Kaiser Pass travelog #1
Clovis, CA · Fri, 8 Aug 2025, 9:15pm

Earlier this week we decided to push out one of our five trips in August. ...Well, one of my five trips; a few are business trips that Hawk is not joining me on. Regardless, it was disappointing because it was a leisure trip we were both looking forward to. But just because we had to delay a big weekend trip doesn't mean we can't do a smaller weekend trip instead. That means it's time for a Friday Night Halfway!

Tonight we're in Fresno (well, Clovis, actually), 165 miles from home, setting up for a trip to some hiking and sightseeing spots in the Sierra Nevada tomorrow.


 
I won't bore you with a long travelog of our drive out to Fresno. I mean, I could... and actually I have in the past. Check out this travelog of the drive to Fresno if you're interested. 🤣

For tonight, here are a quick Five Things about this evening's drive out to Fresno:

1) We only made this plan last night. I love our ability to be spontaneous.

2) We left at about 5:40pm today, after work. That was later than I wanted. My late afternoon Friday meeting was supposed to end at 5 but it ran overtime. (Dude definitely hates his family. 🤣) Fortunately Hawk and I packed earlier in the afternoon so all we needed to do was zip up our bags, carry them out ot the car, and lock up behind ourselves.

3) Traffic was surprisingly light. We hit a few slow downs leaving Silicon Valley but nothing as bad as usual for the Friday Night Escape. Even the 152 pass east of Gilroy was free flowing. Weird! Thus we arrived at the hotel a smidge after 9pm, even including stops for dinner, gas, and a snack. I was concerned we'd be pushing 10.

4) This is our first Friday Night Halfway this year. The Friday Morning All-The-Way we did back in March doesn't count. 🤣 But seriously, it's disappointing that it's August already and this is the first time this year we've done this kind of trip. I fret that we let opportunities slip through our fingers earlier this summer for lack of planning ahead— even one day of planning ahead.

5) A different hotel in Fresno every time. We've done at least half a dozen of these Friday Night Halfway treks to Fresno over the years. It's a convenient stopover point for various things. But we've never stayed at the same hotel in Fresno twice. It's not that we haven't found a good place.... Frankly, it's that I'm always on the hunt for a cheap place. Often that means a cheap place on points. I picked the Holiday Inn Express we're staying at tonight because it looked nice and lets me use up a Free Night Certificate I get every year from one of the credit cards I own.

It's been getting warm this week. Not hot, per se, as this whole summer so far has been cool out here in the SF Bay Area, but comparatively it is. Today was 88°, which is a whole 7° above average! Wednesday was warm, too, though Thursday in between barely beat the average at 82. So Wednesday and today I took a break in the pool in the afternoon.

Warm afternoons lately? Pool break at 2:30pm! (Aug 2025)

My work schedule tends to clear after 2:30pm most days. It's a combination of people in time zones to the east of us finishing their workdays and people in this timezone avoiding scheduling meetings because they have pick-up-the-kids-from-school type responsibilities. Some days I feel tired out and use this mid afternoon respite as a siesta. On warm days like Wednesday and today I decided instead to turn it into a pool fiesta!

Taking a break for the pool doesn't mean I'm slacking at work. It's been a busy week, starting with a bungee trip to Phoenix on Monday and days packed with meetings from my home office since then.

Moreover, just because I go for a dip in the pool doesn't even mean I'm done for the day. Both Wednesday and today I got back to my desk around 4pm and still had work to do. Today I even had a customer meeting at 4:30pm. It was the customer's idea. Who TF wants to have a meeting at the end of the day on a Friday? "Tell me," I wanted to ask at the start of the call, "How long have you hated your family?" 🤣

canyonwalker: A toast with 2 glasses of beer. Cheers! (beer tasting)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 8th, 2025 09:55 am)
North Coast Roadtrip travelog #10
Fort Bragg · Sun, 27 Jul 2025, 5:30pm

After hiking at MacKerricher state park we drove into town in Fort Bragg. One thing I'm always keen to do when I'm here is visit North Coast Brewing.

My plan as we rolled into town was to stop briefly at the brewery's store, across the street from their pub, and just buy a few six-packs of hard-to-find beers instead of stopping to drink a few tastes. But the store is no more! Or rather, the store is now inside the pub. Inside the pub, of course, is also the pub. 🤣 And they're reopened their old-school pub room that was closed when I visited here several years ago in the post-Covid mess. Hawk was good with taking a break from the drive, so I sidled up on a bar stool and ordered a sampler.

