Los Angeles & San Diego

After the Champaign surprise, we had a few glasses and then headed to bed. I was blessed with the luxurious sectional and over the next few mornings Kristen would come in to find me passed out in some strange position with all the lights on and the TV blaring… so to preface this post, LA was fun!.

The next day the girls had tickets for Ellen so I set off towards a coffee shop to post a blog and then headed towards the beach. Erin and Kristen live about 8 blocks from the beach in Santa Monica so after a quick walk I arrived at the beach and then rented a bike to ride towards Venice.

Venice Beach is a cool place. Down the entire boardwalk, there are homeless people taking naps on the beach while creepy guys invite you inside a shop to “become legal, visit the 420 doctor today”.

I stopped at the skatepark for a while and took pictures.

That night we grabbed some dinner and then started drinking wine at the apartment, trying to decide if we wanted to go out or not. The second I found Kristen’s guitar… things changed. We ended up sitting around and singing songs for a while before heading to the grocery store for more Vino, guitar in tote.

Rockin!

The next morning, we woke up and started getting ready to go to the Getty Museum. If you live in LA and have never been to the Getty or are visiting and want a chill afternoon full of culture then I would recommend going. I hear the museum is full of great paintings, sculptures & photographs but we wouldn’t know considering we made it as far as the lawn before we started cracking open bottles of wine with a pocket knife cause we had forgotten the corkscrew. From there we started taking TONS of pictures, I think we took over 1,000 in that few hours alone.

This was the one picture we took inside the museum.

Man with a Hoe

Ashley and Erin had been asked to come back for another taping of the Ellen show so I headed towards Hollywood and Rodeo Dr. Pretty cool but nothing to get all excited about.

That night we went out to dinner and then went out to some bar in Venice. I have heard about LA before but now I understand when people say that everyone in LA is beautiful. The entire time I was there all I wanted to do was go outside and run around.

I did notice something very interesting while I was there, though. In Atlanta, if you are out at a bar and meet someone and you tell them that you wait tables or are a bartender, some people will automatically discount you due to the fact that you don’t have a “real job”. I was out right before I left Atlanta and met a few people who when they asked what I did and I told them that I didn’t do anything (because I had recently quit my job) they started going on and on about how the economy is tough right now and how hard grad school was and bla bla bla… before backing out of the conversation because they were board with sharing their accomplishments with someone whom they barely knew. Gotta love surface level relationships!

The next morning I woke up and drove down to San Diego to visit my buddy Copeland who had just graduated from the Navy Seal Program. I had been told before that the drive was a quick one, but in all actuality that’s a lie. The drive is not bad at all but it was a little longer than the 45 minuets that I had been told.

Once I got down to San Diego, I headed straight for the base to meet up with Copeland. I got to see all the guys running around training and also got to see his bunker where he has been living for the past year. I don’t know how much you all know about the Navy Seals but it is nothing that I would ever want to do. These guys are badasses and hearing the stories about their training was awesome! I went with a few of his friends to get some dinner in Coronado before heading towards La Jolla to meet up with my friend Kelsey.

Kelsey and Peanut

Kelsey just moved to La Jolla from Nashville and loves it! She works for LocalEats which is an online social platform where locals can go in and rate restaurants in their area. It was awesome catching up with her and getting to play with Peanut (her dog). The next morning we walked to breakfast down by the beach before she had to head to an appointment. I went back to her place to hang out with Peanut and get some stuff done. At noon I get this phone call from my friend Malcom telling me that he was in San Diego with our other friend Melanie. Since Copeland had some things he had to wrap up at the base, we went and grabbed lunch before meeting up with him.

The Dudes

It was awesome getting to hang with Malcom and Melanie for a while, I basically regurgitated the tour that Copeland had given be the day before and then we headed to check out the place that Copeland and his Seal buddy’s were going to be living for the next year.

Melanie & Malcom

Their place is completely bad ass, right next to the University of San Diego and on top of this huge hill with amazing views of Sea World and the ocean. Melanie wanted a picture with the Seals (naturally) so after a little photo shoot I took Melanie and Malcom back to their hotel so they could get ready for their function that night.

Melanie with the Seals

I headed back to grab Copeland and take him to the airport for his 1 week leave and then drove back up to LA to go clubbin! My friends Chad and Drew both live in LA and one of Chad’s jobs is promoting clubs. He had gotten me on the list so I went straight there. I wish I had taken more pictures while I was there because he threw one hell of a party. At one point the Cookie Monster came out and got on the bar and was pouring Tequila into everyone’s mouths. I got to go down to the V.I.P. room which was pretty cool before heading back to Drew’s place to spend the night.

The next morning I woke up early to get my oil changed in my car (which took all day) before heading to the beach with Chad and our friend Bethany that also lives in LA. That night I went over to Drew’s to grill out before making the drive to Vegas. LA ROCKED!

