You know how, most of the time, when you stop to look at birds they scatter or fly away? Well… sometimes they make a beeline right for you.

I actually had to back away from this character because my camera wouldn’t focus that close!

These American Coots were all over the Bahia property and me taking photos of them did nothing to curb their appetite for the clover flowers.

I just realized that I never mentioned the incredibly windy ferry ride to Sausalito or the delicious family-style lunch at Angelino Restaurant… so I’ve added a few photos below. Also, the entire Napa Valley/San Francisco trip recap is now available here.

Alcatraz as taken from the ferry boat

enjoying a glass of the Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc with my Italian lunch

the always beautiful Golden Gate Bridge

For those of you that know about The French Laundry, this post will probably cement the fact that you should go at least once in your lifetime and once you do, it will be clear that this experience is not about value for money or the quality and presentation of the food, but rather so you can tell people “OMG, I had a four-hour lunch at The French Laundry”!

The service and presentation was outstanding, i.e. they replaced your napkin if you left the table, new silverware with each course and at least two waitstaff set all four plates down at the exact same time while the head waiter announced what we were eating for each course.  Their website states a nine course menu but that doesn’t include two little appetizers to start, bread between several courses, and the additional two mini courses of chocolates.

I believe the menu is the exact same for lunch and dinner, so that should have tipped us off but we honestly did not expect lunch to take as long as it did. It actually became a challenge of sorts to remember what the heck we had ordered for the next course as time went on. To everyone’s suprise, Eric ordered the “Tasting of Vegetables” menu while the three of us went with the meatier “Chef’s Tasting” menu. To complement our meal we decided to order individual glasses of wine because the prices for a bottle of wine were way, way, over the top.

My personal favorites were the cauliflower puree with California sturgeon caviar, the tuna tartare (photo below), the Maine lobster with passion fruit and white chocolate, and the swiss “Scharfe Maxx” cheese with green apples.

As we were leaving we were given copies of the menu, which is the only way I would have been able to add the photo captions below.

tartare of Japanese blue fin tuna with globe artichokes, red radishes, garlic scapes, sylvetta arugula and black truffle vinaigrette

one of Eric’s favorites: gratin of yukon gold potatoes with Meyer lemon “glacage”, garden relish, romaine lettuce, sugar snap peas and Maine lobster

one of three dessert courses and one of my favorite presentations of the entire meal

We half-joked that instead of this normal pose, we needed a shot of my dad with his empty pockets pulled out… we both really appreciated my dad taking us here and it will remain a once in a lifetime experience!

Wow. We had such a nice time tasting wines in Napa Valley, mostly in the St Helena and Yountville areas. Eric already mentioned the who, so now that I’m back in NC and can edit the photos… here are some shots of the beautiful winery estates we visited…

my dad, me and my stepmom under the trellis at Domaine Chandon

the setting at Jarvis was more lovely than the wine, unfortunately

hey! the Silver Oak lighthouse isn’t really in the vineyard like the label illustrates

who knew they had fantastic wines at Beringer, it’s not just white zinfindel!

Silverado has a lovely building and view of their vineyards off the patio

For the record, the setting at Rombauer was beautiful with plenty of potted plants and gardens, we just didn’t take any photos there.

Personally? I thought this place was a ripoff. It’s not that they weren’t lovely views of the Pacific, but an $8 day use fee for a few short hiking trails? We were wondering why so many people were walking up the steep road to the trails until we spotted the small parking area just outside the entrance gate. So, apparently only the tourists pay. Lovely.

The Guy Fleming trail was a short 2/3 mile loop with Pacific Ocean overlooks and ridiculous amounts of signage telling us to keep out/off things. I don’t know what it is about Californians and their signs, but they were everywhere. A lot of good it seems to do when we could clearly see footprints where folks had jumped over the chains in places to hike near the cliffs when they were asked multiple times not to. Plus, the actual Torrey pines weren’t altogether special or unique and the literature we were handed didn’t offer much insight either.

Perhaps the loveliest scene here is the sandstone cliffs rising up from the beach. We visited about 2 hours before sunset, so the rock was lit up nicely. A little disappointed as we were looking forward to something a little more profound.

I can’t even begin to explain how terrible the weather was while we were there… even when surrounding areas were clear, Julian was stuck in a freezing rain cloud (city is up around 4000 feet). All night was spent listening to the constant rain as our room had sliding glass doors as one wall. We finally just got up and watched Superbad because we couldn’t sleep anymore.

Even with the unfortunate weather, I could see how charming Julian could be. Supposedly they are known for their apples up there, so fall is probably a great time to visit, especially with all the pie places in town!

We stayed at Angels Landing Country Inn just north of downtown. Our Jr Suite was roomy, but the sliding glass door was a bit troublesome to lock and not very safe looking. No matter, because I think we were the only people anywhere near the place that Thursday night.

Our two restaurant experiences were good and everyone we spoke with was friendly. For dinner we ate at the Julian Grille, Eric got chicken stuffed with ham and swiss covered in sliced peaches (from a can, unfortunately) and I got the trout with capers and mixed mushrooms. We split a bottle of California wine and remarked how very un-California this town felt.

Margarita’s was recommended to us for breakfast the following morning, so I went all out and ordered a tortilla stuffed with scrambled egg, chorizo, beans and cheese, topped with a mild red sauce. Eric went the more traditional route with eggs, potatoes and toast and Ryan ordered the least greasy (in a good way) chicken-fried steak I’ve ever seen. In fact, all were tasty, well priced, AND sustained us on a six mile hike. Not bad.

Our ridiculously cheap rental car took us out to the desert for the first night of our San Diego trip. ($48 including taxes for five days, the guy even commented that this was why his salary is what it is! Whoops.)

There are shorter ways to get to Julian, CA (our room reservation for the night) but we decided to drive out on I-8 and head north through Cucamaya Rancho State Park. It took about 45 minutes to get out there and the bustle of the city was replaced by desert and mountain views.

Throughout the drive we saw evidence of the California wildfire damage of last year—entire hillsides covered in scorched trees.

My brother, Ryan, drove down from LA for a day of hiking with us. He must have left well before dawn because I got a phone call at 8am that he was sitting in the parking lot! :)

As Eric mentioned, Friday started out unremarkable, but after a filling breakfast at Margarita’s in Julian, we were hoping for the best… there’s only so much hiking one can tolerate in bad weather.

The chilly rain gave way to breaking clouds and finally some warm sun by early afternoon. I swear we went through three seasons on the Palm Canyon trail hike, from downpour to hot sun, but the views were completely worth it.

All this hiking through the mountains and all of a sudden, a palm oasis!

Surprisingly (considering it’s the desert) there was a rushing creek with several waterfalls throughout the hike. So I guess all the rain did have some benefit!

The Anza-Borrego visitor’s center was very helpful in terms of information on hiking trails. We didn’t buy a detailed map ($1) on this visit because we only did the Palm Canyon hike. If the weather had been more predictable we probably would have tried to do more, but as it was, we saw quite a bit on this five mile roundtrip hike.

Today we spent the day in the desert, hiking past wildflowers and a small stream on our way to a palm oasis. We were a bit worried when we woke up this morning because it was raining and chilly in Julian, CA. Thankfully, the rain stayed on that side of the mountain and we remained (mostly) dry during our day hike in the desert. Tonight we will be back in San Diego!