Vaycay! The final post :/

Last time I'll have to do this! Go catch up -- with parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

We woke up at our B&B on Friday and had some kind of stuffed french toast for brekkie. And fruit and roasted grapefruit, yummm. The food was pretty good, overall. (Sidenote: I want to be an innkeeper! Making breakfast and Jimmy could do the cleaning? Perf!)

Before anyone thinks that's a dig at G, he loves cleaning, no joke. He stands over me while I eat and waits for me to take the final bite so he can wash the plate by hand. I used to find it strange. But I think it's quite nice/endearing lately. What a pumpkin!

ANYWAY.

We hit the pavement pretty fast Friday -- first visiting Luffenholtz Beach, and then we were off to Patrick's Point (another state park), where we spent maybe five-ish hours? Agate Beach was SUPER picturesque. And then we just started hitting trails and scaling different rock formations until we had basically seen the whole place! James could do this ALL DAY. Truth be told, I loved it, but my knee gets shitty after a few hours. All the lowering down, then climbing up and side-to-side movements start to hurt my ACL region. Womp womppp.

Blue skies, blue water.

Side story here: Something we learned this trip was how to avoid the tide. Several times, we'd be like, messing around on the rocks, then the tide would rush in really fast and we'd be all, "runnnnnnnn!" And we'd hop, skip and jump to safety. Mostly meaning to dry or higher land.

Anyway, at Patrick's Point, we did several risky climbs down by the water. No one else was out there, not a soul. So if I re-tore an ACL, I'd have like, 99 problems. A CHP helicopter might be one.

The chronicles of this red sweatshirt.

So, James was out on this huge rock, and he wanted me to join. I was hanging back a bit -- we had been out there ALL day and my knee was sore -- but he swore he could see sea lions on the other side of the rock and they were SO close! K, so I couldn't say no to super up-close sea lion friends. I started making my way, rock by rock ... you kind of have to test each one to make sure it's stable before you use it. I had a decent pace going on and I was almost there(!) when ... I bit it HARD.

For a second, I saw my life flash before my eyes. I thought I was going to get swept away in the ocean and it was so scary. 

I mean, not really. But I'm known to jump a few steps ahead when it comes to FEAR.

So, I was probably four or five massive rocks from G, and the water was pretty deep (well, just a few feet, but comparatively speaking, deep. Certainly not a puddle. And I wasn't trying to get my leg soaked). The rocks were wet from the tide rushing over them, and I had to do a little jump to attempt this rock. My mentality the whole time was just like, "if he can do it, so can I! I'm just as athletic."

But boom, down I went. I lost my footing and kind of grabbed at the rock, but my leg went ankle-deep and I cut up my hands a bit on the catch.

We were laughing later, I actually yelled, "Noooooooo!" Like, not trying to be dramz -- that's just what my reaction to the whole thing really was. 

... And then the tide came in and James had to rush back, too. That was certainly enough adventure for one day.

My favorite guy.

For dinner, we drove to Larrupin -- which came highly recommended by all the locals. We actually made a reservation the night before, so we were pumped.

We dressed up a bit, planned to watch some of the MSU-Oklahoma game at the bar, and that was that.

... Except: not only was there not really a bar area -- there were no TVs at all. And no cell reception! So we decided we'd eat, then catch the second half of the game after dinnz.

Maybe we got carried away, we were having SUCH a good meal and enjoying each other's company. But the next thing I knew, we were signing the check, walking out to the parking lot and MSU had just won! James said that was the fastest game of all time. Although I'm sure it didn't feel that way to the people watching -- sounded like a nail-biter! I felt like the worst Sparty fan, but the happiest, too. Getting an alert saying they won with 0 stress involved? Whatever!

We stopped back at the house for a sec to drop off our leftovers, then went in search of this casino we'd heard was only a mile or 2 away. I was determined to see game highlights.

And let me just say ... for there being like, two people in the entire town of Trinidad, the casino was popping! We saw highlights. We (I) danced around to this '90s band. We downed some Fireball. James probably gambled a bit, I did not. And we had the best time, considering it was a scummy casino in the middle of nowhere.

We crashed in bed LATE, slept really well, and woke up the next morning to smoothies, more fruit and some kind of frittata/egg dish. Again, it was pretty delish. I wasn't that hungry -- still full from brisket, oysters, potatoes, creme brulee, Fireball and Miller Lites the night before. But I forced down some bites for effort.

