HWY 1/San Francisco/Napa Valley

Five days on the road with the girlfriend.

Day 1:

LA to Santa Barbara
Stopped at Santa Barbara Courthouse and the old Mission. Both interesting architectural locations. Can't say which one I liked more, but worth the visit. Also the only courthouse I've been to that did not require I go through a metal detector.

Santa Barbara to Morro Bay

Morro Rock is much bigger than I thought it would be. It also seems unnatural somehow. Like it isn't a rock, but a giant egg of some sort. Ate lunch at the Flying Dutchman. Delicious and recommended.

Morro Bay to Pfeiffer Beach

The most interesting natural location of the trip. There was purple sand and wave hollowed rock formations. Took very cool pictures here. Check Flickr. The drive to Pfeiffer was also beautiful, and fun. Lots of cliffhugging turns and cornering.

Pfeiffer Beach to Monterey/Pacific Grove

Ate a gourmet dinner prepared by a world famous chef, then went to sleep.

Day 2

Monterey/Pacific Grove

Visited Lover's Point. The weather was extremely foggy, so was disappointed at photos. Ate at Red House Cafe. Great service, great food. Very highly recommended. Got the Portobello Mushroom Sandwich. Visited Point Pinos Lighthouse(meh) and the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. So many butterflies, but was too cold for them to be fluttering about. Did you know that if temps are under 55 degrees Fahrenheit, butterflies literally can't fly anymore?

Pacific Grove to San Francisco

Weather cleared up about 1500hrs. Saw an amazing wall of clouds spilling over the mountains to the left of FWY 280. Missed two vista points on the freeway, so did not get any photos. Probably the low point of the trip, that. Made it SuburbanDweller's and let ourselves in. Had a spare key from last time in the car. Lucky that, came in handy later. Ate at German restaurant Suppenküche. Everything is good, try the bratwurst and the lamb chops. And the beer.

Day 3

San Francisco

Ate at Brenda's in the morning, as planned. Been dreaming of the goddamn crawfish beignets for a long time. Went back to Corona Heights for a moment, then to The Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption. Took a shot of the stained glass ceiling that I didn't get last time I was here. Walked over to Japantown, then drove to the Palace of Fine Arts cause the other half wanted to go. Ate at some Mayan place for dinner. Was OK.

Day 4

SuburbanDweller had a gig at the Google campus over the weekend, so he took off after dinner Friday night, leaving his place to our tender care. Lucky I had that key, eh?

San Francisco to Napa

1 hour drive. Stopped by the Oxbow Public Market. Was ok. Ate at Bistro Jeanty's. For the price, was probably the cheapest French meal I've ever had. Also Michelin rated 1 star. Was good, but not the best meal of the trip. Visited the Rubicon Estates, but didn't taste. Saw a bunch of Coppola stuff, an Oscar and an Emmy. Went to the Mondavi vineyard and took the tour. The guide, a old gentleman named Richard, was the best tour guide I ever had. Affable and informative, he seemed to take a real joy in his job. Wine was also excellent, as far as my undeveloped palate could tell.

Roared off to make it to the Hess Collection before it closed taking some back roads. Hess Collection located away from other vineyards, higher up in the mountains. By the time we got there, the museum was already closed(1700hrs), but the tasting room and gift shop was open for another half hour. Wine was enjoyable, and purchased some awesome wine bottle spout and stopper combos. Have not yet been able to locate similar product online yet.

Returned to San Fran and ate at some super hipster joint called Outerlands. Waited a goddamn hour. portions were small but the triambel squash soup was good. Also quite expensive. Would probably not go again.

Day 5

Had an interesting laundry issue in the morning. Went to the market and bought fruit to set up a nice basket for SuburbanDweller as thanks. Plus, he needed fruit; the freshest thing in his fridge was a bag of onions.

San Francisco to LA

Ate at the Pluto's in San Jose for lunch. Meh.

Ate at the Flying Pig in LA for dinner. Yum.

1100 miles from beginning till end.

Was fun. Back to work.

DineLA and Rune Factory

This year's DineLA restaurant was Maison Akira, a French restaurant with a Japanese chef.

This is a unexpectedly good thing. For an even $100USD, I got a three course meal (with wine pairings) consisting of

Grilled Duck Foie Gras - on Daikon Confit in a Portwine Truffle Sauce

Maple Leaf Duck Breast Rôti - Sauce Aigre-Doux with Potato Galette and Legumes de Saison


Pineapple Rôti and Pistachio Wrapped in Phyllo - with Rhum Raisin Ice Cream

The true winner of the night, however, was the Grilled Chilean Sea Bass(or Patagonia Toothfish, as I like to call it). Soft and melt in your mouth tasty.

