Sorry I’ve been a little absent October was crazy busy. I started out October on a girls wine weekend in Sonoma. The next weekend was the house upgrade Phase 1 with the weekend after that being in LA. Then there was 1st birthday excitement for my nephew the following weekend. This is the first weekend I have had downtime since Sept.
Recap!
Sonoma
Girls weekend started early Friday morning with a 7 AM flight. 5 of us flew out to San Fran, with the 6th meeting us there. Upon arrival we found our rental vehicle located our 6th in the crew and off we went to head north to wine country. We did stop by the viewing point for the Golden Gate Bridge and took a few shots and a few selfies along the way. We quickly arrived in Sonoma and our hunger got the better of us so we found a spot to grab a bite to eat and start the weekend out right. Even though we were in wine country we were in a Mexican Restaurant, which was phenomenal, so instead of starting out with wine we all enjoyed a few margaritas.
Afterwards we made a few stops around the square at the local wine tasting rooms of Pengaloss and Kamen. Wines were definitely good and had us all in good spirits as we made our way to the grocery store to stock up for the weekend before we checked into our rental. We did have a few chuckles that we should not be buying groceries while buzzed and our cart looked it. More wine, some salty snacks, chocolate, and cheese.
Our rental was perfect. It had 4 bedrooms, 3 on the main floor and one upstairs in the office. I had taken up in the room upstairs and the other ladies camped out in the rooms downstairs. The outside patio was perfect and made for a good spot to hand out and enjoy more wine. We had dinner at the Sonoma Grille the first night and beyond a little hit and miss with the waitstaff being inattentive it was a good meal.
Saturday started early for most of us just due to our internal clocks. Cecilia’s sister Dani was right at it making breakfast for the crew, out comes a bottle of bubbly and the day had started. We started out tasting at Cline, then went across the street to Jacuzzi. There the wine purveyor had taken a shine to me and was flirting away. Unfortunately on the way out, we opened the trunk up to add some of the purchased wine and a bottle that was procured at Cline rolled out and smashed on the ground. Thankfully a run back to Cline got us a replacement bottle due to the accident. We did one final stop at Viansa Wines and we bought a few bottles ordered a pizza and enjoyed their patio. We all felt a little wine tasting out and decided to head back to our place to have a bottle and snacks and maybe a little rest time before dinner.
We had a great time catching up outside. We did have an unexpected visitor join in on the fun. We spotted this large spider handing from the overhead lights the night before but figured he would just enjoy the conversation and stay put. I guess conversation was too enticing that afternoon that he decided he needed to join in. He perched himself right in Krystal’s hair, to remind him this was a girls weekend, boys not allowed, I encouraged him onto my hand and helped him go back to his home. Ew! I had a spider crawling on me and I willingly let him go there. Let’s just say I needed to wash my hands immediately and the sensation of him crawling on me lingered a little bit.
Soon enough it was time to head to dinner. We selected a nicer restaurant out as many of us don’t have a lot of opportunity to go out so we thought we should splurge. We picked Sante at the Fairmont Mission Inn. I picked the spicy margarita and phew was that spicy, almost too much so it blew out most of my taste buds so I sipped it gingerly so I could enjoy dinner.
The next morning started er er early! Krystal needed to be at the Oakland Airport for a 10 AM flight so as soon as we came we were leaving Sonoma. After dropping her off we went back over the Golden Gate Bridge to go explore Muir Woods. After all of the winding roads, and a few motion sickness pills popped between a few of us we had arrived. Like most popular hiking places you need to get there first thing in the morning. It was a beautiful day in the Bay Area and we were not the only ones with the idea to visit the woods and after driving many, many miles, passing many of the overflow lots we decided to give up the idea to hike in the woods and head into the city to explore a little bit before we were to run back to the airport.
We ended up going to Golden Gate Park, there was a Bluegrass Festival going on so there was quite a bit of a crowd. The most amusing moment was with a band of hippies having a heated exchange with a mounted police officer. We couldn’t quite figure out what was going on as they were saying don’t touch the horse with my dog. Wha?
We continued on and had a bite to eat at a Thai place but none to soon it was time to head to the airport where we all grabbed one last cocktail at the bar before it was time to head back to MN.
LA
Fast forward 2 weekends I was heading to LA to visit with my friends for Emily’s birthday! Unfortunately earlier in the week her husband, Nick, was in a car accident and totaled his car. He was okay, just banged up and bruised so we continued forth with the original plans but kept the weekend low key. I landed in LA around 530 PM, right at peak rush hour time. Yay! I ended up taking side roads the entire 20+ mile drive out to Pasadena area to where they live.
Oh LA, did I tell you I lived in the LA area for about 3 years? I did, that’s a topic for another day, but I always enjoy my trips back to visit with my friends and enjoy the weather. So LA has its own brand of crazy and sure enough it welcomed me back in open arms and within 15 minutes on the road crazy knocked on my door. Seriously, crazy knocked on my door. So I’m driving down the road, hit a stoplight, I’m in the left hand turn lane with about 2 lanes to the right of me for those going straight). I looked to my left and saw a woman standing on the side walk (heavier set older woman with multi-colored large out of control hair wearing a sports bra and pants), I glanced over just for a second but in that second we locked eyes. So she crosses into the road goes across to the passenger side door and starts knocking on the door and saying something, which I could not hear. The people in the cars to the right of me looked absolutely petrified. So since she caught on I wasn’t playing the matching crazy with crazy game so wandered off, just in time for the light to turn green so I could move on my way and not be concerned I would hit her or she would do anything else out of the norm.
A long time later I arrived at Nick and Emily’s. We decided to go out to eat and hit our local Mexican place that is in walking distance (one of the things I love about LA so many places in walking distance!). They were all decked out for Halloween which was a week away so we had a few skeletons and a creepy Ape mask on the cactus. We sat up and caught up a bit and admired Bruce, the bruise Nick was sporting from his accident.
So Emily’s birthday was actually the next weekend but she was in a wedding the next day so we were celebrating a weekend early. We did have some fun remembering the past birthday’s as we usually do some sort of costume/dress up. One year it was a 70’s themed party, last year we went to a Halloween party and the week before was the invention of the SNL character David S Pumpkins so we quickly jumped on that bandwagon and became “Part of It”. This year since we were celebrating early we had planned for a non-costumed event (for us at least).
We started the day at Just Float, where you are in a sensory deprivation tank full of salt water where you float for an hour in your own private pool. It was interesting to try and definitely made everyone’s body feel a bit looser but wasn’t really our cup of tea. After that we hung out until our evening event where we went to see Wicked Lit, held at the mausoleum in Altadena. This was essentially 3 one acts held across the grounds of the mausoleum where the characters lead you around and told their tales, always returning you to the main grounds to learn more about the characters who were stuck in Lilydale. The first one was a little Indiana Jonesque and lead us through the Mausoleum looking for treasures while avoiding the hauntings. The second was okay and that is where Nick petered out a bit and he went back to snooze in the car, the third act had us crossing over into the graveyard. It was interesting to be going through the graveyard late at night around Halloween. I was stuck between enjoying myself and wanting to be respectful of the place but the actors themselves were helping with keeping the people on the main paths to not overstep our bounds. It was a fun event, albeit a bit cold by the time we got back. I know Minnesotan girl complaining about the night air in LA, but it gets chilly!
The next morning all we had time for was a brunch and some HGTV moments with the Property Brothers (Yum!) before I needed to sneak back to the airport. It was a quick trip but its always good to see my people, especially for their birthday’s.