I can't believe it's already Thursday and I'm just now sitting down to post about the fantastic time I had in California with some of my very favorite people last week. Here's a quick (though somehow incredibly long) run-down including the good, the bad, and lots of awesome food and wine...
Jenn had arrived at Steph's on Friday night as well, and we got up bright and early on Saturday to start our road trip up to Windsor, CA. Things went well until we approached Gilroy, at which point an accident forced us to sit in a long line of cars, traveling 3 miles in just over 90 minutes. Awesome. It's one of those things where it could have made us cranky, but we were so happy to see each other again that we actually had a great time laughing and talking in the car (aided by the infamous fruit-punch-face incident...). When we got up to Windsor, our friend Mel joined us and it felt just like old times. We decided the best option for dinner would be a Steph-and-Emily classic: Grilled Rib-eye Steaks with Roquefort-Stuffed Mushrooms.
(That's the sauce in the juice glass... Maybe we should pack fancy dishes next time?) Add in a few bottles of wine and some high-quality patio-sitting, and it was the perfect way to start our time together. We couldn't do much wine tasting on Sunday, due to the fact that I had to spend the morning in a sports bar. Somehow we ended up in a Steelers bar in Santa Rosa to watch the Bucs-Steelers game (which I don't want to talk about), so I got to "enjoy" smack-talking from a large number of Steelers fans. Awesome. We headed out to a couple wineries after the game, and had a nice time chatting up the tasting room staff in the Healdsburg area wineries while enjoying some tasty wines.
On Sunday night we decided to go with another Steph-and-Emily Classic: Grilled Chicken, Avocado, and Tomato Wraps. This is truly one of the best sandwiches on the planet, and I strongly encourage you all to give it a try someday.
A couple more stops to do some tasting, and we headed back to get dolled up for dinner. It was such a spectacular evening that it warranted its own post, so I won't recap it again here... except to say "Wow..."
Mel had to head back to work on Tuesday like a loser, while Jenn, Steph, and I drove down to Napa to taste at a few smaller wineries there that Steph and I like. One of our favorites is Benessere, where we found that we had stumbled upon the first day of their Pinot Grigio crush. The awesome lady in the tasting room took us back to see the action, which was pretty cool...
... and tasty, tasty pitas.
Wednesday marked our departure from Windsor. We had originally planned to head down to Paso Robles (where we would be spending the night) early enough to do some tasting, but we somehow didn't get the car packed up until noon, so we decided to just be spontaneous and hit Bonny Doon on the way to Paso Robles instead. We ended up spending almost 3 hours in Santa Cruz (between Bonny Doon and grabbing some lunch), so we were exhausted from a longer-than-anticipated day of travel by the time we got to the motel, and the creepy guys standing outside ogling every passing female didn't help our mood. Rather than run out to the store for groceries for a complicated meal, we heated up leftover lamb and pitas from the night before on our camp grill, and made the evening a little fancier with fresh peaches and vanilla ice cream served with the ridiculously-good shortbread cookies that the French Laundry sends home with you after the meal. Not bad for dinner in a cheap motel.
Jenn needed to be at work by Thursday night, so we decided to forgo tasting in Paso Robles on Thursday, instead making a quick stop at Claiborne and Churchill on our way back to Santa Barbara. It's a winery that Steph and I both love, and the visit was made even better by the fact that the young man working the tasting room was extremely adorable and fun to talk to. We parted ways with Jenn that afternoon and went back to Steph's house to wait for my wheelchair battery. When it arrived, I transferred the wires (including this little grey plastic thingy that they were attached to at one side) from the broken pair of batteries over to the new set, hooked it up... and the chair still wouldn't turn on. Awesome. I was pretty darned stressed at this point, but there was nothing to be done about it at the time, so I found a nearby wheelchair repair place where we could take the chair in the morning and we decided to smother my stress with dinner from one of my favorite Santa Barbara establishments: Super Cucas. We got "the usual," which includes a Carnitas Super Plate for me,
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