Back when I was going to be in San Francisco during the last weekend of April and then flying home past Esteban, who would be flying to Las Vegas, I had the brilliant idea to change my plans and just fly to Las Vegas, spend the week there freeloading in Esteban’s hotel room while he was doing analysty stuff, then fly back to San Francisco with him and spend the weekend there and fly home, leaving him to his conference and meetings and never-ending Very Important Shit. I loved this plan and in fact, thought it was pretty brilliant, because for all the times Esteban and I have been to San Francisco, we’ve never been in the city at the same time. We could go to Green Apple and have lunch in Chinatown and tea in the park and ollie the giant hills and scream like babies. Yes, it would be awesome.
Esteban kyboshed the awesome plan. He was sick, he said, of not being able to go anywhere on vacation with me because I spend all of my vacation in fits and frets, between long weekends all over the country and plotting Green Bay minicons and the like. And then I had guilt. Guilt for taking him at his word that I should go off and do what I wanted because he didn’t like to travel. Guilt for not considering that what he really meant was that while his appetite for exploration and frequent flier miles and hotel amenities doesn’t come close to matching mine, and that he wouldn’t mind taking a trip now and then and experience the novelty of hotel sex. Personally, I couldn’t really argue with this, because I miss out on the hotel sex when I’m traveling solo as well. And hotel sex is sometimes awesome and other times hilarious and the important part of this complete breakfast.
So fine, I didn’t go through with my madcap GRB-SFO-LAS-SFO-GRB itinerary and we didn’t see each other for some ridiculous fourteen days, to which I declared that this vacation we were saving days for? Better be awesome, mister! With all the sex that ever was! And also, chocolate and wine and wooing. Oh yes, don’t skimp on the wooing.
Oh, there would be wooing, he said, with a wicked tinge, and it made me wonder if it wasn’t more of a threat than a promise. Could there be such a thing as too much wooing? My husband can turn on quite a lot of charm when he’s thinking about it. Would I need extra sunblock?
So then we had to figure out where we wanted to go. I didn’t care. We were going somewhere! We had been talking about touring Route 66 so that I could photograph it, but the logistics of it were getting hairy. Route 66 is sort of long and we only wanted to go one way, because to come back across the country would be annoying and less like a vacation and more like work. Or being a trucker. Plus, I didn’t have that much vacation to spend on it, so once again, we were haunted by the specter of my past travel hijinx.
Then, when we were engaging in our weekly tradition of watching the Food Network while drinking coffee and reading the Sunday paper, Michael Chiarrillo babbled to us about his toolish ways, Esteban mentioned that he would like to spend a couple of days in Napa Valley. And that’s when we both looked up and said “Whuppah!”
We woke up on Saturday morning sometime around Friday night. We both took half-awake showers, scared the hell out of the cat who knew that something just was not right, and then headed on the highway for Appleton. We were flying on Esteban’s glut of frequent flier miles, and there hadn’t been any spots available leaving in the morning out of Green Bay. Since the Appleton airport is only about forty minutes away, we figured that we’d do that. No problem. Clever! Except that we missed our morning flight through some feats of idiocy, and while we could easily catch the next flight to Minneapolis, we would still miss the morning flight to San Jose (yes, for similar reasons, I selected flights into San Jose because I liked the scheduling better) so wouldn’t be able to leave Minneapolis until 5 pm. Wow, so glad that we got up at Oh My God O’Clock. But what are you going to do? Esteban was frustrated, as neither of us have ever missed a flight in our lives, so left it to me and I decided that I’d much rather be free to move about Appleton in my car than be stuck in the Minneapolis airport for eight hours, so I opted to take the midday flight. The counter agent didn’t even check our ID when he gave us new boarding passes, but I guess Appleton isn’t the hotbed of political extremism (unless you want an abortion, as it’s the only suburban community in Wisconsin where I’ve noticed a large number of somewhat offensive pro-life propaganda) as, say, a flight school in Naples, Florida. Anyway, we watched our plane take off from the parking lot as we were walking back to our car. We went breakfast and then to the bookstore for awhile. Esteban must have felt bad for his part in what would have been an elimination on The Amazing Race, so when we went to a big box store where he bought me some noise-cancelling headphones. Poor boy was feeling very guilty about missing the flight and I think he was even more distraught that I was refusing to let it dampen my excitement about the trip. Perhaps he would have felt better if I would have called him a name or something, but anyway, gadgety headphones so yay! I win!
