Stay Classy, San Diego

Everything was sunny as we pulled into San Diego. We pulled up to Silver Strand Beach State Park (we had just left Dockweiler so things were looking up!) and were all set to go, then we found out they LOCK the gates at 8pm. No cars in or our. Uh... no late dinners, no evening time with family in San Diego. See Ya!

We ended up near Pacific Beach at Campland on the Bay, a very cute park. Happy and tired, we blew everyone off that first night - needing a quiet rest after driving from LA.

Soon, though, morning would come and we'd be on our way to the National Aerospace Museum to see Grandad Pepper. As a Docent there, he toured us around, sharing stories about this "Bird" and that, one "Flyboy" or another, this "mission", or that "encounter." It was the first time I've ever been at a museum and really learned something about the people. Usually, museums are all about the stuff, and as a visitor, you miss all the stories. For me, it was the difference between being bored and completely engaged.

Grandma met us there at the end of our tour (Grandad only went 1/2 hour over our intended tour time) where they treated us to an impeccable lunch at Prado. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon with them trying to find someone who could help with the truck - being San Diegoans, they had some connections. Along the way, we found out that the Pepper name is literally written in stone around the city. I also got to meet Dave Pepper, who looks just like Jim! Crazy.

Later that evening Lindsay and I drove to Jeff & Bridie's for dinner (we were late, there was traffic, but we had borrowed Grandad's Mercedes, so that was cool). We only got a minute or two with the amazingly cute little Jack. But Meg was raring to go, and performed the most fantastic SuperStar dance you can imagine, shared little secrets and reading time with Lindsay, and still had energy enough to educate Buffy and me on the fine art of coloring. She's so adorable.

We wrapped up the evening with just a little adult time and said our goodbyes, but not before we seduced Jeff and Bridie into joining us for Mexican the following evening. Everyone we talked to in San Diego said that Old Town doesn't have the charm it used to, but we still enjoyed walking and shopping. The main square, admittedly, was desolate.

Jeff and Bridie caught up with us midway through our first ginormous margarita, ordered up one of their own, and we proceeded into a lively, entertaining, incredibly filling adults only meal. It was great to have time without the kids, and San Diego's mexican food is killer.

One note: We managed to take ZERO photos in San Diego for some reason, so those are from Jeff.

Bee line to LA

What is there between San Francisco and L.A. you ask, probably lots of stuff, that we did not stop to see. We were on a mission to get to the elusive Dockweiler Beach RV Park, where we were unable to make a reservation and no one could tell us if they thought there would in fact be a place for us to park. We took our chances, risking life and limb to get to the office before it closed at 9:30. White knuckled Josh drove our rig up the I-5 grapevine, all the while trying not to kill the brain dead L.A. drivers. Hasn't anyone told them what a turn signal is? Or when they see a turn signal, what idea it is actually trying to convey? We almost ran out of gas at 9:05 and had to stop. We literally had about four minutes to get off the highway, find diesel, pump it, and go. We maybe got about six gallons in before I screamed from the passenger seat "TIME'S UP!" We left the receipt for our sale fluttering in the breeze of our RV pealing back out into the night. Even after one (small) wrong turn we pulled up to the Park gate at 9:25, shaking, pale and heaving sighs of relief.

Our good friends Shiva and Nicole (remember the newly engaged from our Burning Man blog?) had gone to the park earlier in the day to try to secure a spot for us to no avail. To help us out, as we later found out, Shiva cleverly told us the park's office closed at 9:30 when in fact it closed at 10:00, tricky huh?

We spent the next few days in LA visiting with my good friend Beth and her husband Adam. Beth and Adam had moved from Holyoke to LA the previous spring and we hadn't seen them since. It was a wonderful visit. We hung out with her dog Oscar and her cat Lucy, ate really good food and caught up. We spent a night in their swanky new digs and headed out to dinner at Il Fornaio, where Adam is the manager. We visited the Container Store (I'm seriously considering registering there) and stocked up on, what else, containers. It was so nice to spend time with them and Josh and I both realized how much we have missed them, and their little dog too! As usual our visit was too short, Beth and Adam had to head (ironically enough) to the Northeast for a wedding.

After our visit with the Franzese's we headed to Nicole and Shiva's. The next few days were filled with surfing (Shiva and Josh), massages (Lindsay and Josh got AMAZING massages from Loni, more about that later), eating (what do you expect?), wedding planning (again, what do you expect?), dancing, laughing and more eating. Oh, and we waited FOREVER for UPS to figure out where and when to deliver a very important package containing a much anticipated part for the truck. UPS has yet to master efficiently and effectively delivering packages to the LA area.