But yeah, the next morning came with a little sadness! It was Saturday, but it was also the day we were set to start heading home.

Something we climbed. Who wants to leave this place? Not us.

  
The original plan was to head even FARTHER north (just like, a half-hour) and go on this really elaborate hike. It's like, you head to this state office, pick up the gate code, drive an hour, then 10 miles down this rural road and go on one of the hardest hikes of your life.

The views were supposed to be incred though. It was through a redwood grove right along the coast.

So, we got on the road by 11 or so, and started the drive north ... and just kind of felt underwhelmed. (And I was tired!) Then James was feeling carsick on the windy road, and 10 miles past Trinidad, we were just like, do you want to go back?

Yep yep and yep.

So, that we did. We actually went back to the beach near the Trinidad Head hike and brought our towels, just lounging in the sunshine. It was cold, but the sun made it feel nice. (Cold = like, 50s or 60s).*

Don't laugh at me, Michigan friends.

There was a fair amount of wind, too, which contributed to the chilliness. OK, I'm soft now. I'll admit.

Anyway, we lounged. We started the drive back maybe an hour later, and stopped at a beach or two along the way, just to take in the ocean a few more times.

We took a twisty highway for about 100 miles, which was hard, until we hit I-5, in the Redding area. That was a relief! I was starting to feel carsick again, but just wanted to get it over with, and was resisting Dramamine.

G got to stock up on his all-time fav beef jerky (I know, this makes us sound white trashy, right?) and then I threw out a bold idea: What if we detoured to Chico?

Chico wasn't really on the way home, but it wasn't NOT on the way either, you feel? Before James could even question, he was like, "we're doing it!"

We've often discussed coming up to Chico State together. It's kind of a party school, but I went with Robby and Chelsea once, and it was really fun. It reminds me of East Lansing in just the tiniest of ways.

So, we grabbed Bloody Marys at this random college bar. Then we switched bars and went across the street. Had a snack. Watched Kentucky-Notre Dame. Then drove to the original Sierra Nevada Brewing Company for dinner! Lovvvved it.

I was going to suggest staying overnight, because I was so tired! But G insisted he could make the drive, and it only ended up being an hour or so. Maybe a little quicker? I slept the whole time, so if you ask me, it went by in a second!

I hopped directly in bed without even brushing my teeth and crashed for like, 12 hours.

James is responsible, so he unpacked the entire SUV and possibly even started laundry before getting in bed.

I was supposed to work Sunday (the next day), but my boss Shawn offered a swap! Long story, but he had money on MSU, MSU had been winning with me out of the newsroom, so he wanted to keep me out of the newsroom. We're both very superstitious about sports, so I completely understood. Plus, one more day to unwind and watch the Louisville game in the peace of my own home? SOLD. I agreed to the swap, James and I sweat our way through that Elite Eight game, then celebrated at The Glass Turtle with some more Miller Lites.

The verdict on the trip? I'm sure you can't tell based on the seven-part write-up.

Best. Vaycay. EVZ.

Vaycay! Part 6

Sigh. ICYMI: Parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

We woke up in Eureka and were instantly excited for Trinidad! (And that's not just because Eureka was kind of a dump). But it was.

To rewind, one of my favorite coworkers has told me about Trinidad for quite some time. It's one of his favorite places in the whole state, and one of the best parts is like, just how empty it is. It's like you have the whole, roaring coastline to yourself.

Hey Trinidad!

So we just HAD to come see!

Gah, and it did NOT disappoint.

We rolled in about 11 a.m. My master itinerary -- here's the ONE PLACE I messed it up! -- said it would take another 2 hours or so from Eureka to reach Trinidad. Not sure what I was on, but in reality, it was like, 25 minutes away.

Pleasant surprise though!

So, we arrived earlier than expected. We weren't supposed to check in at the B&B until 4p, so we had some time. I wanted to see where the B&B was, so I suggested we go over there, park and wander.

Here's the spot.

OMG, right away! We had the best views. The B&B is directly across the street from this quaint lighthouse, and beneath the lighthouse are these steps leading right to the beach.

OK, timeout, I SAW A SNAKE. On the way down. And I wasn't cool about it either -- like, I panicked hard. I saw his body slithering in the brush next to me on the path, and I proceeded to lose my damn mind. I'm not sure if I've always been so freaked out by snakes? It's like, I'm not even scared of getting bitten, I just don't like the way they could spring out at you, with their weird, no-legged bodies and their gross skin and weird faces.