We went back to the airport and read for a few hours and then were on our way to Minneapolis. We had a few hours to kill there as well, but I found a salon and got my eyebrows waxed, since it was the one thing I couldn’t get done before we left. Then we were in the air again and despite my complete and utter inability to sleep on airplanes, I managed to doze a little bit with the assistance Advil PM, Stars, an eye mask, and my noise-canceling headphones. It also helped that Esteban let me use his thigh as a pillow.
We finally landed in San Jose nine hours later than planned, and made our way by horse and buggie to the rental car place. Esteban was honestly more excited about the opportunity to drive around California in a Mustang convertible than the actual trip itself. He would talk about it at odd moments during the weeks leading up to the trip. “I was just thinking about the convertible we’re going to have in California. I hope we like it!” I almost tackled another couple on the shuttle who were much faster, as they had back packs rather than duffle bags on wheels (which fall over no more than 60% of the feet you pull them across) but alas, they made it to the smiling rental car agent first, while we ended up with a surly shiny hirsute man who smelled like cordovan. I gave him my reservation number that guaranteed our rental, while listening to the backpackers get told that their Ford Focus was not available, but they had a convertible for them instead. Great! They had a glut of convertibles! Convertibles for all! Except then Hairy was confused. Hairy went off to look through a box of keys, then went outside and returned with an even larger box of keys. Hairy had no convertible… and the entire time, I just wanted to scream “Because you just gave it away to these people standing next to me?” I totally should have tackled them when we got off the shuttle.
After what had to have been forty-five minutes, Hairy finally comes back and gives us a choice of several cars which are acceptable… at a significant price increase, of course. Whatever, bastard. At that point, our friends were already starting to gather at the bar of a restaurant in San Francisco, waiting for our arrival, and it was well past 11 o’clock our time. I was tired, hungry, and sick of squinting at the glare off our counter agent. When he mentioned that he had a Cadillac STS, one of the very cars that Esteban has been jonesing over, I signed the X and we hit the road.
We unknowingly took the long way into the city, and then drove around looking for the hotel which I had booked thinking it was another hotel entirely, one in the Financial District. It was not. It was on the lip of the Tenderloin, just a block up from the hotel I promised I’d never stay in again, because the screams of the hookers outside kept me up all night. This one gave us a spontaneous upgrade to a suite, which included a sitting room that we never once entered, and what came to be known as the Toilet Coffin (a wee niche into which a doll-sized toilet was wedged, along with a tube of KY Jelly to be used to grease the walls so you could slip out after flushing). We hit the room, I threw open my bags and did a quick changeroo while Esteban made a fatal mistake. He laid down on the bed and closed his eyes.
“How can you be so energetic?” He moaned, half awake.
Ah yes, that’s right. He’s never seen the traveling Weetabix, the one that goes 24 hours without sleep or food, coasting on pure adrenaline and glamour. Once the first outfit goes on, all bets are off, mister. It is go time. Sleep when you’re on the plane. He begged off and apologized profusely, so I promised to pass on his hellos and he was snoring before I locked the door.
I grabbed a cab and went to meet Fel, Chris, Een, Jenfu, Mopie, Shannonk, and La Wade at Farmer Ted’s, where I was a little more than fashionably late. They had already ordered and food was arriving, so I threw in an order for a side dish of macaroni and cheese and also dessert, figuring that it all wouldn’t come until they were finished with their food and ordering dessert as well. Mistake, it all came at once, but it was tasty nonetheless. Honestly, I could have been eating garbage and it didn’t matter because it was absolutely great to see everyone again. After dinner, everyone begged off and Mopie and I had a heartbreaking parting on the sidewalk. Well, a parting until Wednesday when we were coming back to the city to podcast. PIE! Stay alive! I will find you!
Fel and Chris gave me a ride back to my hotel, and I slept fitfully, wakened only when Esteban groaned that my cell phone was vibrating. Um, no, but it might have been a tremor and damn it, I totally slept through it. I’m never going to get to feel one!