Josh and Shiva, with Lindsay and the camera in tow, headed to the beach for an afternoon of surfing. Josh and I watched Shiva become one with the waves and the dolphins. Josh did really well after a year hiatus, and I soaked up the rays and tried to capture it all on the camera. We snacked and sunned then the boys headed back to the surf for another go. After about 45 minutes they hauled back out of the water with tired, rubbery arms and empty bellies. This is probably where more eating took place.


We headed north to Topenga Canyon to visit Loni, one of Josh's mom's best friends. She lives in an amazing community of houses that teeter on the steep canyon incline. The view from her porch is breath taking, especially if you are taking it all in from the bubbling hot water of the outdoor hot tub. On our first visit to the Canyon, Loni treated us to the most amazing cookies we have ever had. In the simplest terms the cookies were oatmeal raisin, but then they were Loni-fied! Some ingredients were doubled others were tweaked, the product we tasted could have been served for breakfast or dessert. We also visited Loni for our much anticipated massages. For months Josh and I had been griping back and forth about our various aches and pains and we kept talking about getting a massage. Finally, as we neared southern CA we decided to really treat ourselves and hold out for a Loni massage. For an hour and a half we were lulled and kneaded, rubbed and soothed by Loni's amazing hands. Josh took the first massage as I soaked in the hot tub and watched the sun play with the shadows and light on the canyon walls. Josh emerged, all mumbly and sleepy eyed. He sunk into the hot tub with a sigh and I was whisked into Loni's house. For an hour and a half she worked on me. I have had body work from many different therapists, and when someone works on me who knows dance and dancers bodies I always feel amazing after. Needless to say, Loni being a dancer, knows where certain bodies hold tension. I was a noodle when she was done with me.
With our massage after glow still aglow, we met up with Nicole, Shiva and Jorge (a good friend of Nicole and Shiva's) for sushi. Josh and I have a pretty serious reputation of going WAY OVERBOARD with ordering and eating sushi. Tonight we were hungry and our bodies were screaming out for good healthy food, as you might have expected, we went WAY OVERBOARD. But we weren't alone, everyone ate until we had to lean way back in our chairs.

I can't remember which night this next event occurred, but Josh and I got one of the coolest engagement gifts from Nicole and Shiva. They had a woman named Linda Solomon (www.solmoonrising.com), do our natal charts and record her reading them. I had never identified with the typical "Capricorn" readings and that was because I had never had my charts read. When your charts are read there are so many other components involved like where you were born, what time you were born, each of these and many more will paint an incredibly accurate picture of who you are. As Josh and I listened we kept opening our mouths in disbelief. How did this woman know ANY of this about me, we wondered. She was on the ball and not afraid to say unflattering things, not that she was offensive but when you hear certain things from a complete stranger you hear it differently than if you were told by a friend. We have listened to them many times since and we always seem to come away with a slightly deeper understanding of who we are and what we do.

Then there was Dance Church. At the end of the week Nicole, Josh and I headed off to do a little free dance. We walked into an huge room filled with moving bodies. Bodies of all shapes and sizes swayed, stomped, twirled and flew to a great dance beat. This was a place that you could do whatever you needed however you wanted to do it. Having not danced in quite a while I took a good long time stretching before I started to move. I stretched and watched. Some bodies moved with strict training and technique and some moved as thought they felt the earth quaking beneath them. All of the faces wore smiles, tears, sweat or elation. Some of their energy reached out to welcome everyone in, others felt like they demanded you pay attention to them. It was constantly changing and constantly evolving. As I began to move, I tried to watch and tried to get lost, it turned out I couldn't do them both at once. So I got lost for a while, in the beat and in my body. Sometimes I was pulled out and distracted by an odd sight but I tried to take what I saw and let it go again. Sadly, Shiva, our whirling dervish, was home in bed. Some of the sushi from the night before got it's revenge. We all danced healthy belly dances for Shiv.

It was sad to leave people we love, but that is a trend for our trip unfortunately. Imagine if we got to take everyone with us? We would have one PACKED RV. As LA disappeared into the yellow smog and traffic congestion we remembered all the fun we had while we were there. In fact we found that we did bring a little LA with us, a few weeks later while washing the RV we got to watch the last of the gray soot rinse off the white exterior.

Escape From the Vines, Part III

Our last escape from the vines was to visit a very good old friend, Maxwell MacVeety (my brother from another mother) in Oakland, CA. After our meal and drinks with Brian, Josh and I headed toward Oakland to meet up with Max and his girlfriend Alli at their place. We shmoozed with them and their two adorable cats and then Max, Josh and I headed to a tiny club where Max would be playing later that night. Normally when we see Max behind his drum set he is playing with The Crown City Rockers (who ROCK I might add, more about them to come in future blogs), tonight he was sitting in with another band.