EW!

K, so once my heart rate returned to normal (took awhile), we continued on down to the beach. Like I said ... just breathtaking. One of the best views we'd seen so far, and that was really saying something!

Gorge.

 We were some of the only people down there, outside of a pack of fishing boats just offshore. Such a cool part of the country that I'm not sure enough people have visited. It's a weird dichotomy of peaceful and roaring. Super majestic though.

We walked around for a bit, climbed around on the rocks for a few different vantage points, then headed up to this restaurant around the corner. G got some clam chowder, I got the best crab sando of my life. I forget if it was the menu, or just us, or maybe the menu inspired us? But it went from a crab sandwich to a crab patty to a crabby patty to a crabby Moosh Patty, and that was my name the rest of the trip.

"Jimmer! I really want MSU to win tonight and I'm so scared and nervous and uwfyusagfhjasgfsh!"

"Stop being a crabby Moosh Patty and enjoy the game! They're gonna be fine!"

And so on.

For reference ... Michelle = Moosh. Patricia = Patty. My first and middle!

... But you know when your sando says "market price" on the menu, you should be warned.

I think my crabby Moosh Patty was $24. Whoops! Spendy lunch. Whatever. It was so delish! Green onions, big chunks of fresh crab, along with tomatoes and melty cheddar. On nice bread. I'd like one now, please.

We wine-tasted across the street to kill some more time and I made BFFs with the girl pouring -- she was fun and used to live in Tahoe. She recommended we head to Moonstone Beach next, so that's exactly what we did.

Moonstone was cool, but the water has risen in weird spots, so we couldn't really walk right up to the ocean. Still, we climbed around on the big rocks for at least an hour and found starfish, anenomes and mussels. Along with more seal/sea lion friends! I love those guys.

Stuff.

Guy.

Pals!

We checked into our B&B next, met the innkeeper, Jason, who was a little nervous but super nice and helpful. I'd never stayed at at B&B before, so that was cool. AND I had only signed us up for the cheapest room, but we got upgraded because there was a family who wanted to use the entire main house. G and I got the guest house, which was private and overlooked the ocean and ... just really adorbs.

This view is HORRIBLE, we'd like a refund please. No filter because duh.

We kicked off our shoes and lounged around for a few minutes, got ANOTHER wave of energy, and decided to walk over to do the Trinidad Head hike (it was cloudy. You couldn't see much from the top) -- and this is where I got my bunny video, Snapchat friends! -- then we came back to clean up for dinner around 7 or 8p.

Again, it was late -- we kept backing ourselves into these corners for mealtime! -- so basically our only option for dinner was Moonstone Grill. And we had to book it over there. No complaints, it was really yum. Maybe a touch out of our price range? But we kept it simple for the most part and didn't go too far over budget  : )

I think I ordered steak of some sort. James got tuna. Lots of bites traded.

We slept SO WELL that night. Trinidad was the best!

Some of the rocks we played on.

Vaycay -- Part 5!

I told you there'd be way too many parts to this!

To recap: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

So, we woke up in Fort Bragg on Wednesday morning and decided we'd check out the botanical gardens in town before heading farther up the coast. So we paid our $17 each and headed in -- pretty early actually, I think we got a good jump on the day, seeing as we had BIG TREES ahead! (Some of our favorite things).

But the gardens were cool. We saw a bunch of shit I've never heard of or seen before. I'm not sure my garden appreciation skills are up to par, but it was ... pretty! Again, we stalked the whale lookout point but didn't spot much. Nothing lived up to what we saw at Pt. Cabrillo.

Oh hey.

Once we were gardened out, we continued agricultural day by heading north. We were in the car maybe 2 hours and then we hit Avenue of the Giants, which leads you right into the Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

It was so funny, like, you can take the main road, just some dinky highway, or you can take Avenue of the Giants, which is like, this crazy, scenic, windy road into the park. We obvi opted for the avenue. But right when we got on, this car behind us starts tailgating, like, HARD. James is like, "hey buddy, you taking this road to make better time? Bad news. We're on Avenue of the Giants, I'm not here to set a new world record."

I was laughing so hard.