We woke up a little late, walked up to Starbucks, and talked about our plans. My primary goal was to hit Green Apple for some used books and Delessios on Market for their incredible chocolate peanut butter marshmallow mini cupcakes. We ended up having breakfast at Delessios. Imagine your grandmother’s banana bread (without nuts, because someone up there loves me) turned into French toast and then covered in real maple syrup and whipped cream. FUCK ME I still dream about that French toast. We snagged some water for our day trip and hit the way out to the Golden Gate Bridge and Green Apple, which was very very congested due to a closure of the Bay Bridge over the Labor Day weekend, so after almost an hour in traffic, Esteban suggested that we skip the bookstore. Whatever, I didn’t care. I was just enjoying the incredible sunshine, the warm smell of eucalyptus as we passed the park, and the fact that I was back in one of my favorite cities in the world on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
We passed over the bridge and headed into Marin, where I warned Esteban that we would have to take a scary road. In fact, my exact words were “You’re not even going to believe this road. It’s pretty much insane. We might just be insane.” I was still traumatized by Jenfu and my trip to Muir Woods last year. In fact, let me quote what I said last year:
You know what’s crazy about where the redwoods are? You have to drive down an insane valley road that has absolutely no guardrail preventing you from toppling over the side. Like… nothing. Maybe a few stout dandelions, if you are lucky. We’re talking a drop of perhaps a thousand miles. I think there is no bottom. Going down was fun, but you know what was more fun? Going back up, when the passenger can look down into the underside of China. Fu quotes Nietzsche and damn, she was right. Or rather, Nietzsche. The abyss does roar back. Guard rails. Look into it, maybe, ok California?
You know what’s more frightening? Making that drive as a passenger. Last time, I was driving. This time, it was Esteban. Esteban is a very very good driver, but he was also driving a very amped Cadillac that he had never driven before, and also there’s the fact that he isn’t used to driving on hills. I’m certainly no expert slalom driver, but he had no idea what he was in for. Also, it may have been worse for me because I DID KNOW what we were in for. So my terror had time to build. My fear of bridges? Bridges have a safe ending. There is a chance of swimming with a bridge. They usually have railings or something. The abyss? One stray flick of the wrist and that’s it, you’re just a jigsaw puzzle of guts and metal.
I hate you, Hwy 1.
The way to Muir Woods wasn’t that bad. After all, we were on the inside lane, hugging the cliff. We just had to worry about panicking oncoming drivers slamming into us. I freaked a little bit, but mostly, I was relieved because after we visited the redwoods, our route would continue to take us up Hwy 1, toward Stinson Beach and up the coast. We wouldn’t have to come back this way. The plan was, in a word, brilliant.
We found rock star parking at Muir Woods and started to walk around. The last time I was there, I was shooting with my pocket Canon, so I was excited to have my ballsy camera and gargantuan lens. We tooled around, looking at the trees, talking about the United Nations thingy that was up past the cathedral, when I felt my left foot start to slip on a bump in the trail and then there was searing pain in my foot and I lost my balance. I managed to do a theatre fall on my well-padded ass, and didn’t make an effort to stop the fall because I would have had to drop the camera. My left foot was in some serious agony. It was really my own stupid fault, a combination of wearing Birkenstocks instead of actual hiking shoes and the fact that I wasn’t watching where I was going. Esteban came running over and I handed him my sunglasses and camera and then let him help me up. I hobbled over to a lucky bench nearby and propped my foot up on it. It was already starting to swell. We hung out for a bit, until I stopped feeling like I was going to throw up and then I insisted that we continue on until the Cathedral. We took it slowly and then wandered back, spotting deer and an owl but no banana slugs. We made it back to the car where I threw down a few Advil, and then we headed back for Hwy 1. Except that we seemed to be going in the wrong direction. Esteban thought that there was only one way, but I pointed on the maps and showed him that Hwy 1 doesn’t just stop at Muir Woods. Regardless, we were going back up the death spiral, except this time, the death was on the passenger side of the car. Fucking hell.
Somewhere near the Stratosphere, I started to whimper and then started closing my eyes and then, for good measure, burying my face into Esteban’s shoulder, repeating my mantra “I do not like hills I do not like the hills I do not like this at all no I do not like hills.” And then we were back in Sausalito, which is more than just a cookie.
We consulted our maps and I pointed out that yes, Hwy 1 DOES continue onward and we must have missed something. Esteban sighed and asked if I really wanted to go that way, and because I am stupid sometimes and would rather face terrifying hills just to prove I’m right, I agreed. Nay, insisted.
Back up the side of the cliffs again. Fucking cliffs. This time, however, I was bolstered by the smug assertion that I was right, damn it. And I was. I was totally right. We continued onward and then were greeted by a fantastic view of the Pacific. Score! We took a break at the crest and that’s when I looked ahead and realized that the worst was yet to come.