That's not to say the rest of it was bad, it was all wonderful, but the fish put it all to shame.

Maison Akira also offers a $160USD ten-course meal with wine pairings. I will be sure to come back and try it some day.


The big time-occupier of the week is the new Harvest Moon/Rune Factory game RF:Tides of Destiny. Having played just about every Harvest Moon there is, there was no way I was going to let this game pass me by. And it's fun as hell, to me anyway. Others might have a different opinion. Die-hard Harvest Moon fans would be annoyed to note that farming is different in this game as compared to even previous Rune Factory games. This game is more centered on crafting and fighting than one would expect from any Harvest Moon.

I find I don't have a problem with this. Actually, it's saved me lots of repetitive plant-watering, and for that I am thankful.

Will be gone from Wednesday to Sunday. I'm taking HWY 1 up to San Francisco and Napa for a 5 day photo-venture. Well, it's really only 4 days, the last one is spent purely on driving back home.

Hoping all goes well.

Fleas

This week's main theme is fleas. I've 33 flea bites on various parts of my body.

I'm 90% certain I picked them up on the job. The current site had some rather large dogs(and rather large piles of dog poo) present at some point in the recent past, and they left us(the workers) some presents.

I also climbed a tree and took down a pretty shaky tree house.

Visited the new Mother's Market in Brea. Did not like. Too rich for me.

And that's not easy.

It was also too green.

The butcher shop next to it was more my taste, with exotic meats and tasty looking cuts, but also too rich for me.

Had a $0.10USD 6-wine tasting at Total Wine & More. Best Value of the Year.


Discovered that Popeyes Chicken was closing down all over the place, and drove some 30 miles to hunt one down. Was crushed to discover it had been replaced by a Church's Chicken, only to praise the heavens when we found it a block away.

Visited Pomona's Antique Row again. Have concluded that people collect the weirdest things. Have also concluded I want the $150USD replica of Mal's sidearm from Serenity.

Just you wait, my pretty...

Black Rock Canyon and Brewery Art Walk

Had several interesting days this week.

On Thursday, I rolled out of bed and there was a cat waiting outside of my room. Apparently my dad left the garage door open and a cat wandered into the house. Played with it a bit then shooed it outside.
Later that same day, a dog wandered into the then current job site. Played with it a bit then shooed it outside.

Friday was the birthday of a friend, ate Korean BBQ. Was good.

Saturday, I went hiking for the first time in a long time. And not alone.

An outdoorsy-photography-minded person invited me with him to Black Star Canyon in Orange County. A short 6 mile round trip hike, made difficult by the 15lbs of camera equipment I had slung over my shoulder. I must find a more effective way of carrying a tripod, although I am sure I'm not the only person with such an issue.

We saw a tarantula, several frogs, a salamander skeleton, and a few other creatures. Oddly enough, there was a beheaded eagle spread across the ground early on in the hike. There was also a cute, but dead, mouse at the end of the trail, sitting on a rock. Flies and mosquitoes were very much in evidence.

There was a lot of scrambling along the trail. The other guy had Five Fingers, but I had left my pair in the car, reasoning that the extra weight of my camera equipment would necessitate footwear with more support, and thus stuck to my 5.11 boots. This was something of a mistake when it came time to scramble over the giant boulders.

At the end of the trail is (supposedly) a waterfall. Being as this is October and right after the dry season, there was no such thing. Climbed up into the hole where the waterfall supposedly flows from, took a gander, and promptly climbed down to retrieve my camera equipment. The tripod I had lugged along for the last two hours finally had purpose. 8 second exposures.

Overall, a good hike. Would do again.


Sunday(today), I had work in the morning and the evening. In the afternoon, I met up with a friend who had come back to town for the week, having moved to San Jose some months before. The two of us and his girl-of-questionable-relationship-status wandered around the LA Brewery Art Walk for a few hours before heading on to the Flying Pig. Brewery Art Walk was as interesting as it was last time. I didn't shoot many pictures of it though, as I've already seen the complex and didn't feel compelled to shoot it again. Flying Pig was delicious, though it reminded me how much I dislike brown rice.


After dropping off my friend at Bob Hope Airport, his girl-fring and I chatted about a possible whiskey tasting in the near future.


Hopefully, the three people who actually read this thing will see it up soon.