335, Somar Bar and Lounge and Café Van Kleef, were all totally places I would hang out! We also were told about a taco place, Xolo that had these mushroom tacos that were to die for! (Sam had pork ones that were apparently also fantastic.) So at this point, Sam is already leaning towards maybe living here rather than in the city. Oakland has much more normal rent prices, and is a 10-15 minute train ride into the city, which coming from Dallas, is nothing. I was completely resistant because of how much I want to live in the Haight, but… well, it keeps coming up. We keep meeting cool people in other places who are from Oakland, love it, and say things like, “you look like you could be an Oakland girl.” It’s honestly starting to get weird, and as I’m trying to be a more conscious person, I feel like I have to consider that maybe it’s where we’re supposed to live. We’ll see.

So our last night in the city we got tickets to Blind Pilot at the Fillmore, which was incredible! For one, they were sold out, and I managed to get tickets off of Craigslist for $20 rather than $32, and the guy even met us at the show. Sam and I have very different musical tastes, but for some reason we both just love Blind Pilot – they’re kind of “our band,” and one of their songs, Three Rounds and a Sound, is kind of… “our song.” Whatever, it’s cheesy. After an awesome show, at the very, very end, the band got down into the crowd, actually convinced everyone to shut up and put their cell phones away, and played an acoustic version of Three Rounds with the whole crowd singing along just loud enough to still hear the singer. *swoon* It was a perfect end to a perfect stay in SF!

We finished off the week at the Fractalize festival, which was less my style of music than the others, plus it was its first year so it was super small and I'm pretty sure we were the oldest people there. We were pretty lame the first evening, but Sunday was awesome! We actually made some really cool connections while floating around on the river and dancing to sub-par electronic music. :)

San Francisco, Part 1

Let me just say, for those who don’t know me as well as others, that San Francisco is by far my favorite city in the states. To be fair, I haven’t been to Portland or Seattle yet, but I fell in love with SF my very first day there, years ago, when a colleague directed me towards Haight Ashbury, the area where the hippies hung out in the 60’s. The neighborhood is not swarming with hippies anymore, but there’s a fantastic charm to it that has somehow managed to survive the gentrification of the rest of the country. Walking down Haight Street, you’ll encounter a plethora of organic cafés, quirky dive bars, independent record stores, head shops and vintage clothes stores. It’s not uncommon to walk by a shop smelling of patchouli or nag champa. The trendy hang out here, but also the grungy and homeless. I just love it.

There are other parts of the city that I love as well, some I discovered on that first trip (North Beach) and some I just discovered on this trip (Oakland), and I have yet to be swayed to want to live here when I’m done with my highway adventures. This trip was by far the most amount of time I’ve spent in SF without being on a trial and having to work all day every day. The first week I wanted to do some familiar things, hit up my favorite places that I haven’t been to in so long. 

We partied in the Mission, which despite everyone telling me it is the “coolest” place to hang out in the city, I just don’t get it. The bars are just ok, I haven’t had any amazing food there, and the people are all stuck up. I keep going back because I’m determined to see what everyone else sees, but it looks like there’s a good chance I’m just not cool enough for the Mission. I know, it seems hard to believe! 

In North Beach, the Italian district of SF, we ate a meal at Café BaoNecci that couldn’t help but take us back to Lucca, a quaint little walled city in Italy that Sam and I just fell in love with. We went to my favorite bars in SF, 15 Romolo, which is tucked away in an alley and makes some of the best creative cocktails I’ve ever had, and Vesuvio, where Jack Kerouac and his beatnik buddies used to hang out.

On Sunday we checked out the Treasure Island Flea Market. Despite its name, the island is pretty crappy, but the flea market is awesome! Besides a vast array of treasures waiting to be discovered, they had about ten food trucks to choose from in a grassy field with an amazing view of the SF skyline. One of the coolest arts we saw at Burning Man, an enormous woman made out of wire, apparently lives here when not at the burn. And Sam bought me two more additions to my festie wardrobe – a faerie skirt made out of scraps of old ties and a black velvet cloak. Win! Had Singapore noodles at my favorite Chinese food place, R&G Lounge, and called it a weekend.

That Tuesday night my good friend and colleague, Craig Veconi, showed us some of the more inconspicuous bars in the Haight, which was apparently his old stomping grounds. We went to Magnolia, Zam Zam, Kezar, which might have been my favorite, and Finnegan’s, an Irish Pub. All served to further convince me that this is probably the neighborhood I want to live in.

I’m sure other stuff happened that week, but since I apparently didn’t check into anything on FourSquare, I can’t remember what we did until that next Saturday, which kicked off probably the best week I’ve had since we’ve been on the road. That particular Saturday, without going into every detail, we attempted to attend this show that didn’t work out, met this person, then that person, followed the lead of anyone who had a good idea of where to go, and ended up at this tiny dive bar/venue, where this guys’ friends’ band was playing. They were called the Lotus Moons, and were so much better than I was expecting! Imagine the Beatles at the beginning, if you were to see them raw in a grungy dive bar. That’s pretty much what they sounded like. After the show we ended up spending the whole night making friends with a fantastic crew of artists and musicians who could not start raving about their home in Oakland, the town that’s just across the Bay Bridge from SF. The idea of possibly living in Oakland has become a whole thing, which I will elaborate on tomorrow. 

