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ADVENTURES IN WINE COUNTRY

I live about an hour from Napa but I rarely go there. It involves a bridge toll that I normally am too lazy to go get cash to pay for. Plus… I do not love wine. It’s all right but not my fave. So going on wine tasting tours and whatnot is not my jam. BUT I recently made plans with an old coworker who was up for her birthday to go to a winery and do some wine tasting.

Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, CA

We first stopped in Sonoma at the R2 wine tasting room and had a round of tasting. They were pretty good. We then headed to downtown Sonoma (the square) to check out a chocolate tasting place (Wine Country Chocolates I think) and I noticed there is a mission right there – I haven’t been to a mission in years! This one was cute. We didn’t go inside but I have made a mental note to go back and check it out.

The chocolate place was really delicious – I got a boysenberry one and a cinnamon honey one and my friend got rocky road – and everything was so good! I would definitely go back.

After that we headed into the hills to the Hess Collection Winery which was totally beautiful. They were setting up for a wedding or some kind of event. On the upper two floors of the main building was a very nice art gallery which I enjoyed viewing.

Wine barrel room at Hess
Some art and interiors
Stairs they wouldn’t let us climb
Me and Nohemi

After Hess we were all hungry so we wound up at Downtown Joe’s in the town of Napa and were seated outside. It was a beautiful day, not too hot (the previous week/weekend was like 113° so the weather in the 80s was so much nicer). At the restaurant I had chili cheese fries and they used homemade spiralized potatoes that were super delicious. I’d randomly been to this restaurant with the parentals a year or so ago and it was good then too.

Napa River view

Anyway, it was a nice day out with good people. Always good to get out of town for a bit even if it’s just a day trip.

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A Wedding and an Anti-Wedding

Since I last posted, Felicia got married and I went to Texas, and I also got a job.

I’ve been busy. Heh.

Felicia looked beautiful in her dress (that I stored) and a lovely time was had by all. Here’s some pictures.

The venue: the pavilion at the Hacienda de las Flores in Moraga, CA.
Malvina, Felicia and I before the wedding. I'm glad we made Felicia take these pictures because there wasn't much time to talk to her at the reception.
The new couple walking down the aisle.
Sarah and her son Will.
The wedding cake! It was tasty; no fondant.

So, we left the wedding at nine because Malvina had a day of dance shows on Saturday, and I was (perhaps stupidly) taking a 6 a.m. flight to San Antonio.

My friend Tara had originally been planning to get married the 31st, and I had been planning on going, but there was a rather horrible breakup back in May. A couple of weeks ago, she decided to have a “Let’s Celebrate The Fact That I Didn’t Marry That Douchebag” event on the day of what would have been her wedding at the location of the reception. And I wanted to go to it to support her, so I wound up flying out on Saturday for that night. I rented a car and stayed at our friend Margie’s apartment. We had a good time at the bar and were out until all hours.

On Sunday, after waking up at noon, I headed over to Fire Wok at Huebner Oaks to have lunch with Daphne. It was SO awesome to see Daphne again; when I last visited Texas she was away at grad school in Arizona so I haven’t actually seen her since 2006, when I left Texas.

After that, I went back over to Tara and Cindy’s and we all, plus Margie, went to Jacala’s for dinner. I love Jacala’s!! It is my favorite restaurant in San Antonio because it is just straight up delicious and cheap Mexican food. Word.

Monday, my flight wasn’t until the afternoon, and I wanted to go to Hobby Lobby to look at their bead selection (no Hobby Lobbys in California, *sad face*) so I picked up Tara and we went over to Starbucks and then down to Culebra/1604 to check out the Hobby Lobby and then to the new shopping center on the other side of the freeway. The last time I was in Texas in 2008, that shopping center wasn’t there. We stopped at Books A Million where I picked up a couple things to read on the plane, and then stopped at Subway for lunch.

I had to drop the car back off at the airport around 1, so I headed over there and it took a lot faster than I was expecting so I wound up at the airport supremely early. Luckily, SAT has free wifi so I found a seat near my gate and entertained myself for the next hour and a half.

I was lucky this trip to TX because while it was hot, it wasn’t particularly humid. I didn’t take many pictures (three, to be exact, and they are all blurry bar pictures which you will not get to see) but it was a great trip and hopefully I will be able to go for a longer visit next time.

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Happy Birthday to Sarah!

Just because I was away in the mountains falling off a cliff* and bruising my back black and purple on the 24th doesn’t mean that Sarah is immune to a best friends Birthday Post!

Yeah that’s right, y’all: it’s ancient(ish) picture time:

Sarah and me, circa June-ish 2001 in South Lake Tahoe for a wedding at a Renaissance festival. I am apparently possessed by a crazy red-eyed demon.

While I’ve known Sarah since we were 12-year-olds singing in the junior high choir, I didn’t have any photos from those days (had I known I’d be posting ancient pictures 18 years in the future on a magical interweb, I would have made sure there was photographic evidence of us, especially in our costumes from PIRATES OF PENZANCE and no I can’t seem to make screencaps from my glorious DVD of our 8th grade production, boo hiss) so I made do with this picture from a trip Sarah, Malvina, and I made to South Lake Tahoe just prior to all of us turning 21, so no gambling/drinking fun was had, but my parents did grudgingly let me drive their new car into another state, so that was pretty cool.

To this day, I'm still surprised my parents allowed me to take their car, but my sexay Buick LeSabre was in dire condition and I doubt it would have gotten much past Placerville, much less up Hwy 50 into the Sierras. Incidentally we purchased weaponry at the festival and so even though you can't see it, we're totally armed in medieval gadgets in the back of the car. And I wonder whatever happened to my POISON RING.

So: Happy Birthday, Sarah! I hope you had a great day and welcome to the thirties club!

P.S. Malvina if you want me to post a picture of you in your ren faire costume with your giant flower hat, I totally will. Muahahaha! I mean, yay!

*slight exaggeration