Day 52 & 53 - Custer to Rapid City to LaCrosse, WI

I started writing this yesterday, but never posted, so I'm combining into today.

Day 52:
A good, productive day today. After a great breakfast at Dakota Dream B&B, I drove up through Custer State Park on Needles Highway. It was a pretty drive - some people were annoying and drove really slowly when not necessary and wouldn't move over to let me pass. Grrrrr. From there, I went to the Crazy Horse Memorial. Have you heard about this? This guy was commissioned to carve Crazy Horse into a mountain back in like 1948. He started working on it, but progress was pretty slow. He refused to take any federal or state money for the project and at times would halt work altogether for years because he didn't have the funds for it. So he died in 1982, and his wife and 7 of his 10 children took over the project. 65 years after the project started, it's still nowhere near completion. It's a massive sculpture depicting Crazy Horse's torso, his arm pointing straight out, and the head and neck of the horse he's riding. The eventual plan is to have the sculpture be the focal point of a whole campus that includes a college and a medical center. Currently, there is a museum connected to the homestead of the sculptor, connected to the workshop, connected to the sculpture studio, connected to an educational & cultural center. Yes, it's as disjointed as it sounds. The museum is a conglomeration of a ton of items donated to the family. There is a lack of flow through the museum and little to no explanation of the items. It's just really weird. The whole time I was there, I was reminded of the Winchester Mystery House. They just keep building stuff and adding at seemingly random with no eye on the end goal. Just weird.

After the Crazy Horse Memorial, I hit up 3 wineries. The last one, Prarie Berry, didn't have my favorite wines, but had a kitchen with some amazing food. That one, of the three, was definitely the destination winery. Then I went to check out Mount Rushmore. I figured, "Why not? I'm here." I've seen it a few times previously, so it's quite anti-climatic, but whatever. Mr. Jefferson is one of my heroes (I went to the University of Virginia, so we're all pretty grateful to him), so I ended up taking pictures of the pictures of him in the museum. I even found a picture of the UVA rotunda and had to take a picture of that.

My car has been dinging at me since somewhere in Washington state that it needed service soon. Did you know that there are no Acura dealerships in the Northwest? It's true. I found a Honda dealer in Rapid City, so after Mount Rushmore, I went to get my car serviced. Good scheduling on my part, I showed up 5 minutes before the scheduled time. After that, I stopped by a grocery to pick up some road snacks and then stopped at Wine & Tapas bar for a quick dinner. Then made my way over to the bed & breakfast for the night.

I'm loving this whole bed & breakfast thing. I know some people hate b&b's, but I really like them. Generally, the hosts get you checked in, show you around, and then get out of your way, so I don't feel like I'm imposing on anyone's personal space. I like to chat with the other travelers, but I can always retreat to my room if I want privacy. But I feel comfortable to use the common spaces provided as well. I could totally see myself opening a b&b. Then I could also write books & software on the side. I think this sounds like a great plan.

Day 53:
Well, today was pretty uneventful. I had breakfast at the b&b - Peregrine Pointe B&B - it was a super yummy asiago souffle, sausage w/ asparagus, fruit salad, and amazing cream cheese pastries. So glad I stayed there.

I spent most of the day driving - it was a 10 hour drive in total. I had planned to stop at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, but for the life of me, I didn't know exactly where it was (super conflicting information on the internet), and when I was in the area, I was only about an hour and a half into my drive and wasn't ready to make a stop yet, so I just passed on by and kept driving. By the time I made it to my hotel tonight, I was glad that I did. I had finished listening to Harry Potter back in Yellowstone, so I've been trying to figure out what to listen to now. I had 3 options downloaded for me today and option 1 worked just fine. It's called Cleaving by Julie Powell, who wrote Julie & Julia. I did actually ready Julie & Julia a few years back, so I knew I liked her style enough. It's definitely a very different book than her first, but I like it so far - I'm about 2/3 of the way through.

Tonight I'm staying at an actual chain hotel, my only one of the trip. I had an airbnb reservation, but she contacted me earlier in the week and told me that her hot water heater was out, but she could give me passes to the YMCA to shower. That seemed like too much of a hassle for me, and I was able to find a hotel room for the same rate, so I switched to that. I arrived at the hotel right around 7:30, checked in and then went to the restaurant next door. I had been craving pasta (not an easy food to eat on the road), and the restaurant came through with a HUGE bowl of fettuccine alfredo. When I was done, it looked like I hadn't even touched it. So much food, and super cheap - my bill was all of $7.37. Just been relaxing in the hotel for the remainder of the evening.

Excited for tomorrow - Wisconson cheese country!!

Day 51 - Jackson Hole to Custer, SD

Not a ton to report today. I spent 8 hours in the car. A little bit of interstate driving, but mostly state roads. I listened to a few soundtracks this morning - The Last 5 Years, Title of Show, Songs for a New World, and Book of Mormon. Talked to a friend from home/work briefly - always fantastic. And then spent the remainder of the afternoon listening to podcasts. Arrived at my destination around 5PM, about half an hour ahead of schedule - I made good time.

Long driving days can be kinda tiring. I often get these huge bursts of inspiration while driving that I can't act on at the time, because, obviously, I'm driving. But then when I arrive at my destination, I'm so wiped out that I don't act on them then either. I had a fantastic idea for a web application today. I'll have to do some research to see if anything like it exists. It's actually a road-trip planning website, but specific to certain theme. I got inspired by one of the podcasts I was listening to. I have so many ideas of things I want to do and only so much time to do them all. In general in my life, I feel like I'm constantly stretching myself really thin over all of the things that I want to do. I get worried that there's not enough time in my life to do all of the things that interest me. I guess what I'm working on is doing whatever it is that I'm passionate about at that moment and not berating myself for not doing the long list of other things that I want to do. Just because I can't do EVERYTHING that I want to doesn't mean that I shouldn't do any of them. Or that I should feel bad about skipping one or two in favor of other ones. I guess it's all about prioritization. I just have to figure out how to do that and not feel bad about it.

Anyway, I'm staying a great B&B tonight called the Dakota Dream in Custer, SD. It's just south of Mount Rushmore. I had originally planned on spending tonight over in Casper, WY, which I passed today around 1:30. But my car dinged at me up in Washington state and it needs to go in for service. I found a Honda dealership in Rapid City that will service it tomorrow, so I juggled around my scheduled and drove further today so I'd have the time for it tomorrow. It will mean a little backtracking to get to the B&B where I'm staying tomorrow, but that's fine. It won't cause too much twitching in my schedule optimization brain. :-)

Day 50 - Yellowstone to Jackson Hole

Well, I left the Old Faithful Inn this morning and headed down through the Grand Tetons to Jackson.

One story I forgot to mention about the Old Faithful Inn: the shower head size to shower stall size ratio was awful. Huge shower head to tiny shower stall, such that there was no where in the stall that I could move where the water was not assaulting me. In order to lather up my hair without it immediately rinsing off, I had to turn off the shower. And then turn it back on. And readjust the temperature. And then turn it off again for conditioner. And back on. And readjust the temperature. And turn it off to wash my face. Etc. SOOOOO annoying.

Anyway, I hit West Thumb in Yellowstone before leaving the park, and then came down through Grand Tetons National Park. It's a beautiful park, but different from Yellowstone. The focal point is the mountains next to the lake. They're just beautiful. But I had no desire to hike or anything, so I just came down through the park and stopped at the various vistas that weren't overrun with cars. I arrived in Jackson Hole around 2:30 PM. Driving through town, I was reminded of a visit from when I was something like 8. There's a little horse drawn carriage that goes around the town square and you can ride on it. In order to ride up top, you have to be 10 years old. My mom said I was. But I was like, "no I'm not." To which she replied, "well, you will be next week." And I said, "No, I'll be 9." I was never good at deceit, especially when I wasn't aware that was the goal. So I think my mom had to ride up top with me.