So anyway, we'd seen big trees before, as I outlined in this post. In Calaveras County, you'll see some of the largest trees you could ever hope to see, thickness-wise. Like, trees as big as an entire room. Unreal. But coastal redwoods are a bit different. Some are pretty thick, but they don't stack up to the Calaveras trees in that regard. These guys though, are TALL. Holy F they are MASSIVELY tall. Couldn't even fathom.

Pics don't even do these justice.

The drive in was pretty, we liked AOTG, then we decided to stop at the visitors center (mostly to pee).

Another sign that I'm getting up there: I actually like visitors centers now! This one was super friendly and informative, and the woman at the desk gave us some great recommendations on a few close and easy groves.

We went to four groves. It was a challenge to only be there for a day -- a lot of the hikes were like, do you want to do 13 miles, or a half-mile? So we picked the short ones then just poked around a little longer at each.

This state park is where some parts of Jurassic Park were filmed (yep, with the dinos and everything, can you believe it? jkjk). And Star Wars! Not that I've seen Star Wars. Who do I look like? I just thought that was cool.

It was a really quiet day there -- maybe because it was a weekday? At times, it felt like we were the only people in each grove. We had our final sammies of the trip and some snacks down at this river, and didn't come across anyone at all. It felt so strange to think about how long the trees around us had been there.

They said at the visitors center that when one of the biggest ones fell, there was seismic activity. Holyyyyyy.

Jimmy, with a fallen tree (its roots). For reference, he's 5'10 or so.

We hung at the park till maybe 6p-ish, just poking around and taking in all the sights, then decided to continue on to our next crash pad: Eureka.

Honestly though, I could have spent a whole week at the park! It was massive and we barely skimmed the surface.

Buttttttt Eureka! We (I) mostly picked it because it's one of the bigger cities that far north, and I thought we could use a night with a cheap(er) hotel room. We can't B&B the entire time! So, we dropped some stuff at the (medium)-Quality Inn, then headed right out for another bite because we were hungry from all the hiking and nature strolls.

One of the only places open at 9p was this BBQ place -- which was actually in the process of closing. Whatever, we split a plate of burnt ends, pork and coleslaw. They had a million different BBQ sauces and I loved almost every one. G bought us two mini-caramels for dessert, and we were in and out in 20 minutes. #lowmaintenance

From there, we went to this bar around the corner called The Local. There were a ton of Humboldt State students and they were ... exactly what I expected. Humboldt is like, the pot capital of the world, for reference, and this crowd didn't disappoint.

NorCal knows beer, though. We had a bunch of really good local ones on tap.

And from THERE, we headed a little closer to our hotel, to this dive bar, for $1.50 drafts. We crashed late and I have no idea how I kept managing to get up the next day at a reasonable hour.

TBC!

Vaycay -- Part 4!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

... And I'm just now realizing we either threw on some of the same shirts everyday, or my pics are all scrambly and out of order. Whatever, right? 

Being cute or whatever.

We did a LOT on Tuesday!

We started at Glass Beach, which is known for sea glass urrywhere. Only ... it took us awhile to find! Apparently, people have been picking it over for awhile, and it's not really URRYWHERE anymore. (Even when we finally found the glass, you wouldn't believe how many people were there with baskets and buckets, just like, collecting it to take home. I got so irritated. I wanted to tell everyone to put it back, so we can ALL enjoy Glass Beach! Again ... #gettingold).

Some of the pieces up close and personal.

We walked around different parts of Glass Beach for so long! Hours. The day -- like many others on the North Coast -- started kind of windy, foggy and gray, but really brightened up as the fog wore off. It was gorgeous, sunny and probably mid-60s by probably 2 or 3.

Glass Beach! How crazy that this just happened.

Afterward, we wandered over to Laguna Pointe and MacKerricher State Park. Apparently, Glass Beach is part of MacKerricher, but we drove over to the state park entrance and walked around there for awhile. What to report ... a ton of really pretty sights and scenes, per usual at this point. And these seals swam really close, right up to us at one of the lookout points!

 

Gorge.

Tuesday was also the day we stopped by Pacific Star Winery. We did a little tasting inside, talked with the really nice owner, then sat out on these chair for probably an hour or two, just watching the waves slam up against the rocks with a glass of tempranillo in hand. We were dying to see whales again -- and the owner said he's been seeing a bunch lately! -- but we didn't have a ton of luck. Still, SO pretty. I could've sat there all day.

Yum.