We boogied and whooped and met so many people who raved about Max's skills on the drums. When the band he was playing with started we were thoroughly entertained. Max had told us the lead was "a real showman". We debated who this man reminded us of, finally deciding he must be the love child of Bobby Brown and MC Hammer. He had all the right moves, whether it be walking through the audience handing out roses to the lovely ladies, to tossing handfuls of candy into the hands of his sighing fans.


After the music wound down we headed to a late night Thai place where we ordered HUGE orders of deliciousness. We chatted and munched until the wee hours and then we headed home to bed.

Escape From the Vines, Part II

With so few days in Sonoma, it's hard to imagine that we would take time away, but as it turns out, Santa Rosa is nicely situated amidst people we love. One of those people is Bryan Stillman. Once my boss as a fledgling intern at TBWA/Chiat/Day - he remains to this day one of my favorite people to be around. He's smart, funny, obnoxiously loud and vulgar (only when completely inappropriate - he is otherwise mild and sweet) and totally easy to be around.


I won't say that he's the ONLY reason we visited San Francisco, it happens to be one of my favorite places in the country. However, instead of the usual role we play as tourists, we skipped most of the city, battled with a cracked-out urbanista weaving her BMW through traffic and made our way to Bryan's favorite establishment, Zuni. I would take the time to describe it, but he's already done it eloquently here.

We, sadly, did not have the chicken. But we did manage to scarf down the shoestring fries and Caesar salad along with a couple of our own additions to Bryan's standard repertoire: 12 Oysters from around the Pacific ("Yum", "Yuk and "Oh my!" were all well represented), and a delectable plate of the softest, most palatable gnocchi I've ever had (Tuscany included).

From Zuni we made our way to the wine bar next door (also in the link above). After our two days of wine tasting in the Sonoma Valley, we were experts and ready to give the bartenders a run for their money. The beauty of the place is that they sold "taste" size glasses of wine, so you could be non-committal. Lindsay wasn't having any of that, though, and ordered a full glass of the first thing she tasted. As it turns out, it was far and away the most interesting wine of our week in Sonoma - with undertones of leather, earthiness and still the tang of berry, it was something to speak of, if only we remembered the damn name.

The evening turned into the night, we hugged thoroughly and made clear to Bryan that it is now his turn to come East, and we set off for Oakland, where in a most stark contrast to the shi shi San Francisco nightlife, we met with the indelible Maxwell Macveety & Ali to accompany Max to a show in West Oakland...

That is To Be Continued in: Escape From the Vines, Part III

Escape From the Vines, Part I

Difficult as it was to tear ourselves away from the beauty of Sonoma County, we were well rewarded by the people we visited.

It started with a day trip to Sacramento, for dinner and Belt Promotion with the Howes and Aunt Barbara. I think Meredith was a little worried that she was dragging us along to Elijah's Belt Promotion Ceremony, but she had nothing to worry about once we got there. The Karate instructor was warm and inviting, plus humorous, teaching the kids values rather than just butt-kicking. It was awesome. The kids were stellar. Elijah is a serious martial artist. I'm not saying I think he could take me out in a street fight, but he worked with determination and poise, and was clearly one of the more disciplined kids there. Elijah received his purple belt with pride.

As a bonus, we were all treated to a couple of martial arts exhibitions, one by a little guy named Scott Wu. Little? Yes. Meek? NO! Small in Sprit? His Chi was enough to give me chills. If you're interested, do a Google or YouTube search for his name, you will be blown away by what we saw up close and personal.

Upon returning to the house to catch up a bit, we got to experience the magic of non-martial-arts sword fighting between two brothers and a dad. When Jonah took a long enough break from running around in circles, he was a pretty good sword fighting partner for Elijah. Fred, clearly the master swordsman of the group, made quick work of dispatching Elijah of both arms and one eye. I fear his martial arts training will suffer, but he'll hang in there.

Bedtime came, we got to spend a little time catching up with the grownups (Meredith was extraordinarily angry with Fred about the bloodstains on the carpet - StainMaster is no match for Swordfighting.) All kidding aside, we got to catch up on years of missed time, and it seem Mer & Fred are doing great. Aunt Barbara LOVES being Mom Mom, and while we didn't get a chance to squeeze Tom, he was there in spirit.

On the ride home, we had a remarkable, notable moment at one of our favorite National Treasures: Our first In-n-Out Burger of the trip. Yum.