Got to my hotel, but my room wasn't ready yet, so I went out and walked around town for a while. It was hot, especially compared to the weather I've had over the past couple of weeks. Jackson is....what's a nice way of saying "tourist trap"? Seriously, it just seems like a bunch of souvenir shops and restaurants. Anyway, I ended up going into a great restaurant called "Local." How appropriate for my trip that's focused on local food and whatnot. It was quite good. Except that when I got back to the hotel to officially check in, I didn't have my credit card. I knew this would happen at some point. Luckily, the restaurant was quite close. I zipped (as quickly as one can zip in rush hour/construction traffic) back over and walked back to the bar where I was sitting. I didn't even have to say anything to the bartender. She saw me and immediately knew why I was there and grabbed my card and handed it back.

I spent most of the evening catching up on stuff that I haven't been able to get to for the past week or so. I also got to watch TV for the first time since Trinidad, CA, catching up on a couple of my favorite cable news programs. Yippee!

I'm looking forward to getting back to a string of cities. I'm not what one would call an "outdoorsy" person, so these national parks have been quite out of my comfort zone. Glad that I did them, but I am looking forward to being more connected for a while.

Days 48 & 49 - Yellowstone

Relax, this is going to be a long one. 

I obviously didn't post anything last night. I was glued to twitter all evening/night, following the filibuster of SB5 in the Texas senate. I won't say too much on the subject, except for this: I am not generally one to support civil disobedience, but when the majority bullies and attempts to force through Supreme-Court-verified rights inhibiting legislation through questionable-at-best and unlawful-at-worst means, sometimes, the minority does literally need to scream to be heard. Plus, I don't think that it was an actual minority screaming to be heard last night. I think it was the majority, but because of unethical redistricting (as most recent redistricting has been, in my opinion), there is an unbalanced representation in our legislature. I happen to side with those that were screaming to be heard last night, so I was angry and upset when I fell asleep, but woke up to news that caused relief, if only temporary. This news was followed closely with the supreme court decisions around doma and prop 8 (or lack of a decision as it was, but still served a purpose), so overall, I was pretty pleased with the political news. I do wish I could see Rachel Maddow's show tonight on all of this. I miss my nightly Rachel Maddow dose. I may try to stream it tonight, although it'll be over 3G, not wifi (no wifi in a national historic site). I could say so much more on this topic, but I'll refrain in this context. 

And onto what's been going on here in Wyoming: yesterday, it rained on and off, which you all know how much I adore. Thankfully, I was in the right mindset for it, so it didn't bother me too terribly much. I toured through the lower loop of the park yesterday and the upper loop today. The park is huge, the main roads making up a figure 8 essentially. I'm staying at the old faithful inn, which is in the south west corner of the lower loop (close enough). 

So touring yesterday, I saw a lot of thermal features: geysers, hot springs, paint pots, fumaroles, etc. The features are really interesting, all stunning in their own right. I realize that I'm quite fortunate to have gotten to see these items multiple times in my life. At 32 years old, I think this is my 4th time to the park, once before the fires, twice after the fires, still as a kid, and now. A lot of people don't come here at all. In fact, there appear to be just as many international guests here as Americans. Seriously, you want to hear a variety of languages all in the same place? Come to a national park. However, I think because of my multiple experiences here, I suffer from a bit of underwhelment (yes, I just made up that word). The stuff I've seen is really great, but I go,"yeah, that's pretty much what I saw as a kid." One thing that has been different and interesting to me is the forests. I distinctly remember seeing the burnt out forests. I walked along a walkway today that I remember walking as a kid and seeing fire destruction for as far as I can see. The park service decided to let the forest replant itself, and it's absolutely thriving. The forest is very dense and seems very healthy, so it's good to see it rebounding so well. 

The hot springs in particular, but all of the thermal features, emit hot, acidic, sulfuric steam. Seeing as yesterday was so chilly and windy, it was the strangest sensation walking along the pathways, getting hit alternately by cold wind and hot steam. Literally, one second, it's incredibly cold, and the next moment it's like I'm in a steam room. Very disturbing. 

The park has issues with parking. More cars than spots available at most of the features, but I don't know what can really be done about it. Obviously, it wouldn't be good to just pave more areas in order to make more spots, so then, do you limit demand by not letting as many cars in? That doesn't make much sense either. So I don't know what the solution is. I do know that I spent a lot of time both yesterday and today searching for a parking spot. And a lot of people end up parking illegally. 

As a kid, I remember hating the constant in and out of the car, and that's no different as an adult, especially when it's such a pain to find a parking spot. I skipped a couple places to see stuff because I just didn't want to deal with that whole process. Obviously, you have to get out of the car to explore and see many of the features, but it can be incredibly wearing doing it all day long. After about 6 hours of touring yesterday, I came back to the inn and crashed for a massive 2 1/2 hour nap, and I don't think that I even did a ton of walking. It was mostly short little walks, about half a mile each. In addition to the thermal features, I saw the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which has the most gorgeous waterfall in it. I also drove down along Yellowstone Lake, which is massive. It's pretty amazing the variety of natural features all enclosed within the borders of the park. 

I haven't seen a TON of wildlife - a bunch of bison here and there, but I have yet to see any elk or bighorn sheep. However, the ability of one bison standing close-ish to the road to cause a massive traffic jam is astounding. It's like people have never seen one before. Oh wait. I guess most haven't. I just know that I'll see some every couple of hours as I drive around the park, so I don't have to stop for every one. 

Today, I mainly toured the upper loop, which was much more classically scenic than the lower loop. The lower loop has more geothermal features, but the upper loop has more vistas. I did also hit up the couple of thermal features that I had skipped yesterday due to to being able to find parking. 

I cancelled my dinner reservation for tonight and am instead just eating at the bar. Haven't yet made it to a ranger talk, and I don't think I will while here in Yellowstone, but I did finally go out and see old faithful for the first time just before dinner tonight. Amazing how I've been here for 48 hours and have managed to miss it every time until now. The kid next to me was so funny. Before it went off, his parents were telling him to get his head out of his iPad and be ready to take pictures. He was all, "I'll take one when it happens. One." Then when it actually started going off, he was the one with the loudest "WOW!!!!!" Too funny. That reminds me of another teenage girl I saw today - "mom! Don't run - its embarrassing!!!" Oh, teenagers. 

Ok, I think that may be it for the night. I know I promised a picture of the inn, but that's on my camera and I'm on my iPad, so maybe I'll come back and update this post or maybe just post separately the picture when I'm able to get back on my computer. Tomorrow - Grand Tetons! 

Day 47 - Glacier to Yellowstone

Phew. Long day of driving today. I left Many Glacier Hotel right on time at 9 AM started the drive with retracing Going-to-the-Sun Road. I don't think that was ultimately the best decision. It was rainy and foggy and I didn't get to see much and it added about an hour and half to 2 hours to the drive. Besides that, the drive wasn't all that eventful. 10 hours in total. I made it to the Old Faithful Inn right around 7 PM. I stayed here once as a kid with my parents. I don't remember the details of the room that we stayed in back then, but the current room has a sink in it, but the bathroom is down the hall. Kinda like being back in college.