You see, the cliffy roads that we had been on? They weren’t that bad. No, these cliffy roads were actual cliffy roads, like the kind you see in movies, where there’s just the cliff, a twenty foot ribbon of pavement, and then a sheer drop-off for a mile and then the waves of the ocean crashing up against it. And there are Caution: Rock Slides signs and the road is bumpy and uneven because the mountain it’s built on is slowly falling away, slowly slipping out from beneath the very pavement you’re driving on and at one point in the sort of near future, it’s just going to slide off into the darkness. Maybe that point is when there’s a rented Cadillac STS driving over it. You just don’t know. Taste the fucking excitement.
I think that’s when the serious panic attacks started, because this time, I couldn’t hide my face inside Esteban’s shoulder, as I might glimpse the sheer death waiting on the other side of the highway. And then sometimes, the death was on my side.
WHAT IS WITH ALL THE DEATH, CALIFORNIA?
I really hate you, Hwy 1.
Finally, we started descending down to a picturesque little fishing and surfing village that reminded me of something in a Gidget movie. We saw pelicans, which made me happy and almost forget all the death. We saw surfers and old convertibles and many things that made us go “Oooh! Ahhh! Yes!” in our strange Eddie Izzard impression that we do for each other sometimes.
After a few hours of tooling around, we found our hotel and set up camp for the night. We decided to get dinner in Petaluma at a lovely little Martha Stewart-esque place downtown called Central Market. There, we had a bottle of wine, an appetizer that I’ve forgotten, and Esteban had a pasta dish (also forgotten, and their menu on the website is old) while I had a watermelon/feta cheese salad that was out of this world and the fresh shrimp risotto. After dinner, we were very tempted by their cheese offerings, mostly interested in the local variety called Red Hawk Cowgirl, but in the end, went with splitting a piece of chocolate cake. We went back to the hotel and zonked out, a peaceful end to a very long delightful and partially terrifying day.
The next morning, we woke up early and went to breakfast at a disgusting local greasy spoon in Petaluma. It’s not often that I’m grossed out by breakfast fare, but this managed to do it. We were supposed to check out of our hotel at that point, but we liked it so much and it had such a comfortable bed (compared with the previous night with the Toilet Coffin) and was so close to everything anyway that we decided to stay another night. I called to cancel our Monday night hotel and we wound our way through the county roads between vineyards to Sonoma. After some amount of searching, we finally stopped at Ravenswood, where a sign warned you to stay on the path as there were rattlesnakes on the hills. We tasted a few varieties and I ended up buying half a case of some wines that aren’t available in stores (Ravenswood is one of my favorites and is a very reasonable red wine, and their Old Vine Zinfandel is a great Thursday night dinner wine) because I didn’t want to blow my wad with so many more wineries to visit and didn’t want the UPS guy to think we’re alcoholics.
At that point, the California sun was starting to crank it up, so we jumped back in the car and looked for some other wineries, ending up at Buena Vista, where we tasted their stock and then purchased two bottles there. We wandered around Sonoma for a bit but then decided that we were getting hungry and also tired, so we formulated a plan to save money by having a picnic in the hotel room rather than go out another night. We stopped at the nearby Whole Foods, where I got some bottles of wine (everything from the wineries was being shipped home), some cheese, bottled waters, sashimi, sandwiches, fruit and chocolate, and then went back to the hotel where we vegged out, read our books, and snacked. Esteban turned on Star Wars III, and I broke into the cheeses. One was the Double Gloucester, which was fantastic. Another was a goat cheese, again fantastic. And the third was the Red Hawk Cowgirl that we had been tempted by the previous night.
However, as soon as I unwrapped it, it decided to stand up, clobber me upside the head and then punch me in the gut. Man, that was some foul cheese beneath that paper! Maybe it only smelled funky? I cut into it and offered Esteban a taste.
He gamely took a generous bite and then said “Try that.” Which is code for “This is so awful that both of us need to experience this.”
I am often accused of being a wuss about animal by-products, so fuck yeah, I tried that.
It may have smelled like feet but it tasted like feet wrapped in ass.
We both couldn’t stop giggling about how fucking awful it was. “Eat more!” I exclaimed, but he scrunched up his nose and made his Joe Cocker face. We were both laughing, and he exclaimed “I don’t care how much it cost! Throw it out!” but I pointed out that if it smelled like this while chilled, what would it smell like after ten hours in our hotel garbage can?