We headed back to Mendocino, to the Mendocino Cafe, for dinner. This was like, our one mistake of the whole trip. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great. The guy at Pacific Star told us to get the Thai red curry bowls -- he actually said it was his favorite meal in town, hands down. He was like, "bring a towel! It's spicy!" Except, no it wasn't. Not even a little. I was bummed! It's all about expectation I suppose.

We were going to hit the town of Fort Bragg, but again ... we're boring now. Our bed sounded better. And we had a hot tub in our room! So we got in, watched the boats down below, then finally flipped on three hours of The Challenge followed by Teen Mom OG.

No one said we were classy.

At Pacific Star Winery, a little wind-blown.

Vaycay -- Part 3!

Part 1 | Part 2

In today's chapter ...

We woke up at Little River Inn and it was a gorgeous, sunshine-filled morning. Jimmy slept till NOON. I had a whole morning without him, hanging on the patio, eating mini bagels and Snapchatting our trip so far : )

When we finally got out the door of our hotel room, probably around 12:45p -- sorrrrrry, housekeeping -- we realized our destination for the day was only the town of Mendocino; 8 miles away. So we poked around! We sat at the beach across the street, took lots of pics and finally moseyed our way up the road to Mendo.

Beautiful day.

Spoiler alert: Mendo is THEEEE CUTEST. It reminded me a little of Mackinac Island actually -- right on the water, a bit old-timey, historical ... just without the horses. In the best way possible.

The first thing I wanted to do was check out the Good Life Bakery. A friend recommended it, and who doesn't love bakery treats? I ended up with a salted caramel latte and ... a bagel.

James was like, "you had mini bagels for breakfast, now you're eating a ginormous poppyseed bagel for lunch -- what's for dinner? Bagels?"

Well, I didn't even think of that. 

A bagel just sounded fluffy, fresh and delish in the moment. I didn't want to commit to an entire sando or dessert. Anyway, I ate most of it, drank my latte and we headed back out.

From here, G and I visited the Mendocino Headlands State Park and Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse, where we saw WHALES!

We couldn't stop laughing at this one sign en route to the lighthouse (we had to walk like, a half mile). It said something like, "we don't get a lot of mountain lion attacks, but when we do, they're known to be unpredictable and deadly. Take care!"   lololol

Playing with my panoramic!

Anyway, I think I mentioned, it's whale migration season and they're all heading north. First, we'd see like, a million poofs of air (from their blow holes? I need a second-grade science class, STAT). Then we'd see fins and bodies coming up! It was nuts to think how close to the shore they really were. First whale sightings of my life, score.

Pt. Cabrillo

Between the state park and the lighthouse, we had done a LOT of walking. We checked in at our hotel, the North Cliff Inn, in Fort Bragg (8 more miles up the road), and immediately filled up our in-room hot tub.

James was like, "let's just turn it all the way hot, it'll cool down way too fast anyway."

Lies.

Fast-forward like, an hour later, and we're dumping ice buckets in it, draining half and filling the other part with freezing cold.

We're the worst. Sorry, drought!

After a bit of relaxing and a quick call for a dinner rez, we headed back to Mendo, to Cafe Beaujolais, which also came highly recommended by a coworker.

I will try not to exagg, but ... one of the top five best meals of my life. I've never had better mussels. (Or bagels). jkjkjkjk

And, although chicken might sound like a boring entree, the skin was crispy and nice, and it came with the creamiest, BEST risotto with mushrooms. We split some kind of bread pudding for dessert and then couldn't move for awhile.

So we went back to our hotel and fell asleep like old people.

Judge us.

Vaycay -- Part 2!

... It was NBD though. (Mountain View Road). [Go read part 1 if you haven't yet!]

Anyway, I think I didn't get sick this time around because Saturday we had an entire day of car commercial driving, followed by the road from hell? But yeah, on Sunday, just hopping straight on and off for the 25 miles was perfectly fine.

Which was good news because we had a little bit more wine in our future!

Lovelovelove.

We munched on more sammies and snacks on the road (we did this most days for breakfast and lunch), and our first stop on the Anderson Valley tour (created by me, nothing official), was a place called The Madrones, in Philo, California.

LOL moment: I wrote up a ginormous and crazily detailed itinerary for this entire trip, because I'm a psycho, and actually wrote the sentence, "there's this magical place called The Madrones with tasting rooms, cool architecture on the property and even a secret garden!" OMG, stoppppp, loser. We laughed about this line the rest of the trip. 