The Inn is beautiful. I'll try to get at least one picture uploaded here tomorrow. If you're not familiar with it, it's totally worth a visit. Now, this bit is totally my memory of the history that I heard like 20 years ago, but here's what I think I know. The inn was built like a century ago, using trees from the local area. The interior is all exposed, curved wood. It's breathtaking. There is a giant stone fireplace that extends all the way up the 5 story lobby. When the fires came through in 1989 (I think that's the right year), one of them came really close to the Inn and they thought they wouldn't be able to save it. Luckily, the winds changed and the fire avoided it. Had it burnt down, there's no way with the current forest policies that they'd ever be able to rebuild it.

So, get out here and see the Inn before another fire comes and sweeps it away for good - who knows when that will be.

Day 46 - Glacier

When I was a kid, I was a voracious reader. I loved books. Read them constantly. Mainly fiction - specifically Newberry award winners (or something like that). I would hide a flashlight under my pillow and after I was supposed to have lights out, I'd read by the light of the flashlight, long past my bedtime. As an adult, I don't really read much. It's not that I don't like books, it's just not part of my routine. I've found that I really like the auditory factor of tv or movies. Generally, at home, i go to sleep with the tv on. I usually watch a couple of shows after getting into bed and then when I'm ready for actual sleep, I switch to a sitcom that I've watched many times and don't need to pay attention to - friends, Big Bang theory, how I met your mother, something like that. On this trip, I've generally been streaming how I met your mother on Netflix to go to sleep. But in locations where I don't have Internet in my room, I need another option. I've generally listened to podcasts and that's worked pretty well. I have a huge backlog of stuff to listen to which engages the auditory portion of my brain, but I don't care so much about that I would be upset if I miss it (which I do since I fall asleep). In the car I've been listening to the Harry potter audiobooks. Last night, I made the mistake of listening to where I left off in Harry potter book 6 around 8:30 PM. 9 hours later, I had finished the book. Yes, this meant that I didn't go to sleep until about 5:30 am. I kept trying to stop and go to sleep, but I was too engaged. Same problem that I had as a kid. Grrrrr. 

So that meant that I slept in again. Until about noon. Oops. So today wasn't as active as I planned. Again. Oh well. I did make it out to a boat ride around the two lakes right here at the hotel, and assuming that I finish with dinner in time, I am going to go to the evening program here at the hotel - it's about the history of the park. Last night's was about birds, so I skipped that one. Obviously, it's on the chilly side here, so that's also been impacting my desire to go outside and be active. I think it should be warmer in Yellowstone for the next couple of days. Maybe I'll actually get out and look around. :-)

Day 45 - Glacier

Well, the plan for today was to take a 9:00 boat ride and hike out here on the many glacier lakes. Then maybe a nap and then a tour of the hotel. How much of that actually happened? Well, the nap did. 

Like I said last night, I was totally exhausted. When my alarm went off at 7:30, there was no way I was getting up. I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep. Didn't get out of bed until 5 hours later. Showered and came upstairs for lunch. Then I decided to plant myself in front of the window with a gorgeous view of the lake and the glacier covered mountains behind it and start writing. That's what I spent most of the day doing. Writing, then checking Facebook. Writing, then playing a game. Writing, then taking a nap. Writing, then eating dinner. I feel a little bad that I'm in this gorgeous locale with so much to see and I didn't leave the hotel all day, but I guess the beauty worked to inspire me to start with the writing. There's so much that I want to get out. It's a long long ways away from any sort of public or semi-public sharing, if ever, but it's nice to just start putting "pen to paper" (although it is actually all being written on my iPad currently). 

I do plan on getting out of the hotel tomorrow and actually seeing some more of the beauty of this park. That's the plan anyways. 

Day 43 & 44 - Bull Hill to Glacier

This won't get posted until tomorrow morning because I don't have wifi in my room. It's here at the hotel, but only in two hotspots, and neither reaches my room. 

I'm exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Just exhausted. I switched to mountain time today, so I lost an hour, but it's 9:45 mountain time (8:45 pacific, which is what I'm now used to) and I'm so ready to crash for the night. 

Lets back up to yesterday. It was bother grey, rainy day at the ranch. Most of us skipped another ride in the morning, but it looked like it was clearing somewhat after lunch, so we went out for an afternoon ride. It's was an 11.2 mile ride that took about 3 hours. We started in the rain, but it did clear up about half way through. But it was still pretty cold, about 50 degrees or so. So I was very bundled up, which meant that I didn't actually get all that cold - just my hands because my gloves aren't waterproof and my ears. My parents' friends let me borrow an extra rain slicker of theirs, which was an absolute godsend. 

Before the ride, I was considering changing my plans and staying an extra day in order to get more riding in. I felt a little cheated that I didn't get to ride much because the weather was so bad. It's no one's fault, obviously, but I wanted more riding. But once we did the ride, I was pretty sore and decided I had actually had enough and was ready to leave. So I stuck with the original plan of leaving this morning. 

I'm still pretty upset over the loss of Jackie. She went into surgery late last night for the organ harvesting. Even inner death, she was a giver. Her gift of organs went to 6 different people in Southern California, ranging in age from 4 to 60. So that's obviously been on my mind a lot over the past couple days. She was an Aggie, so I need to figure out this whole muster thing and see if its something that I can go to when time comes to honor her. There have been a couple of memorial funds set up for her and while I haven't yet contributed, I think that my donation is going to go to an a&m scholarship being set up in her name for women in engineering. 

So this morning I packed up all my stuff, said my goodbyes, and left the ranch right on schedule. It had been 6 years since my last visit to the ranch and I don't want it to be that long again, but I have to find a different week to go in the future, and potentially some friends to go with me. This week in June that my parents go is next to impossible with my theatre schedule, plus it's my parents group of friends. I need people my age and in my life stage. So I need to see if I can find some friends that would want to go up in late August or September. If I can't find anyone, I can always just call up the ranch and find a week that has people my age and go myself. It's not like I'm uncomfortable going by myself, or making friends. And it's not like I don't know all the staff at the ranch as well, so I'm sure I can make it work. 

I had about a 9 hour drive today, so that was pretty long. I drove 3 hours to Sandpoint, Idaho and had lunch there. Then I headed over into Montana. Around 4 PM (mountain time), I decided I needed a break, so I pulled over and took a little cat nap before proceeding. I finally hit glacier park around 6 PM. I don't remember what my logic was when I was booking my hotel, so I'm not sure why I booked the many glacier hotel (maybe it was price?), but the way to get to the hotel is from the northeast entrance, so I had to go all the way through the park, the north for a bit, and then back west into the park. Nt the most efficient location, but it sure is beautiful. My room is on ground level, so it opens right out onto the lake. 

I think tomorrow I'm going to stay in this area, maybe do a boat ride, maybe do a couple of ranger led programs and then on Sunday check out other areas of the park. I'm planning on driving the going-to-the-sun road in the opposite direction from what I did today when I'm leaving the park on Monday, so I need to figure out what, if anything, I want to explore more for the days I'm actually in the park. 

For now, must needed sleep. 

Day 42 - Bull Hill

A grey and dreary day here at Bull Hill. I didn't ride at all - we all know how much I hate rain and riding in the rain is just no fun at all. So I took a nap this morning and just hung out this afternoon. The day was overshadowed by the sudden, shocking loss of a friend of mine. Just 4 weeks ago, I was in San Diego and stayed with my friend Jackie and her husband. I learned this afternoon that she was in an accident yesterday and today was deemed to be brain dead and scheduled to be taken off of life support. It's such a devastating loss. She was a bright light and I am so grateful that I got to reconnect with her recently. I cannot believe that her life was cut so short. She and I have so much in common - we are both engineers, both in the Junior League, and both are extremely passionate people. She recently became passionate about cycling. It was through this cycling that she was fatally injured. I do not know the details of how the injury occurred, other than it was on the San Diego Velodrome, which she so proudly showed off to me so recently. I am honored to have gotten to know her and so grateful that I saw her so recently. Jackie - you will be so missed.