We contemplated our next course of action, but it was like trying to think of ways to hide a body. It always seems like an easy problem until it actually happens to you.
Finally, Esteban wrapped the cheese up in its paper, then a grocery bag, steeled his nerve and said “I’ll be right back. Let me in when you hear me knock.” And slunk out the hotel room door. About two minutes later, I heard someone in the hallway hiss “Let me in! It’s me! Come on, hurry!”
“Where did you put it?”
“There was a room marked ‘Guest Laundry’ and there was an unsecured garbage can in there, so I ditched it and then shut the door.”
I burst out laughing like a naughty preschooler. “Was it warm in there?”
“Yeah, someone had the dryer going.”
This of course brought fresh peals of giggles. All night, we mused about the Illicit Cowgirl Caper and the tales that would surely be passed among the housekeeping staff of the Petaluma Sheraton. Honestly, that was the best cheese ever. It just kept on giving.
The next morning, we packed up everything and headed to Napa, where we had brunch, and then hit a Target because the memory card in my biggie camera was acting up. We stopped at Mondavi, where I had a glass of their Botritys and decided not to buy anything there, since I wasn’t that thrilled with their Moscato the last time. We then headed up the Silverado trail to find the Robert Sinskey winery, but were very early for our appointment for a culinary tasting, so we wandered up the road a bit. Esteban suggested that we try a winery that we knew nothing about, so when I remarked that the winery we were passing was really pretty, he pulled in.
We tasted everything and had what was probably my favorite Napa moment all weekend, where many DINKS were all standing around a bar at 11:30 in the morning, sipping out of giant glasses and laughing at each other’s jokes. We liked all of the Chimney Rock offerings, but when we tried the Elevage, we both exhaled a lusty “Whoa.”
I’ve never experienced a non-sweet wine that has been noticeably better to my unrefined palate. Honestly, most of them taste very much the same to me, some are sweeter than others, but the dry wines all taste about as awful as the next one. However this Elevage was really fantastic. When I looked at the price, I thought “Wow, I guess that’s the difference between a cheap bottle of wine and a more expensive bottle of wine” because I never had really understood the pricing schema, beyond your standard Boone’s Farm and giant jug wines. It made me really curious about the Elevage Blanc, which was unfortunately sold out of the current vintage. When it came time to decide on purchasing something, I suggested a few of the modestly priced bottles, but Esteban surprised me by adding “…and one Elevage?” If you say so, honey! It remained our favorite and I wish I hadn’t bought a thing at Buena Vista because then I could have justified another bottle of Elevage. Except that now that I’m home, I have to wonder if it was worth it. I mean, sure, it’s good and everything, but I could have bought a new lens for that price, and it wouldn’t have disappeared after a tenderloin dinner. Ah well. We do silly things on vacation.
We then headed back to the Sinskey winery, where we were given a tour. That was annoying, because I hadn’t wanted a tour, but it turned out to be really cool. They took us into the caves where two guys were actually turning the barrels and the entire place smelled like Merlot. Later, we went up to the covered patio overlooking the pinot noir vines, where Robert Sinskey’s chef wife had selected some cheese and snack pairings that went with the wines we were tasting. Robert himself came out to talk to us later and it’s readily apparent that he has more money than God and truly has a blessed life, as he had the sort of casual relaxed nature of someone without a care in the world. I was sort of ruined by the Elevage an hour earlier but I didn’t tell him that, just laughed politely when he told us about tearing out a mint condition pre-Air Stream trailer to turn it into a kitchen on wheels. Whatever, crazy rich guy. I bought a merlot for podcasting and then we were off to have a late lunch/early dinner at Bouchon.
It turned out to be the anti-Bouchon experience. Our waiter was weird and because the dining room was closed, we were seated in the front bar area in the corner windows, where at least three dozen flies were engaged in carnal relations. Talk about being put off your lunch. The roasted chicken was great, and the French fries are always to die for, but all in all, not the experience it was in April. I decided to skip dessert and head to the bakery, where I bought a bag of Bouchons, some of the TKOs (which two flies could be practicing the kama sutra upon it and I’d still have to reconsider throwing it away) and some macaroons. And then we headed off to the East Bay, as a week earlier, the Monterey Bay Aquarium began showing their Great White Shark and since I missed their last Great White, I was damned if I was going to miss it again.
More later!