Beer Tasting at North Coast Brewing in Fort Bragg, California (Jul 2025)

This sampler isn't like my first visit to the brewery years ago when they poured a gonzo sampler with 14 beers on it. 😳 They serve four beers at a time, though the glasses are a bit larger than before, 4oz. vs. 2.5.  I started with a pick of 4 then added 2 more since Hawk was good taking a rest from the road.

The six beers I tried today are:


  • Blue Star wheat beer. I picked this wheat beer to anchor the light end of the lineup. I've enjoyed it before and rarely see it in stores.

  • Acme Beer, an American lager. This style isn't one I normally pick out of a lineup but I was curious here because it's new. And I'm glad I tried it because I was reasonably impressed. It's got a stronger flavor than most American lagers do, and none of the skunky taste or aftertaste that most American lagers have. I liked it at least as much as Blue Star.

  • Old No. 38 stout. This is described as a Dublin dry stout. It definitely has a dry, almost woody, character. It's not as creamy Guiness Stout. It tasted kind of like if Guiness was a bloke who got drunk and punched you in the mouth. I mean, it's okay; the punch in the mouth was playful. 🤣 But when I want a stout I'd rather have a Guiness. Or maybe a peanut butter chocolate milk dessert-in-a-glass stout.

  • PranQster is one I've always enjoyed at the brewery and bought a few times at the store. It's a Belgian style golden ale with a higher than normal ABV, 7.6%. (Dunno if that's higher than normal for the variety, but it's higher than normal for normal beer, which normally comes in at around 4.5%.)

  • Le Merle is another beer I've had before, both at the brewery and through stores around home. As Belgian style farmhouse ale it's very similar to PranQster. When I've tried them back-to-back in the past I've often had a slight preference for Le Merle. Today I struggled to tell them apart. But they're both good, so I'd be happy having more of either one.

  • Brother Thelonius is a Belgian style abbey ale that I've always enjoyed. The name is a pun, of course. Abbey ale is traditionally made by monks in an abbey. And Thelonius is a callout to the musician Thelonius Monk. Cheesy name aside, it's a really good beer. Though it did take me a while to warm up to it years ago. At a higher alcohol concentration, 9.4%, twice that of normal beer, and with a strong flavor, it's a beer that's best enjoyed when sipped like wine.

I stopped by the store in the pub on my way out the door to grab some packs for take-home. I would've been willing to buy both PranQster and Le Merle but I figured I can find them easily enough in stores at home. Thus I focused on Blue Star, which is usually out of stock. Except it was out of stock here, at the brewery store, too! I picked up a few four-packs of Brother Thelonius because it was at a good price compared to local stores; plus a six-pack of Acme Beer because it's new and it impressed me and I haven't seen it at retail yet.


North Coast Roadtrip travelog #9
Fort Bragg · Sun, 27 Jul 2025, 4:30pm

We wrapped up our morning on the Lost Coast a bit before noon, drove inland to Highway 101, then south, then dodged back out to the coast along Route 1 to Fort Bragg. Just north of town is a spot we always enjoy hiking, MacKerricher State Park.

MacKerricher State Park on the Mendocino Coast (Jul 2025)

There's a beach here, which attracts the attention of, I'd say, most of the park's visitors. But when the typical summer weather is somewhere in the 60s and kind of cloudy, there are better things to do than sit in the sand and be cold. We always like walking the trail out to the bluffs. It starts with this boardwalk (pic above) into a forbidding looking forest of sea-swept trees. Just like you can't judge a book by its cover, though, you can't judge a trail by its first 150 meters. The trail cuts through the stand of trees to open bluffs not far above the ocean.

MacKerricher State Park on the Mendocino Coast (Jul 2025)

Out here the boardwalk loops around and doubles back. It's not clear if it's an official trail anymore, but it's still marked on the maps... so we jumped off the boardwalk and onto well-worn footpaths along the edge of the bluffs.