The picture below was all Jackie's doing. It was the morning that I was leaving and I was about to get in my car when she said "Wait! I need a picture of us." She took the picture with her phone and texted it to me. Thank you Jackie for insisting on it.

Day 41 - Bull Hill

Woke up today to a bit of a dreary day. It rained overnight and was threatening to rain again. We all know how I feel about rain. The forecast today was for more of it, especially this morning. Since this is my vacation from my vacation, I decided not to feel too bad about taking the morning off. After breakfast, rather than  jumping right on a horse for a ride in the potential rain, I opted to relax in the cookhouse. I imported my pictures from my phone to my computer (still didn't get them up to flickr) and took a nap. Total productive use of time.

Had lunch here in the cook house and then set out for an afternoon ride. It was great to be back up on a horse - it's been probably a year and a half since the last time I rode (hunter-jumper lessons that I took for a bit). About 10 of us went out for a ride together - a good size group. Lots of really pretty views in addition to a lot of just really good riding. At one point, we were going down a pretty steep, dense hill when we ran into something - bees, thorns, I dunno, but it was something. The horses were freaking out. Lots of prancing, dancing, and bucking. Luckily, the only thing that fell off was my hat. My mother managed to save it thankfully and after a brief rest, we were on our way. Near the end of the ride, my mom and I took off ahead of the group and had a good time loping (cantering for you English folk). Great riding for the most part. My horse, Lefty, desperately wanted to take off, but as long as I kept her behind my mom's horse, I kept her in control. I don't know the names of the muscles, but there are these little tiny ones on the outsides of my ankles that are just KILLING me. I hope they'll loosen up a bit by tomorrow, but I don't count on it.

Much needed shower after the ride was over, followed by dinner and cocktails. So good to catch up with everyone. I'm so glad that I have another 2 full days here.

Day 40 - Vancouver to Bull Hill

Long day of driving today. I left Vancouver this morning at 9 AM - right on schedule - and started making my way east. My GPS was being annoying and saying that Washington State Road 20 did not connect to itself somewhere in the North Cascade Mountains, so it initially tried to take me way out of my way, which I knew was wrong. But I had some time fighting with it trying to decide which route to actually take over to east Washington. I stopped at a Starbucks to get Wi-Fi (my phone didn't have any cell service while still in Canada) in order to confirm with Google (who I trust more than my car's GPS), that the road was indeed open. So I ended up spending a good portion of the day with my GPS telling me that I had to turn around and then recalculating the route every 30 seconds or so. That was fun.

Anyway, I got out of Canada with no problems - there was a bit of a wait at the border, but the guy didn't question me as much as the woman going into Canada did. He was still a little shocked and confused by the fact that this was my 40th day on the road and asked what I did for a job that I could take that amount of time off.

I had a number of errands that I had to run while still in western Washington. I knew there wouldn't be many stores once I made the turn east. So I stopped at a mall to get a new pair of sunglasses, a Home Depot for a pair of work gloves for horseback riding (although the Home Depot didn't have any, so then I had to find a Lowe's), and a western wear store for a new hat - my straw one died a few years ago and I refuse to wear a black felt hat in summer, so I didn't bring that one on the trip. I also stopped for gas and broke my "No Fast Food" rule and picked up some chicken strips and ice cream from Dairy Queen. Although, I made up for it by buying some local strawberries at a stand on the side of the road.

A long afternoon of driving followed all the stops - really pretty scenery. Waterfalls and lakes and canyons and mountains - just beautiful. Two of the libraries came through with my Harry Potter book 6 request, but it was after I left this morning, and I didn't have a consistent 3G signal for the whole drive, so I could only download the first couple chapters. I did manage to get through 4 1/2 chapters of listening to it though and I'll be able to finish downloading it here at the ranch. I tried listening to a couple other audiobooks that I had downloaded and just couldn't get into them at all. The one I totally hated - I think it was like a religious romance novel or something - so not my thing. And there was one about Shaker's that I just couldn't get into. And then Night Circus, which I may try again at some point, but after one chapter, I was totally confused as to who the characters were, so that's when I gave up. Note to authors - I need to be enraptured by the first chapter, otherwise I give up - I don't try to power through. Maybe this is why I don't read. And when I'm listening to a couple of these books, I'm always thinking to myself "I could write better than this. Well, maybe with some practice anyways." I don't really remember doing too much creative writing back in school. I'm sure I did some - I just can't remember it. So I don't know what my process would be - just start writing and see where it leads, or map it all out and then flesh out the language for the story that I've already mapped out. Maybe I'll try some creative writing something or other soon. So many ideas.

Anyway, because I had so many errands to run this morning, I ended up skipping the two wineries that I was planning on going to in order to stay on scheduled. I got to the ranch around 6:30, which was half an hour ahead of my original plan. Maybe I could have stopped at at least one of those wineries. But it was good to be able to start to catch up with people before dinner at 7:00 anyways. Life at the ranch here is always fun - nice and laid back - very casual. We had dinner and then just hung out. I drank a bottle of wine. Yup. And there was a fire in the firepit where some people made s'mores. Horseshoes and football, hanging out and talking. All good things. Looking forward to getting back on a horse tomorrow.

I don't know if I'll write individual blog posts every night while I'm here or if I'll condense them into a single entry. I guess we'll see. Probably depends on how much I have to say. Good to be here whichever way.

Day 39 - Vancouver

Well, I absolutely love Vancouver. I had a great day with Kat. This morning, she, her son, and I went out exploring some of the more outdoorsy touristy things in the city: the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the Cleveland Dam, and Grouse Mountain. We took the tram up Grouse Mountain and had lunch at the top. There's a trail that goes straight up the side of the hill called the Grind. People walk or even run up it. Those people are crazy. I was really surprised at the weather here - it's beautiful. I expected it to be much colder and drearier. Granted, the city may be trying to fool me like Seattle did.

After coming back home to shower and change, Kat and I went out for the evening. We took the Sea Bus over to Vancouver (we're staying in West Vancouver), walked around the Coal Harbor area (got to see the Olympic torch statue!) and the Gastown area. We had dinner at a fantastic seafood restaurant - Rodney's Oyster House. We had some delicious oysters, a great salad, and mussels in an amazing dill butter broth. It was great food and great company. I really had a great time hanging out with Kat and I'm looking forward to coming back here again in the future.

Long day of driving tomorrow, and unfortunately I have no Harry Potter to get me through it. I am number 2 on 3 library waiting lists for it (number 8 on the 4th library's list). So I had to download a few other audio books in the meantime. We'll see how I enjoy them.

Day 38 - Seattle to Vancouver

Left Seattle this morning heading up to Vancouver. But before I hit the border, I had 4 wineries to hit. Pasek Cellars did specialty fruit wines, not really my thing. Carpenter Creek was decent. Dakota Creek was great - a nice outdoor seating area. Glacial Lake Missoula was an interesting one - very different than most of the wineries I've been to - they're only open on the weekends and their tasting room is in a garage. Interesting wines too.

Have you heard about the bridge that collapsed on I-5 about 3 or 4 weeks ago. That was the route that I was supposed to take. Obviously I couldn't do that. But the detour around the bridge only added on about 15 minutes to the trip - not nearly as much as I expected it to add. I crossed the border into Canada - first time I've done that by myself in a car. The woman asked me all sorts of questions, mostly around whether there was any possibility of having a gun in my car. Apparently, being from Texas, that was a large possibility. Not so much.