Wine Country

At Burning Man, man named Dino said "Eh, skip Napa, it's like the Disneyland of wine country. Go to Sonoma." After exhaustive internet research we concluded that we would rather spend money on wine than money on a campground so we parked our rig at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, which was simply a giant gravel parking lot that smelled like horse manure. We decided that this didn't matter because we planned on either being gone all day everyday or so buzzed from the numerous wine tastings that we wouldn't care anyway.
The first night in town we headed to Healdsburg and dined at Cena Luna which was, without question one of the best restaurants we have ever eaten at. The waitress suggested a bottle of Zinfandel from a local vineyard. After the first sip we were hooked, and vowed to visit the vineyard as soon as we could.

The day after we arrived, we had planned to visit Josh's cousin Meredith, her husband Fred and their two (adorable) boys, Elijah, and Jonah. Josh's Aunt Barbara was visiting them for the evening so it was an added treat to see her too. We took the long way to Sacramento stopping at an amazing castle-like estate with vineyards that reached as far as we cold see. We were greeted warmly and set up at one of the many tasting bars. The architecture in the mansion was amazing. Huge gabled windows looked out on beautifully manicured rows of vines. We sipped six of seven wines from white, to blush to red and weren't that impressed. We thanked our bartender and headed on our way. (Our next post will tell all about the fun that we had with Josh's family).

A few days later we awoke to clear blue skies, warm breeze and a hankering to go wine tasting.
Remembering the amazing bottle of wine we had with dinner a few nights before, we decided to head to Healdsburg and to Ridge Vineyards. When we arrived we found a beautiful building nestled in acres and acres of old grizzled vines. The vineyard boasted 80% solar powered and when we entered we were welcomed by a beautiful tasting room. We told the bartender where we had enjoyed a bottle of the Three Valleys Zinfandel and she happily started our tasting. We enjoyed quite a few of their wines and left with a few bottles of our favorites.


The bartenders at Ridge suggested a few more vineyards we should visit while we were in Healdsburg. We headed down a beautiful dirt road passing vineyard after vineyard. We found the Quivera Vineyard and when we entered the tasting room we found it almost full. We waited for a space to open and enjoyed the ambiance. We enjoyed our tasting and we chatted with the bartender who knew the Pioneer Valley and told us that the vineyard was 100% solar powered. We left with two bottles that are supposed to lay down (fancy wine term for age) for a couple years. We liked to think that when we open that bottle we will be a married couple.
Awww.


After two tastings we were feeling nice and relaxed, we sat on the patio at Quivera and enjoyed the sparkling afternoon. Once our heads cleared a bit we headed back to the RV to put our feet up and get ready for dinner. Earlier that morning Josh had called Cafe St. Rose and made a reservation for two later that night. He spoke to the chef who told him what the fixed menu would be for the evening. All of the options sounded delicious, but the rib eye stood out in particular. Josh commented how tempting that selection sounded and the chef agreed that it was going to be amazing. When Josh got off the phone he was worried that by the time we sat down to dinner, the chef may have run out of the coveted rib eye. Josh called back and asked if he could reserve one so he wouldn't miss out on the deliciousness. The chef readily agreed to hold one for him and they both had a good laugh.

The night before we planned to leave wine country we decided that we hadn't spent enough money on wine. We both realized that we needed at least another case of the Three Valley Zin from Ridge Vineyards to share. We checked their hours of operation and planned on taking a quick run up there in the morning before we headed to L.A.

We were there when the doors opened and much to the amusement of the bartender who had served us the day before, we bought a case of our new favorite wine. Oh well, we got swept away I guess, but when in Rome...

The Oregon Coast

Driving South from Seattle could have been a boring drive - we could have just stayed on big ole route 5 (The Five) and buzzed our way through the Western states. Lucky for us, we picked 101 instead.

Starting in Lincoln City, where Lindsay earned the honor of First Police Encounter (oh, she didn't mention that to you?), we had just finished winding our way through the coastal rainforest, and she left her brights on as we entered the little town. The officer that pulled us over was easily the nicest policeman either of us have ever met. He was just so darn curious about all of our silly Massachusetts Laws, our Drivers Licenses, our Registration, you name it. No tickets were issued. I laughed a lot afterwards. Lindsay well, not so much.

Back to the point, the Oregon coast easily boasts some of the most dazzling scenery in the country. Great rolling waves crashing against rocky cliffs for hundreds of miles. Redwood trees accenting the cliff-tops, sporadic sandy beaches dappled the waterline.

The pictures don't do justice (I'm getting tired of saying that, maybe I need a better camera) but here they are:



And this is a natural "geyser" that comes from a hollow rock formation that pressurizes when the waves smash against it. cool beans!