Road trip! Part 2

Today has been such an awesome day. And it started at 5 a.m.! My cousin Matthew rows, and so I got up at 5:00 this morning to go with him. We warmed up on the ergs at 5:30, then carried boats and oars down to the dock, and were in the water by 6. Pretty flippin sweet. I really enjoyed warming up on the erg since I haven't done it in a while. What is an erg?, you may ask. Well I'll tell you. An ergometer is a rowing simulator. It was on an ergometer that I first learned the basics of rowing at the University of Tennessee. That was many moons ago, and my stint on the rowing team was incredibly short-lived due to my wide noncompetitive streak as well as being thin-skinned. But I digress! We rowed on the lake for about an hour, and at no point during that time did I flip the boat. Success! I definitely had a good run of it, despite a few bumps along the way. The few glances that I got of the surroundings were beautiful, too. And now I can feel each and every one of my abdominal muscles in a new way. Oh yeah.

After the morning rowing, Matthew & I grabbed something hot to drink at a local Los Gatos coffee shop and then headed back to his place to get ready for a day of wine tasting.

Around 10:15 we set out for Alexander Valley, a wine-growing region in Sonoma County. Alicia, a friend of mine from the farm, used to live in San Francisco and suggested we forego a tour of Napa in favor of Alexander Valley. And so that's where we ended up after battling through city traffic and then driving north about 70 miles.

The first winery we visited was Rodney Strong, touted as the most dramatic of the A.V. wineries. After tasting their wines, I would have to agree. I wasn't a fan: they were too big and bold for me. I once favored incredibly strong red wines that would knock you over, but tastes change, and mine have. Their sauvignon blanc has an amazing fruity, crisp, floral bouquet that doesn't match the taste of the wine. The vibe in the tasting room was less than stellar, so we were glad to move on to the next site...

 which was Everett Ridge! Alicia had also recommended this winery very highly, and we went to explore. Jill, who makes Tuesdays amazing, greeted us warmly as we approached- she was super personable and doesn't have a pretentious bone in her body. Yes, this is a place we could stay a while, and stay we did! They have many wines, all of which are quite tasty. There was no rush at all. We chatted and tasted and munched on cheesy poofs (yeah!) and brie and fruit and just hung out. We bought our wine and then made a picnic on their patio, slugging the wine straight from the bottle, farm style. (holla!) It was quite the spread, and Matthew finished it off with a Bolivar Cuban cigar that my dad sent him. (My dad has taken to giving people cigars. It's his new thing. It's cute.) It was an awesome afternoon. They even let me pick some Meyer lemons!

We were all lolling about enjoying ourselves- especially me, I'm very good at lolling about- when they told me it was 4:00. Gasp! Shock! There was more wine to be drunk, and most wineries around those parts close at 5! I was thrown into action. Upon my insistence that we visit more wineries and drink more wine before we called it a day, we gathered up our things and scurried to the next spot.

Hello Lambert Bridge winery, complete with large dog and larger fireplace. These guys had the best wine of the day. Consistently, everything he poured Matthew & I was outstanding. Especially the viognier. Which I did not buy because it was $32 and the tasting fee wouldn't be refunded: drinking sometimes brings out my stubborn side. But we totally enjoyed the tastes and the super chill and beautiful dog that wandered around. If only the man behind the counter had had a little more personality...

Suddenly things were looking bleak. I was bound and determined to buy a viognier before the day was through, but it was 4:35. We had less than 25 minutes to get all the way to Field Stone winery in order to taste and purchase. The race was on! And Matthew was our driver. Ripping through back country roads, past vineyard after vineyard, screeching around curves, he got us there with 6 minutes to spare. Aunt Judy didn't even toss her cookies. I was delighted! We pulled up, and I raced out and into the shop. The lady behind the counter, holding a bottle of wine that was being deoxygenated, announced that we were too late. They were closed. I told her it was 4:54. She showed me her clock that read 5:00. Cheater! Cell phones always win! Except this time. She wouldn't let me taste the wine, but she would let me buy it. And so I have a bottle of Field Stone Viognier that shall travel to Kingsport, Tennessee as a gift for my mother. I win! I hope it's good.

And that was Tuesday. Matthew drove back; I was pretty solidly schnockered, so I sacked out in the back seat of the minivan. The next thing I knew we were going out to eat in downtown Campbell at the Sonoma Chicken Coop. Luckily there were chicken wings involved. And no alcohol. No more alcohol for me... today.