Freedom Fries on the Coast

Racing towards San Francisco, we started talking about what all we wanted to see while we were in the area.  Alcatraz was #1 on the list but as we crossed the Golden Gate bridge it occurred to us that it was a Saturday and chances of getting tickets were slim.

As expected, tickets were sold out until the next day. Instead we headed to a part of the Fisherman’s Warf that I didn’t get a chance to go to earlier in the week. After parking, the first order of business was to get some claim chowder and a few beers. While walking down the pier, we saw a kid with a huge basket of freedom fries (that’s right, I am bringing that one back). Out of no where, a seagull swooped in front of his face and the fries went flying. There was no 5 second rule here, a flock of seagulls attacked the fries and they were gone within seconds. Everyone around died laughing but I do feel bad for the kid… I think he was a little upset.

I had forgotten to upload all my pictures from Napa so I was in need of another memory card ASAP. Just incase you were wondering, when you walk into a camera store with a nice camera, you are an instant target for salesmen. I literally had salesmen begging to show me lenses and cases, polarized filters and video cameras.

I am pretty sure Ashley got a good idea of what parenthood is like as I tried to go into every attraction in the area. I am still pissed that she didn’t want to do the mirror maze at Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Next we found a bakery where we bought about $10 dollars worth of cookies and a huge loaf of sourdough bread. They also made little alligators and turtles out of bread.

We then headed over to see the sea lions off of Pier 39. I didn’t get a chance to see them earlier in the week due to the heavy storm that blew through while I was getting my water massage.

We knew it was about time to head out of town so we started towards the car. Of course, when you set two extremely ADD people on a task, the chances of getting sidetracked are pretty high. We skipped the car so we could head towards Ghirardelli Chocolate factory where we managed to consume at least 1,000 calories in less than 5 minuets. On the way back we passed a 75 year old homeless man that was asking people for money by saying “Can I have a dollar so I can go buy some Pussy?” I try to keep the blog PG, but we literally laughed about this guy for a few hours, impersonating him and wishing that we had gotten it on video.

Once we made it back to the car we drove to the nearest Cheese shop for more stinky cheese (we went with this stuff called the Stinky Bishop, it was really good) and a few beers to go with it. We made it down Lombard Street before we finally left San Francisco and headed towards LA.

Lombard Street (Thats me!)

We drove down highway 101 until just before dark. Our goal was to make it to Monterrey for the night but after shopping around on Hotwire.com we realized that we could stay about 20 miles north and save about $100 bucks. We ended up booking a room at the Comfort Inn or something like that and headed straight out to the beach to catch the last light of the day and eat our Stinky Bishop.

The hot tub was our next stop. We made a lap around the pool area to see if there was anyone out there that we could become friends with. After ordering a pizza to be delivered to the hot tub we headed out for a soak. The next 30 minuets was easily the most awkward 30 minuets of the entire trip. In the hot tub were two 15 year old girls who had about as much personality as a bundle of sticks. They sat there and stared at us and whispered to themselves as we waited for the pizza and talked about what all we wanted to see the next day. It’s hard to describe what it was like but think about sitting in a hot tub with those freaky twins from The Shining. The pizza finally arrived and we got the hell outta there.

The next morning we woke up and drove through Monterrey and into Pebble Beach. Pebble Beach was amazing, everything about it was amazing.

View from Clubhouse

Pebble Beach

For lunch we stopped in Carmel, which is probably one of the coolest little towns I have ever visited. Everything had so much character and the weather is perfect all the time.

Where we got lunch in Carmel

My new hat

From Carmel we drove towards LA by way of Highway 1. About 30 minuets south of Carmel we were stopped due to a washout on the road. We were a little bummed cause we wanted to stop in Big Sur and watch people surf. After back tracking, we cut through the mountains and over to 101 and down to Santa Barbra where we grabbed dinner on the Pier.

View from the restaurant in Santa Barbra

At one point, we decided to stop and check out the pier in some random town about an hour north of Santa Barbra. Sitting at the mouth of the pier was an old man sitting with his legs crossed on his rascal, singing into a microphone with the echo turned all the way up. Kinda had to be there but was hilarious!

We ended up getting a huge crab pot to split but not before shoving all the bread that was brought to the table in Ashley’s purse so we would have something to eat with the rest of the Stinky Bishop. We laughed the entire time because the server was defiantly onto our shenanigans plus taking bread from the table is against everything that our parents have ever taught us. We didn’t care though cause we needed some bread!

The last stop before making it into LA was the liquor store where Ashley wanted to get some Champaign to pop as we knocked and were greeted at Erin and Kristen’s (Ashley’s two best friends from college) place in Santa Monica.