I made it to my friend's house about an hour ahead of schedule, even though I left Seattle half an hour late (the wineries didn't take too much time this time). This evening, we went to see Dreamgirls at the Stanley Theatre. The performers were almost all really great singers, but some were not the best actors. I felt like everyone was speeding through their lines. Most of the show is sung-through, so they obviously have to stay on tempo, but even the instances where there was no underlying music, there was no room for breath between everyone's lines. I felt like there wasn't a lot of feeling behind a lot of what was said. The show also suffered from a lack of creativity regarding the staging. The set relied heavily on the use of 4 rotating & moving pillars on stage. They were interesting and used well, but I felt like there needed to be more options regarding the set. Sound design was fantastic, and costume design was very good, except that I get distracted when I can tell actors are under-dressed. Oh, the choreography - mostly very good, very period, but pirouettes in passe position just seemed to not belong. It actually was a very enjoyable show, I'm just stupidly nit picky about all sorts of aspects.

I'm really behind on uploading pictures. Hopefully I'll do some of that while at the ranch later this week.

Really looking forward to exploring Vancouver tomorrow. Oh, also - I apparently do not get cell service here in Canada (it disappeared very shortly after crossing the border), so I have wi-fi here at the house, but won't have service during the day while I'm not here.

Day 37 - Seattle

Seattle is conspiring against me. I'm convinced of it. This is my second visit to the city (the first one being for an interview with Microsoft about 12 years ago), and on both occasions, the weather has been absolutely beautiful. But I will not be tricked, Seattle. I know your true nature. I know that you are actually grey and rainy and dismal. You will not convince me that you are a super cool city with beautiful, sunny weather that I would consider moving to. I refuse to believe the evidence I have seen!!!

I did NOT want to get out of bed this morning. I didn't stay up too late last night, but still, this morning I had no desire to move from my bed. So I got up and out about an hour later than planned, which still worked out just fine. First stop was the Seattle Underground Tour. I learned so much about Seattle history today! In 1889, there was a huge fire that destroyed all of the downtown area and they had to rebuild. Well, the original town was built down on sea level, and apparently, the tides caused all sorts of sewage problems in the streets. So when they went to rebuild the city, they basically condemned all of the previous streets and raised the ground level up by one or two stories. So under the current city, there is still the old network of streets and buildings that haven't been used in over a century. The tour takes you down into these streets & buildings. It's pretty neat. The tour was really interesting - I just wish the groups had been smaller. In my group, we had about 30-35 people. That's a pretty large group for a tour of this nature where you're walking down and up stairs and through corridors.

After the tour completed, I made my way over to the start point for the volksmarch. I got the registration info for the walk, but then went over to lunch at Tilikum Place Café. I had a great omelette, side salad and side of roasted potatoes with homemade ketchup. So good! I definitely recommend this place. Most everything seemed local and a lot was home made in house. 

I then started the volksmarch. The very first thing I passed was the Space Needle. If I had chosen to go up immediately, I would have had to wait for maybe an hour or so, so instead, I bought a ticket for later in the day to come back after I finished the walk. And then I continued on with the walk. Overall, a very good walk. I saw the waterfront (including where the Real World cast lived while they filmed here, SafeCo field, the international district, the Library (a really cool building), and lots of really neat buildings and shops and whatnot. A great walk. The best part was the most surprising though - I ran into a friend from home. How crazy is that??? I used to see him a lot back in Austin, but over the past few years, we've only seen each other on rare social occasions. But I totally ran into him on the water front here in Seattle. He's in town for a bachelor party. Random, right? Anyway, I talked to him and his 2 friends briefly, but I had a schedule to keep, so had to continue on. 

I finished up with the walk and went back to the Space Needle right on time for the ticket that I had. I went up without much wait and the view was beautiful! Seriously beautiful day out there - I saw Mount Rainier, which was pretty cool. And I also saw a cruise ship departing out of port. Took a few pictures and just relaxed up there for a while before leaving downtown, picking up some pizzas for dinner and heading back to the house.

Leaving Seattle tomorrow - onwards and upwards.

Day 36 - Portland to Seattle

Well, the weather followed me for at least part of the day today. I started the day with breakfast at Tasty and Sons, a farm to table restaurant in Portland. Did I mention how many restaurants there are in Portland? Especially farm to table? Yeah, it was really difficult to choose the places I'd eat, but Tasty and Sons was a fantastic choice. The omelette I had was incredible.

After breakfast, I headed up to the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site - another $3 saved by using my National Parks Annual Pass. Woo hoo! The fort was.... well, it was a recreation. Nothing there was original. A lot of it was still interesting nonetheless, except that it was raining. Ugh. We all know how I feel about that. There was a blacksmith and a carpenter on-site today. The blacksmith was interesting and I talked to him for a bit, but I managed to visit the carpenter right when a family with 4 kids was also visiting him. So, of course, they took all his attention with "what's this?" and "can I try that?" and "what's that?" I cut out of there a bit early.

Right on schedule, I left Vancouver to head up to Seattle. A good 3 hour drive - almost through Harry Potter book 5. I was getting tired right on schedule around 2:30, but I had an appointment to make, so there was much slapping myself in the face and turning on the air conditioner on high and talking to myself.

At 3:30, I had a tour scheduled of the Theo Chocolate Factory. This brings the factory tour count for the trip up to 4, if you include the Boudin Bakery in Disneyland, which I do. I bought a bit of chocolate after the tour (a $4 cherry chili chocolate bar is totally worth it, right?), and then headed up to my friend's house where I'm staying in Seattle. Seattle traffic patterns are a mess, by the way. Even with my GPS, I ended up in the wrong lane, forcing myself to make a wrong turn at least twice.

We went out to dinner at a great local seafood place and then came home and split a bottle of wine. So great to catch up with her.

Also - I heard today from my apartment complex back home and I officially have an apartment lined up to move into on the date that I'd like in September. Woo hoo! One less thing to worry about!

Tomorrow - being a tourist in Seattle!

Days 34 & 35 - McMinnville to Portland and Portland

So yeah, I didn't post last night. I was just way too exhausted. Yesterday wasn't too eventful. I did a bunch of wine tastings, most of which I enjoyed a lot. Bought a few bottles and shipped a bunch home.

I made it to Portland yesterday evening and went to a performance of Somewhere In Time, a new musical being shown here in Portland. I went into the show knowing very little about it, except that the book was written by Ken Davenport, who is a Broadway producer whose blog I read. I learned last night that the show is based on a 1980 movie, which is originally based on a book, and all 3 versions are actually based on the book's author's brother's journals. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was very well written (save for one song in the second act that I hated and I would throw out and re-write completely). The set design and direction were incredible. The transitions were beautiful and the use of body doubles was very smooth. Some of the costumes could have used some attention though. One dress in particular was beautiful, but was too long and the wrist loop (I don't know what that loop thing is called) that was put in to prevent the actor from tripping on it caused so much distortion on the dress that it looked ridiculous. And it looked like the actor was preoccupied with it as well. Overall, the acting was very good. There was one actor I didn't like because she overacted, but mostly, I was very impressed.

So today....

Today was gray and rainy. I've been very fortunate so far on my trip. Save for some rain on the drive on Day 1 and a little heat in Ukiah, the weather has been excellent. I knew it would catch up to me at some point. Unfortunately, it caught up to me on a day that I was looking forward to being outside. Thankfully, it didn't rain all day and just showered on and off. So today started with a trip to the farmers' market. Well, the Wednesday farmers' market. There are apparently many farmers' markets here. And apparently the Wednesday farmers' market is THE place to take pre-school classes. Seriously, there were like 5 classes there in the half an hour I was there. I picked up some fruit and got a bagel for breakfast.