Road trip! Part 1

I wasn't sure it would actually happen, and now it is: the California road trip. Woohoo!

Before I went off to the farm, I realized that I wanted to go on a road trip. And lo and behold, probably less than a week later, my aunt Judy called me to ask if I wanted to drive out to California with her to visit my cousin Matthew. Hot dog! I thought. It's perfect! And so here I am, at Matthew's apartment in San Jose, California. I drove 2,360 out of 2,753 miles, and visited 5 new-to-me states: Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. I thought I would share some fun tidbits from the trip thus far.

• Kansas. It cost us $2.50 to drive across Kansas. Not bad for a toll, but... it's Kansas. It's just not worth it.

• The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah are flippin awesome! This is the site where the world land speed records have been set- 600.607 mph, I believe. It's a huge expanse of white that leads up to big rolling brown mountains. The salt itself is crunchy and grippy to walk on. I wish I'd had a bike so I could have ridden across the salt and explored the mountains.

• Beachaven Winery in Clarksville. No, it's nothing new to me. Yes, I still dig their wine. Yes, I bought a bottle of champagne.

• Wyoming is gorgeous. Vast expanses, beautiful skies, green mountains, and wind turbines. Also 75 mph speed limits and 0 cops. 80 mph is fast enough for me.

• New Belgium Brewing Co. in Ft. Collins, CO. Holy goodness, that's an AWESOME place! We did a beer tour there and got to taste lots of brewed goodness and see fun stuff (I highly recommend the Abbey... yum!). They have a really great twisty slide inside, and I got to slide down it on the tour. I could have slid down it for at least 30 minutes, but I held back for the good of the group. Annie, our tour guide, was from Knoxville, so we chatted and hung out a little during the last two beer samplings, and then she gave me 20% off the beer I bought. We also got to eat some chocolate and write postcards that they provided. How awesome is that?? Please, for your own sake, visit them.

• While in Ft. Collins, we hung out and chatted with Saja, an old friend of mine I hadn't seen in 10 years. She went to visit friends out there and never came back to TN. She's got a pretty sweet house in Old Town, complete with a music studio. Saja plays clawhammer banjo and is in a band called Storm Mountain. It was great to see her again!
  

• Driving across Nevada gets a little monotonous. The northern portion of the state is wide, and it all looks very brown. And scrubby. And then there's more brown and scrubby. Everywhere. I won't speak of Kansas; I think I've blocked it from my mind.

• Donner's Pass is a pretty sweet drive. It's the section of I-80 in northern California, right after you leave Nevada. I wished I'd been able to drive it in a BMW instead of a minivan, but that may have just earned me a speeding ticket. Once we passed from Nevada into California, the terrain changed pretty quickly to really tall mountains with lots of evergreen trees. The actual road is really rough and very windy and fun.

• When we did get into California, there was an agricultural checkpoint. I wondered if I had magically been to Canada and back without knowing it. It turns out they're attempting to control the spread of some bugs that are found on produce east of the Rockies, so they confiscated some of our apples. For real. I had 2 apples left from Reid's Orchard, and that man did not take them. Oh no, he did not. That would not have been acceptable. I made him take the red delicious apples from the grocery store.
  

• California traffic is crazy. My experience has been that it's either very fast or a dead halt, and people change lanes really quickly. Normally, when there are loads of cars on the road, I like to take my time and make sure I'm not going to run into anyone, but these drivers are all about speediness. I kinda like it. It feels like I'm in a video game.

• Orange trees. Lemon trees. Lime trees. Pomegranate trees. They're everywhere here- it blows my mind. I walked down the street the other day and picked a pomegranate. I picked a few lemons and limes today at Everett Ridge Winery. It's hard to process. I think tomorrow I will walk around and ask people if I can harvest fruit from trees in their yard. I may get a little hardcore and take a wooden crate to put all of the harvest in. I may make several trips. I have no shame. Thank you, farm-worker worldview.

• Despite the Mormon thing, Utah was pretty cool. I kind of have a thing about Mormonism. It just seems odd. I am suspicious. I was suspicious of Utah. But the salt was fun.

• It's been a new experience to be west of the Mississippi. I can handle cold out here a lot better just because it's not nearly as humid. I've worn denim skirts a few days. It's pretty awesome.

Lots of fun adventures on the road! While we were navigating Sacramento and San Francisco, the right side of the lower half of my body was burning a little, so I'm really glad to be out of the car for a while. But we got here, and I'm really glad. Stay tuned for more!