Sorry for the long-winded-ness... some of this is just for me to remember places I've been for next time, or for the next time you come here. I also wish I had pictures, but my iPhone camera sucks. Until next time!

The Lake, the Cruz and the Big Bounce

To be fair, I’ve been in San Francisco for two weeks, with plenty to use up my time besides blogging. I just arrived in Oroville, CA, which is kind of deserty and lame… there are some pretty things outside, but it’s friggin’ hot. So here I am at the computer, and I think I may actually be able to get caught up this week. So, let’s see, we left off in Yosemite…

We spent a few days at Lake Tahoe in northern California to visit a friend who we ended up not visiting at all. Tahoe is seriously beautiful… I guess it’s a huge ski destination, but since it’s a lake, there is plenty to do during the summer as well. The weather was beautiful, and the day I intended to go hiking, I ended up reading on a secluded beach instead.

There were also a few restaurants worth mentioning: Blue Angel Café was well-rounded café with lots vegetarian options, which is become increasingly awesome to me. I had a really good amber ale (the name escapes me) and some delicious ravioli with just the right amount of sauce. They also will take your freshly caught fish from the lake and cook it up for you! Not that I was catching fish. But still. We ended up at MacDuff’s Pub three times during the four days we were there. Once because of the awesome reviews of good beer, and then twice when we were looking for a place to watch the basketball game and remembered the giant HDTV behind the bar, for which we got there early and had perfect seats. :) Super fun vibe, great bartenders, great patrons. Keys Café was a great little coffee shop that had pumpkin lattes in the summer, good music and a killer breakfast sandwich. Sprouts Café is... well, I'm running out of adjectives. Let's just say it's one of the better meals I've had on this trip. It’s almost all vegetarian… mostly bowls of beans and rice and veggies, which sounds boring, but is definitely not. I had this tostada that I’m going to list off the ingredients to so you understand what I’m saying. Ready? Sprouted whole wheat tortilla, brown rice, beans, spinach, red cabbage, carrots, tomato, red onion, melted monterey jack cheese, green chili, fresh garlic, green onions, salsa and guacamole. RIGHT?!  They also have a full menu of delicious fresh juices, which I really miss after having to give up my juicer on the road. I have never felt that good after a meal! 

Our next stop was the second in our festie lineup: The Big Bounce. While LIB had about 15,000 people, the Bounce only had 1,000, which was a record number for this particular venue. The festival was held in “Belden Town,” which I guess used to be a town, but is now just really used for stuff like this. It’s right along a river that has a beach with a stage, and there’s an actual little saloon and general store and restaurant. I was expecting a smaller LIB (some spiritual aspect to it), which turned out not to really be there, but instead we laid around on the beach and in tubes in the river listening to the DJs and electronic music producers all day. And again, dancing at night. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

On our way to San Francisco we decided to first check out Santa Cruz, which everyone told us was a super hippie town. Somehow all we ended up seeing there was downtown, but that area is pretty cool… lots of shops and cafes and the like. Had an amazing veggie burger at a place called Surfrider Café where we watched the NBA Finals and since I wasn’t feeling that great, called it an evening finally watching MIB 3, which was awesome!! The next day I got to check out the weekly farmer’s market, we ate at this fantastic vegan place called Café Gratitude and I had my very first fro-yo that I can remember! Also tried I Love Sushi, which had a veggie sushi roll with tempura-fried yam in it that was surprisingly satisfying. We rounded out the trip drinking margaritas at the original Margaritaville overlooking the ocean while watching LeBron take it home!

I think that's enough for today. Tomorrow: San Francisco festivities!

Las Vegas and Yosemite

We’ve done a whole lot of actual traveling in the last few weeks, and have been fortunate to make it to some really incredible places. After Lightning in a Bottle we were able to meet up with one of Sam’s college friends who was getting married in Las Vegas. We found the perfect RV park… nothing special about the park itself, but it was about a block from Fremont Street. If you haven’t been to downtown Las Vegas, check it out! It’s kind of like… old school 80’s glam with cheap tables. They have these awesome free concerts with people like “the drummer from Motley Crew.” It’s like the Who’s Who of Where Are They Now! We were able to gamble for cheap on our side of town, and go live it up wedding-style on the strip, which included a poolside cabana on the roof of Planet Hollywood. 

On our last night we had an awesome date night at the Stratosphere, the tallest building in Vegas. Sam rode all of the crazy rides at the top as much as he could before our dinner at Top of the World restaurant, which slowly rotates for a full 360 view of Las Vegas during your meal. We finished the night off watching Bite, a sexy rock-n-roll themed vampire show. It was awesome! No Cirque du Soilel, mind you, but super fun just the same.

After going to LIB, I finally jumped on the Festie bandwagon with Sam, so we decided to skip southern California entirely and head north to where the festivals (and better weather) are. So our next stop heading north was Yosemite National Park. We only had one day to spend there, which is not nearly enough! It’s kind of like going to a nature version of Disney World, but we found with a little climbing, you can get away from most of the crowds. We saw some beautiful things, but our favorite time was bouldering up the side of Lower Yosemite Falls. We ended up about halfway up the height of the falls, far away from almost everyone, with stunning views of the rocks over the trees and so close it felt like we could reach out and touch the falls. It was one of the best days I’ve ever had with Sam. These photos do not do the experience justice!

 Up next: Lake Tahoe and the Bounce!