From there, I went over to the Pittock Mansion. Henry Pittock was the editor of the Oregonian newspaper. The house was built in 1914 and was in use until 1958. It was in disrepair and almost got torn down in 1969, when it was rescued by a group of concerned citizens and the city. I've already discussed my love of old mansions and this one was just as great. It's interesting to see the differences in these mansions based on the time periods in which they were designed and built.

After the Pittock Mansion, I went over to the start of the volksmarch I was planning on doing. But before I started, I took a much needed nap in my car. The walk was ok. Like I stated before, it kept raining. Thank goodness I carry an umbrella with me at all times. I did stop a couple of times to let the rain pass, which worked once, but the second time, it wasn't letting up and I was close to the end, so I sucked it up and kept going. My observations on Portland: there are a lot of smokers here. Seriously, it seems like I saw more people smoking here than everywhere else leading up to here. Also, there are a lot of homeless people here. They were all over the place. Maybe it's because it's a more liberal, weird city, kinda like Austin, but I was really taken at how many I saw. There are also SO many restaurants. Seriously, they're everywhere. I had lunch at a place called Lardo, which had supremely good fries and tomorrow I'm going to a place called Tasty & Sons for breakfast. Looking forward to that.

Hopefully the weather won't follow me tomorrow.

Day 33 - Reedsport to McMinville

Oh my goodness. I have determined that while Oregon is crazy pretty and the people are really nice, I do not want to move here. Mainly because of the speed limits. I drove for a good 5 hours today along decently sized roads, and the speed limit never exceeded 55. And through towns, it went down to 25. And there were cops everywhere, so I couldn't push the limit at all. At a couple points, I was literally banging my head on my headrest I was so frustrated. Especially when I was stuck behind a truck of tree logs going about 35 in a 55 zone for at least 10 miles.  Gah!!!!!

I turned away from the coast around 2 PM. I'm it sure if I'll see the pacific again on this trip. Maybe up in/around Vancouver? I had planned on hitting 5 wineries today, but one was closed, and one's tasting room was actually in a wine bar that I didn't feel like dealing with. So I did get to my b&b for the night about an hour before planned, but that gave me time to take a nap before I got hungry for dinner, so that's good. I'm not sure if my palate is burnt out, or if I've picked sub-par wineries, or what, but I did not enjoy the wines today nearly as much as the California wines. Tomorrow is the Willamette Valley, so we'll see if things improve. 

I'm having dinner tonight in a Spanish restaurant on downtown McMinville. I'm a sucker for an authentic paella. 

My official Tonys review: I (along with the rest of humanity) am in love with Neil Patrick Harris. The opening number was beyond anything. And he's just so funny all of the time. His mash ups? I was dying. And the cancelled tv shows number? Fantastic. A couple of the shows' performances were a little....trite? Predictable? Unoriginal? I can see why Bring it On closed. And while I have no desire to see Kinky Boots, I'm glad that it won best musical, since it was the most original one amongst the bunch (yes, I know it's based on a film, but it's a semi-obscure film). Oh, but I did not enjoy their performance. It seemed repetitive and one-note gimmicky (Hi! We're going to use conveyor belts! Isn't that cool?). I liked the inclusion of current broadway shows in addition to the new shows, but the phantom lip sync? Yawn. And, good god, could there have been any more children performing this year? It was a freaking day care up there. That's most of my thoughts. I'm likely going to watch it all again tonight. Especially that opening number. 

Day 32 - Trinidad, CA to Reedsport, OR

This possibly may not get posted until tomorrow because I have very little to no service here, but here goes anyway. 

Today was a little rough emotionally. It was really introspective and I'm not sure if I came to any definitive conclusions, but I thought a lot about who I am and what I want. All good stuff, some too personal to post here (this is a public blog after all). I made a couple decisions about some actions that I want to take that I'll talk about later though. 

As I said yesterday, last night, I stayed in a little motel south of Redwood Forest. It was a cute little place and served my needs. I've been having some problems with the music on my iPhone recently. I use iTunes Match but sometimes when I go to play a song that it says I have on the iPhone, I get an error message stating something like "the requested URL could not be found on the server." And I haven't been able to fix it. So last night, because I had a good wireless connection, I spent some time resetting it. I turned off iTunes Match, deleted all of the music on the iPhone, synced it with the computer, turned iTunes Match back on, and downloaded a lot of music back onto the iPhone. And the ended up spending a couple of hours cleaning up and rating a good number of songs in my library. All this is to explain why I stayed up until 2:30. 

So I got a bit of a late start this morning, leaving the motel at 9:30. I then went into town and ate breakfast at the Seascape Restaurant. It's a great little diner type restaurant right on the water of Trinidad Bay. From there, I headed up to Redwood Forest. 

I had done a bunch of research regarding what to see in Redwood Forest previously (total shock, right?), but I stopped by the visitor center first in order to get exact directions. First stop was the Big Tree. Seriously, it's called the Big Tree. Now, this may seem a little...misleading? I mean, pretty much all of the redwoods are big, right? And the bases of them are huge, but most of the time, those huge bases are actually multiple trees all fused together. Redwoods can reproduce via seeds, like other trees, but the main way that they reproduce is via sprouts near their bases, where a new, separate tree grows out of the base of an existing tree (I'm sure I'm simplifying that). When this happens, the trees grow together at the base, but grow completely separate trunks and everything. So walking through the forests, you'll see these huge bases with 3 or 4 trunks growing out of them. But the Big Tree is a single tree that's something like 62 feet in circumference. It's pretty amazing. It's difficult to capture the scope of the trees and the forest through my little point-and-shoot camera; it's really something you need to see. 

After the Big Tree, I drove up the scenic parkway and ended up at another short trail. Can't remember the name of it offhand - it was close to the north end of the scenic parkway. It actually used to be a short road used for forestry, but they took out the road about 17 years ago and it's now a trail showing how the forest is recovering. At the end is a bench looking out over a meadow, where I sat and contemplated for a while. I had been thinking about bringing my sketchbook out with me, but I feel like my drawing skills can't come close to capturing the beauty of it, so I didn't bring it. And this thought then brought me to the beginning of my contemplation. For the rest of the day, I thought about this feeling I have that there is a depth of creativity, even artistry, within me that really wants to come out, and I limit it because I don't think it's good enough. Like if I can't produce something incredible, it's not worth even trying to produce anything. And I don't like that. I want to have to confidence to try, even though it may not be perfect or up to the standards that I want. More on this later. 

I then drove out to the costal drive (another drive that was a little rough on my car) and then up to crescent beach. Original plan was to walk out about a mile to the beach, but it was cold and windy, and I'm not a beach person anyways, and I really just wanted to drive and think, so I skipped it and started early on my 3 hour drive up the coast. 

I left California (after 3 weeks, I was totally ready to get to a new state) and entered Oregon. The 101 was quite different in Oregon than it had been in California. For one, the speed limit was only 55 at the max the whole way, so it was a little slow going. The coast was also very rocky and the ocean was quite rough. At some point along the way, I turned off my audiobook (I'm about a quarter of the way through Harry potter book 5) and did some more thinking. Thinking about creativity, art, writing, all sorts of stuff. I was having this huge urge to write - some type of creative writing- a short story, or a play, or something. But for the life of me I couldn't come up with any ideas. I like to have constraints, guidelines to stay within, a puzzle, a specific challenge. And coming up with an open ended whatever? I was already feeling overwhelmed and ready to quit before I had even begun. And I thought, "well, maybe I could find something online - a list of creative writing assignments or something that would at least get me started. Good idea, right? But then I started thinking about Little Women and Jo and how that English teacher guy (you know, the one she marries at the end?) tells her to write what she knows. So I started thinking, "what do I know?" And I know me. I know my stories. Obviously, I'm writing this blog, so that's a part of it, but there are so many other stories that I have. Experiences I've had, ideas for businesses, thoughts about life all sorts of stuff. And I want to start writing that. Not here, maybe not ever for any type of public forum, but just to start writing. Just to write, to get it out onto "paper" (let's be honest, it'll be on the computer). And if it coalesces into something, ok, and if its just purely an exercise in writing, ok. But that's my thought for today.