The Madrones? Were cool, but like, "magical" might have been a stretch. Tasting rooms, yes. Architecture? Who am I? Did I read that online somewhere? I wouldn't even know what to look for. I'm embarrassing myself. The secret garden? Not so secret. It was just like, off to the side when you walked in. There were some plants. It was fine. Ugh, I'm lame.

...

So, back to our tasting tour, we did make quite a few purchases! I bought a bottle of Pinot Noir (what the region is known for) at Knez, and then at Signal Ridge, they share a tasting room with Boonsville cider. This stuff tasted like the original Strongbow -- wasn't that the best? [They're not still making it in Michigan, are they? It's been replaced with the shittiest shit of all time out here (prly everywhere, right?) Like, gold apple Strongbow? Or this honey kind? GTFO. All I ever wanted was some clean, crisp, non-wussified cider. Take your fancy flavors and go hooooome, Strongbow].

Where was I?

Oh yeah, bought some sixers of Boonsville at Signal Ridge. Apparently you can buy it at some grocery stores in the Bay, better stock up next time I'm a little closer!

Next up (I mean, after all the architecture gazing), we hit up Roederer Estates. This was more of a bubbly tasting, which we've never done. Roederer only sells its extra dry champ at the tasting room, and it's made specifically for the White House. Ballerrrrrrr. We stocked up.

G and I were slightly underwhelmed with the place across the street (I won't name names), but we did buy a varietal I had never heard of that was delicious as F. It was a Quadriga, and it consisted of four of my fav Italian wines. And the owner is from Madison Heights! We chatted. I spotted her Red Wings mug. Small world! We actually met a LOT of people on our trip with Michigan/Metro Detroit connections. And when there wasn't a Mitten State tie, there was an upstate NY connection. Cray.

We also had a picnic atop a hill with more sammies and Goldfish. Then we ventured to Lula Cellars, where I proceeded to fall in LOVE with a dog named Honey. (And the owner/wine was really nice, too!) I became a wine club member. Happens sometimes. Best Pinot Noirs I've had in awhile.

We paced ourselves, spread out our day, poured out everything that we didn't absolutely LOVE and split most tastings ... we weren't trying to get buzzed and then drive back to the coast. Because back to the coast was where we were headed!

When we were finally done with the day, we drove about a half-hour over to Little River Inn, in Little River, California. This miiiiiiight have been one of my favorite places to stay (although it was pretty hard to compete with one of the B&Bs!)

The view was gorgeous! 

From the balc.

 We had a balcony and watched the sun set -- which happened SO fast -- and chatted with our neighbors, also from the Sacramento area. They were actually pretty annoying after awhile, but the guy had friends who did undergrad at MSU, and he knew everything about the campus. Again, small world, yo.

For dinnz, we headed next door to our hotel's Whale Watch Bar, which would have overlooked the ocean if it weren't dark outside. We didn't want to do a full-on dinner, so we just had Scrimshaws and split a few seafoodie items (crab cakes, clam chowder, calamari). The freshest and best I've had, all three. DROOL!

We called it a night rather early and prepared to head to Mendocino (only eight miles up the road!) in the AM. TBC!

My feet and mini bagels, waiting for Jimmy to wake up.

*I wish I had more pics of wine tasting day. We were too busy trying bevs, apparently!

Vaycay -- Part 1! (And there might be 52 chapters of this one).

We're finally home from the North Coast!

Spoiler alert for those of you who avoided me on social media all week (which I wouldn't blame you for at all, good call), it was SO fun and perf.

I think I had mentioned, we mulled over a ton of vaycay ideas when we first started planning. We'd never had a full work week off together before (when you include the weekends, it turned out to be like, 11 days!) so we wanted to make it a really adventurous trip. Hawaii? We considered it, as it's only a five-hour (cheap) plane ride from Sac, but we figured we could do Hawaii as old people, if all else failed. Same thoughts on Europe. India was a huge consideration (we found a great deal through a travel company G used previously), but I feared I couldn't get my passport updated in time. Finally, we were like, let's just get in the car and head north. We'll save so much money. And there is SO MUCH north of us -- which is crazy considering Sacramento is pretty far north to begin with. SoCal gets a lot of love and tourism for good reason, but a lot of the NC is untapped. Also harder to access! But people are always recommending weekends in the Anderson Valley, weekends in Mendocino or Fort Bragg, or up to see the coastal Redwoods, or even just like, there are a million little coastal towns that seemingly only a handful of people have ever heard of. So, rather than doing a weekend here or there, we strung together a handful of smaller trips and mashed them into one. Who knows how long we're going to live in Cali, why not do it up? I did all the planning, which I was more than happy about, and it was just like, MAGIC. I did a prettttty good job logically, if I do say so myself. I spent a LOT of time on blogs and Yelp-like sites. #worthit