This was the only photo I got of the welcome party

As a side note, we impersonated a scene from Borat where he goes through the cheese section of a local grocery asking what is cheese and what isn’t ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liRSXULdJw4 ) from the time we left Napa until this very moment. With that being said, we arrived in Santa Monica at just the right time because Ashley’s personality and mine are enough alike that 4 days with each other is enough to put anyone in an asylum! We were pumped to have Erin and Kristen there to help saturate the insanity.

"Where do you keep your finest cheese?" Adventures in Napa Valley

Ashley landed in San Francisco at about 9:30 and her only request was that I not be late in picking her up. Naturally, when she called to tell me that she had made it I told her that I was at T.G.I. Fridays splitting an appetizer with some people I had just met. Annoyed, she told me to get there as soon as possible. Little did she know that I was actually spying on her from the other side of baggage claim, watching her become increasingly frustrated with my tardiness. When she saw me she took a double take before realizing that I am the master of all pranks and that she is nothing but a FOOL! I mean seriously, I would not be caught dead at T.G.I. Fridays. In fact, one of my worst fears is that I would live in a place where the only social outlets would have menu items that are accompanied with adjectives such as “Extreme” or “Rockin”.

Out of focus, but that's Ashley waiting

I am pretty sure that they had to get a forklift to get her bag off the plane cause she had packed so much stuff. I have been gone for 3 months but I could have packed 1/3 of my car into this monstrosity… I mean she would only be out west for 10 days. 

Exhausted, we pulled into Napa just before midnight and went to check in at the luxurious Travel Lodge Hotel. When we got to the room, I realized that there must have been some sort of mistake because instead of two queen size beds (as requested) there was a single bed, a recliner and a hair dryer that looked like it had been stolen from the Millennium Falcon.

After moving to a new room, I gave Ashley the socks I bought her and we called it a night.

The next morning we woke up to find that the power had gone out in the middle of the night. Ashley grabbed the first shower so by the time I got in I felt like a polar bear taking his first dip of the spring. Since the entirety of downtown was without power, all plans of eating a unique breakfast went out the window. Luckily, the local IHOP was open for business.

I had booked two spots on a wine tour that we found online. It said that we would be in a group with up to 10 other people so we were surprised when we showed up and the only other two in our group were our age. After a quick introduction, we realized that our day was going to be awesome. Summer and Vincent came up from Amarillo, TX and had been engaged for about 7 months. Vincent had just gotten back from Iraq a few weeks earlier so they were both ready to party.

Our tour brought us to 5 different vineyards where we got to taste 5 or 6 different wines each. Our first stop was Flora Springs vineyard. I could go on and on about the different wines and post excerpts from my tasting notes but I won’t go there. Honestly I just like to drink wine, so we will just go ahead and toss a blanket statement on this on. It was fun.

After Flora Springs we went to Alpha Omega where Ashley talked the guy into pouring us “Bonus Round wine” and with our 2nd winery under our belt we headed to lunch.

Next we visited V. Sattui Winery where we grabbed some stinky cheese and headed to the tasting room. After being tricked into trying the white zinfandel, I poured out my first glass of the day (I hate that stuff). Before my mom passed away in 2006, she left me with some wisdom. Don’t date a girl who drinks white zen. Instead, befriend her and teach her the glories of red wine & once she converts, ask her on a date.

Liz, Mom & Me

FYI – my mom was a total badass. It really sucks for those of you who never got the chance to meet her because she was an amazing woman. She was a lover of red wine, the Episcopal Church and cooking. She was actually a part of a wine tasting club called “The Knights of the Vine” where she vowed to never drink water again but only wine.

After V. Sattui we boarded the bus and had a little picnic while in route to Black Stallion winery.

Snacktime

By this point we were all feeling the effects of the wine so we had a little photo shoot.

Our last stop of the day was William Hill where we found a cork tree, which we decided to climb. The vineyard did not approve of this.

On the way back to where the bus picked us up, we decided that 5 winery’s was not enough and that we needed to try and squeeze one more in. Summer really wanted to hit up Castello di Amorosa where the Bachelor was filmed so we hopped in their sweet Chevy Versa and headed north to find the castle.

The Versa

We got there just in time to catch the last tour and wine tasting. The castle was really cool but we laughed when we found out how old it was (construction started in 1994).

For dinner we decided to find a place in down town Napa since we couldn’t get reservations at French Laundry, which is supposedly the best place in town. They have a set menu that costs around $250 bucks a head (before wine) and reservations fill up months in advance. We ended up at a place called Rotisserie & Wine where the food was out of this world. We basically sat up at the bar and had the bartender order for us.

Old Vine

The next morning we decided to head towards the Champaign Caves in Sonoma but were stopped short due to the roads being flooded. Instead we started our drive towards San Francisco.