There were other thoughts as well, about the expectations and disappointments of life, but I think those thoughts will be the beginnings of the private writings. Suffice it to say that I ended up turning on my "Audition songs" playlist and crying along with a number of the songs I have on there because they were so close to what I was feeling at that exact moment. 

I went to dinner at a restaurant in North Bend and then made my way the rest of the way up to Reedsport. A hug thank you to my girlfriend Barbara, who hooked me up for an amazing mini suite in her brother-in-law's house for the night. It's absolutely beautiful, with a garden tub, an amazing view, and what makes me happiest of all today, a tv that will be broadcasting the Tony's (delayed 3 hours because of Pacific Time) in about half an hour. Super super excited for that. I was worried I wouldn't get to see them until I got to my parents' house in Philly at the end of July. And because I don't have Internet, there's not even a chance of seeing spoilers on Facebook during the live broadcast. Who knew that I would ever be grateful for not having Internet?

Day 31 - Ukiah to Trinidad

Are we all totally surprised that it's 5 PM and I'm exhausted? Cause I'm sure not. The original plan for today was to hit up 3 separate wineries spread throughout the day. I ended up hitting none. Instead, I took more scenic drives and spent some time catching up with a great friend from home.

Instead of driving directly up 101 from Ukiah, I instead cut out to the coast and came up the 1, through the Redwood forests and along the Pacific coast. Once the 1 cut back in and connected back with 101, I checked out a drive-thru tree, which was pretty cool. Yes, my car fit through, but I had to go quite slowly in order to not scrape my mirrors.

I also took the Avenue of the Giants along the entire stretch of it rather than staying on 101, which took me through a lot of redwood forests. So so pretty. Tonight I'm staying in a little motel up near Redwood National Forest, which I'll visit tomorrow. I'm looking forward to getting out and hiking. I feel like my body needs the physical exercise. I almost considered doing some yoga tonight.

A couple other observations from today:
1. I have apparently stumbled upon a motorcycle convention in the area. They are everywhere. I know that the Sturgis festival isn't until August, so I'm not sure what's going on in this area, but goodness gracious.
2. People that are driving and don't realize that they are going slower than the line of cars behind them want them to go are completely annoying. Here, where most of the roads don't have passing lanes, it's pretty universally understood that if someone is getting close to you behind you, you should pull over into the next turnout in order to let them pass. Occasionally, someone doesn't understand this and the entire line of vehicles behind them has to suffer. GRRRRRR. There's also the reverse that I experienced today with a guy that came up on my tail so quickly and couldn't wait until I hit the next turnout to let him pass. He rode my tail with his light (just one, as his was a motorcycle) glaring in my mirror and the passed me just before I was coming up on a turnout where I could pull over to let him pass. Jackass.
3. The TV in my hotel room had a ton of extraneous, non-working channels programmed onto it, so, of course, I spent an hour deleting them.
4. While it's been nice to use airbnb the past leg of this trip, I'm excited to have a couple of nights to myself. It's good to have time to decompress alone and not have to be a guest in someone's home.
5. The Tonys are tomorrow night. I don't think I'll have TV where I'm staying tomorrow night, so I've been trying to figure out if they're being streamed. You know what's not helpful? A website that only gives information about how LAST YEAR's Tonys were scheduled to be streamed. Grrrrr...

Ok, I think that's it for my grievances for the evening. :-)

Day 30 - Geyserville to Ukiah

Had another great day of wine tasting today. Tony and Deborah were my hosts last night and were super fantastic. Deborah works in the wine industry, so she gave me some great recommendations for place to hit today.

I started out with Geyser Peak Winery, which I think I've seen distributed in Texas. Decent wines there. I then went to J Rickards. Jim and his dog greeted me and I ended up spending a long time there. Jim was super informative about all sorts of aspects of wine making - weather, soil, blends, all sorts of stuff. We even went out and looked at the vines up close. I had a great time there. I then made my way up to Hopland and hit up McNab Ridge Winery. I had planned on 2 more in Hopland, but since I spent so much time at J Rickards, I skipped those.

I grabbed lunch at the Hopland Ale House, whose owner was there and was really nice. She just bought the place about a year ago. I was there at 2 PM, so it was pretty empty. They apparently have live music there in the evenings. Nice place.

I went up Jeriko Winery after lunch and was totally exhausted. I actually took a nap in my car before going inside. The wines there were good. I was scheduled to go to Jaxon Keys Winery, but a couple of people at Jeriko recommended that I go to Saracina Vineyards instead. I'm glad I did that. I got to meet Alex, the winemaker at Saracina, and had some fantastic wines there. Definitely a wine club I'm interested in joining.

Tonight is my last airbnb reservation for a while. I'm staying at a ranch estate just outside of Ukiah. I'm making my way out of California wine country. Tomorrow I'm driving a bunch, and I'm actually quite looking forward to that. There's only so much wine tasting a person can do before burning out.

Day 29 - Dry Creek Valley

Not a ton to report today. I spent most of the day wine tasting in the Dry Creek Valley. I'm probably only about 15 minutes away from where I stayed for the past 2 days, but with so many wineries and vineyards in the area, there was not a lot of "progress" to be made.

I picked up a sandwich from the Dry Creek General Store and ate that for lunch at the picnic tables right near the Family Wineries of Dry Creek. My two favorite wineries today were Kokomo and Mietz, which was one of the wineries within the Family Wineries of Dry Creek. They had an amazing Pinot Noir. Kokomo  had a great rose and malbec. So much good wine in the area. I will definitely be joining a few wine clubs when I get home. But I successfully did not buy any wine today (well, a glass from Mietz to go with my lunch, but that doesn't count)! Go me!

Totally exhausted once again. I skipped dinner in order to just stay in and relax, plus I wasn't hungry anyways.

More wine tastings tomorrow.

Day 28 - Healdsburg

New plan: start writing my blog post before I'm too exhausted to keep my eyes open. Lets be honest, this new plan is only for today, since I likely won't have the opportunity to do this on most days. But I do today.

It's currently 2 PM in Healdsburg and so far today, I've hit 3 wineries and a restaurant for lunch. I really should stop buying wine. My credit card hurts. But it's so yummy! I have 3 more wineries to go to this afternoon. The town is super cute and everything is focused around the town square, so I'm walking everywhere today. That's a little dangerous, because I don't need to pace myself as much as when I'm driving between wineries. 

The place I'm staying is called Camelia Inn. It's about 2 blocks away from the town square and is sup cute. They do wine and cheese out by the pool every day at 5:30 and provide a home cooked breakfast every morning. I'm in the smallest room, which is exactly what I need. I have a private bathroom, but it is across the hall. I'm totally ok with that. 

I did get a bit of a later start this morning. I didn't have anything that I was rushing out to do, and I was exhausted, so after breakfast, I totally crawled back into bed for a while. I've been streaming Parenthood on Netflix. So good! Also, Healdsburg has free wireless all over town, so that's nice. Can I move here? I. Mean, I'm not sure how many software development jobs there are or how much theatre there is, but it sure is a great town. I went to Willi's seafood bar for lunch, which was super yummy and now I'm gonna go check out those remaining wineries on my list for today.