It's so funny, today was my first day back at work (well, I typed this portion about 11p Monday), and so many of my coworkers were all, "where'd you go?" I told them, and it was insane just how many people who grew up in NorCal hadn't even been to all these spots. Or any of them. Or even HEARD of them. 

At the farthest, we were like, 6 hours away (for reference: 40 miles from Crescent City, which is basically where California touches Oregon).

And that's not meant to be a knock on anyone -- it just goes to show how BIG this state is! Truly massive -- maybe 14 hours from top to bottom? I'm overwhelmed just thinking about it.

SO, to rewind: We started the journey last Saturday, and although the original plan was to hit the coast right away, G had a better idea: let's visit this one winery in Napa that's come highly recommended to us that we've never had a chance to try.

Napa isn't really close or far from us. Distance wise, it's not bad -- an hour-ish. But when you factor in traffic and slow tour buses clogging the roads and the fact that we live in Rocklin now ... it can turn into 2 hours pretty easily (or even a tad longer, like if the winery is up a mountain). Second spoiler alert: This winery was up a mountain. We weren't expecting that -- probably should have done our homework. Anyway, no real complaints about Napa's locay, it's just like, you'd assume we'd be there more. But we're not. Plus, paying $20/tasting adds up, and usually it just isn't worth it when we have wineries in our neck of the woods, too. They don't all have Napa's cab, but ...

ANYWAY.

#letmetakeaselfie

We arrived at Pride Mountain Vineyards only about 10-15 minutes late for the appointment, which was impressive considering at one point, we were on pace to be like, a half-hour late. I'm no stickler for punctuality (actually, I could be a lot timelier), but I didn't want to roll in THAT late. Especially if we had a whole group and people waiting on us. We had booked a basic tasting, which included a 45-minute cave tour. (!!!) But yeah, all was well. The wine lived up to the hype, too -- we ended up getting two really nice bottles of Merlot that we're going to sit on for awhile (which we rarely do). Once my traffic headache disappeared and I had some wine sips in my system, it felt like vacation was finally ON.

We hung by the car for a bit afterward, it was a really gorgeous day -- we were up Spring Mountain -- so we nommed some sandos that G made. He's the best at packing us a cooler on roadtrips. He made egg salad sammies and PB&J. We had some bites and were off.

Napa wasn't like, on the way or NOT on the way. It was in the general direction where we were headed. The only bummer part was, going from St. Helena to Gualala required a lot of time on the backroads. Fun discovery: I get car sick! You would too on this monster (that we had to tackle twice!) called ... Mountain View Road? OMG, 25 miles of back and forth and back and forth and VOM.

There was no vom. But I did buy Dramamine just in case.

We arrived to the Point Arena Lighthouse by maybe ... 4p? The fresh air felt nice. It was our first peek at the ocean. But it was the only spot the whole trip that was truly too foggy to take pics. We wandered for a minute before learning the lighthouse was actually closed to the public for the evening. Private event, bummer. We parked somewhere else and still walked the coastline for a few minutes ... and then I decided I had dressed inappropriately and was freezing.

To our hotel we went. And I decided I needed to sleep off my migraine/carsickness before anything else could happen. G was happier than ever just to go wander outside. The place we stayed was tiny, but clean and cute. It was called the Surf Inn, right on the ocean and next to our eventual dinner spot (really good, casual BBQ!)

The Gualala River kind of sits in front of the ocean, which intrigued G to no end. We were all, "Go home, Mother Nature, you're drunk. Who puts a river right next to an ocean?"

I only napped for an hour, then we got dinnz, followed by drinks at a townie bar across the way.

It felt amaz to finally crash at the end of the night, and then to wake up with my carsickness a thing of the past? I've never felt so appreciative.

Until MSU upset Virginia in the tourney! G and I were both so excited, jumping around the room like crazies.

... Until I learned we had to get on Mountain View Road AGAIN on Sunday morning! :( omg whimper.

To be continued. I swear, these won't all be this long!