...

Fast forward 8 hours. Once again, totally exhausted. After lunch, I hit up 4 more wineries in total. By the last one, I had very little palate for actual evaluations. I'm sure my notes make no sense whatsoever. Came back to the inn for wine and cheese out by the pool (just cheese for me)

I sobered up and then went over to Bravas Tapas bar for dinner. I spent a good hour and a half there nibbling on a bunch of small dishes and talking to the chef and manager. It was fantastic. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I'm glad that I wrote most of this post earlier today, cause once again, I'm falling asleep.

Day 27 - Santa Rosa to Healdsburg

I'm pretty tired tonight, but today was another good day. I feel like I'm not capturing the emotions of every day in my posts recently, but by the time I sit down to write them, I'm just so tired that it's all I can do to just remember the events of day.

I had breakfast at the apartment where I was staying last night (an airbnb reservation). I then bounced around Santa Rosa for a while (a lot of the places I had on my list had the wrong hours on my spreadsheet). But I juggled a bunch around and made it to a lot of great stuff. I started out with 2 wineries, then the Charles M Schultz Museum. It was an okay museum. I felt like it was more interested in explaining how great of a museum it was rather than actually being a great museum. Still had a bunch of interesting stuff there though.

After the museum, I hit a few other wineries and then finally checked into the Inn where I'm staying in Healdsburg. On Tuesday evenings in Healdsburg in the summers, there is live music down in the square, so I went down to check it out. It was pretty crowded, but it was great to see a local event.

Ok, I know that this post is pretty half assed, but like I said, super tired. Sleep now.

Day 26 - San Francisco to Santa Rosa

An absolutely lovely day today. I was delayed about half an hour getting out of San Francisco this morning because I had a couple errands to run - stop at the bank to deposit my apartment move out refund check (all those hours of cleaning paid off by getting a full refund on my security and pet deposits) and replacing the ice in my cooler again. All that cheese that I bought yesterday had to stay cool somehow.

My first stop this morning was Muir Woods. It wasn't actually on my plan until last night when I had a second person recommend that I go there. It was on my route and there are only so many wineries that a person I can go to in one day. So I got to Muir Woods and it was beautiful. I'm not what you might call "outdoorsy," but the trees were incredible. I did the 2 mile loop walk. The first half mile or so was overrun by people (lots of kids), but once I got through all of them, it opened up into this beautiful, quiet, serene experience. It was amazing to see how the trees grow. I know that sounds obvious, but their desire for the sunlight is obvious. There was one tree that at some point fell, partially ripping up the roots. It somehow managed to fall right between 2 trees that trapped it from falling all the way. The roots were still partially in the ground, and, somehow, the tree still got nutrients and survived, with the tip of the trunk slowly bending up towards the light. It was pretty amazing to see.

After Muir Woods, I started up into Sonoma. I started with Homewood Winery. They were pretty busy, but I tried some good wines there. While there, a couple of other patrons recommended that I try Fremont Diner. I had planned to go to a different place, LaSallette, for lunch, but my plan is nothing if not adaptable. Fremont was fine - nothing that was worth writing home about, but it seemed quite popular.

I then went up to the town square within Sonoma and went to Charles Creek Tasting room and Adobe Hill Tasting room. Adobe Hill was a last minute addition just because I was walking by. I got some great recommendations for other people to check out on the remainder of the trip, and I also heard about a local cheese place to try, Vella Cheese, so I walked over there and picked up a Monterey Jack (because the one thing I need is more cheese). I then stopped by Premiere Wine Shipping - Oh my goodness - so easy to arrange for shipment home of the few bottles that I've picked up along the way. I was so worried about that. There will be another place to stop in Portland if I have more wine to ship.

Because I added an additional winery and the cheese shop in at the last minute, I was running a bit behind on my planned schedule, so I skipped Little Vineyards and went straight to Eric Ross Winery. I loved talking with Eric at the tasting room about wines, photography, and the directions our lives take. Finally, I headed over to Mayo Family Winery, another great winery where I had some amazing wines. I ended up ordering 6 bottles there that were all super yummy.

Spending the night in Santa Rosa tonight and moving on tomorrow.

Day 25 - San Francisco

Another good day today. I started off the day taking MUNI over to the Presidio. I walked through a bunch of the park and arrived at the Walt Disney Family Museum. So many interesting things there! It was so interesting. I am fascinated by early Disneyland. Overall, a very well done museum, if a bit on the pricey side.

After I finished up at the museum, I called my uncle who lives here in San Francisco and he and my cousin Michelle came and picked me up. We drove back to their house and picked up more family members, my aunt and her brother and sister in law. Here's Michelle and I in front of the Golden Gate Bridge:

We all drove over to Sausalito and went to a classic restaurant, The Spinnacker, for lunch. We walked through Sausalito for a while and then drove around San Francisco for a while before they dropped me off at one of my new favorite stores, Cheese Plus! I picked up some great cheeses, plus some salami and jellies. I'll be eating these over the next few days up in Wine Country. Yummy!! Can't wait! I resisted opening any of them up so far! The shop was about a mile away from the apartment where I'm staying, and I had the opportunity to take a cable car, so I jumped on the chance. I had bought a $22 3-day visitor passport for MUNI and so far, had only taken one ride, worth $2, so the $6 cable car ride at least brought down the deficit of how much I paid vs how much I would have paid. Oh, I also took the opportunity to get a couple pictures of Lombard street (the cable car went right by it anyway).

Nice relaxing night at in today just planning out some dates in the future. I do love playing with my spreadsheet!

Day 24 - San Francisco

Well, today got off to a bit of a rough start, but recovered. For some reason, and I can't figure out why, I didn't pre-purchase my ticket for Alcatrez. Maybe because I wasn't exactly sure what time I'd get there? Regardless, I never bought it. So when I showed up today, the next available tours were on Monday. Well that wasn't going to work. So then I know that I'm not going to be able to do Alcatrez. Total bummer. So then I made my way down to the start point for the Volksmarch, which wasn't open yet. So then I decided I was hungry, so I'd try one of the Fishermen's Wharf food vendors, but they weren't open yet either. So I had to just sit around and wait for a bit. Oh, and I had already walked a good mile and a half before starting the walk.

So when I finally was able to start the walk (the box seemed more disorganized than usual, which didn't help), I was in kinda a crabby mood. The walk took me all the way down Embarcadero to AT&T Park. I went through the Farmers' Market, which was great, but didn't buy anything. The walk also went up through the financial district and Chinatown. It wasn't nearly as challenging as I expected it to be. I've definitely done more difficult walks up to this point. At the end of the walk, it went right near where my car is parked (in a garage for the weekend) and where I'm staying, so I was able to pick up my laundry and bring it back to the apartment.

After I finished the walk, I ate some dungeneous crab at fishermen's wharf and then made a stop to see the sea lions. Because I wasn't able to actually go to Alcatrez, I had bought a ticket for a boat ride that would circle around it, so I'd at least get an up close view of it. So I did that at 3:30, which was fun. I had no desire to sit out on the deck because of the cold and wind, but it was still a great boat ride.

After the boat ride, I came back to the apartment, caught up on all of my laundry, and then Jen and I went out for a couple of drinks. At the first place, this good cover band was playing - mainly songs from the 90's. They were really fun. Once the bar got crowded, we bailed and went to a local dive bar for one more beer.

Overall, a good day that recovered from a pretty crappy start.