MacKerricher State Park on the Mendocino Coast (Jul 2025)

The clouds in the sky made today not my favorite visit to MacKerricher State Park. Oddly it's sunny over in Fort Bragg, a mile inland from this craggy point, but out here it's overcast. The weird and interesting thing, though, is how colorful the plants clinging to the cliffs are in this light. Known as ice plants or sea fig, they're invasive to the California coast but— for better or worse— grow really well here. At least they're pretty to look at with their bright colors. 🙄

MacKerricher State Park on the Mendocino Coast (Jul 2025)

As we walked along the bluffs we had the area mostly to ourselves. Out her we passed on family and one solo hiker. That's way better than near the parking lot, which was full of people whose loud conversations were all about (a) which caliber of ammunition is best for their guns, (b) driving illegal and loud go-karts around the parking lot, and (c) having to take a shit. Yeah, we're always happy to leave the parking lot behind. Sometimes all it takes is that first 150 meters to get far from the madding crowd.

MacKerricher State Park on the Mendocino Coast (Jul 2025)

After a while of walking the bluffs we took a shortcut back through that stand of trees to an old rail trail. The rails have long since been removed, but the old rail bed runs arrow-straight through the area. It took us back to the edge of the parking lot, where we crossed back down to our parked car and packed up to drive into town.


I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with Subway (the restaurant) over the years. I really enjoy hot, Italian-American subs like a meatball sub. Subway's not the best place for this, but often it's the best place around. Like, when I lived in New York for 4 years, I ate at Subway all of about 3 times because there was almost always someplace better for a hot sub within a block or two of wherever I was. But since I left New York years ago that's seldom been the case, so Subway has become part of my weekly regular rotation for lunchtime restaurants.

Until recently, that is. At this point I haven't eaten at Subway in a few months.

Why? What changed?

"No, Pepsi is NOT okay. I'll have an iced tea."

Pepsi is what changed.

For years Subway had served Coke products. Last year they inked a 10-year deal with Pepsi to serve Pepsi products instead. The change was due to hit by the start of this year, though it wasn't until a few months ago that the soda fountain was swapped out in the restaurant near me. The first time I ate there after Pepsi was installed was the last time I ate there. (And I drank iced team instead of Pepsi because, No, Pepsi is not okay.)

Would I really choose not to dine at a restaurant just because they've got the "wrong" soda? You bet! And this is not even the first time. Last year I quit dining at The Habit burger restaurant when they switched to Pepsi. It had been a regular weekly haunt of mine up until that. There really is that much of a difference in taste— and enjoyment— to me with Coke v. Pepsi. And especially with Diet Coke/Coke Zero v. Diet Pepsi. The difference is way more pronounced with the sugar-free stuff.

Yesterday I decided to give Subway another try. ...No, not to give Pepsi another try; I planned drinking iced tea instead. But the Subway was closed! My first thought was, "OMG, I wonder if enough people are Pepsi refusers like me that the restaurant lost so much business it had to shut down!!" 🤣

August is a busy month for me travel-wise. As I posted several days ago, I've got 5 trips this month. Except now I've got just four. ...And no, I don't mean that my bungee trip to Phoenix on Monday leaves four more to go. I mean that trip #2 of 5 has gotten postponed to September.

This weekend Hawk and I were going to go to Mammoth Lakes, on the eastern side of California's Sierra Nevada mountains. We'd stay in a nice hotel— the same one we stayed at a few years ago in Mammoth—  and go hiking in the area both Saturday and Sunday. But I hurt my foot during my trip on Monday so I'm not sure I'll really be up for two days of hiking this weekend. Plus, with trip #3 on my docket, a 4-day trip to Chicago, having me leaving on Monday morning I had second thoughts about whether I wanted to come home tired and achy late Sunday night only to have to pack a new suitcase and get up before 6:30am. I decided we should cancel postpone our trip to the first weekend in September. That's the next weekend we have free!

It's good I chose to postpone that trip as of about 3:45pm today, because by 4pm two new business meetings had dropped onto my calendar for this Friday afternoon. Those wouldn't have worked with the trip, as we were planning to leave at 1pm. Well, silver lining, now I'm available to work those meetings. 😒

canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 6th, 2025 01:00 pm)
North Coast Roadtrip travelog #8
Shelter Cove · Sun, 27 Jul 2025, 11:30am

Sunday morning after visiting the Black Sand Beach(es) just north of where we stayed for the night on the Lost Coast we drove back past the inn to the small marina on the south end of town at Shelter Cove.

The Cape Mendocino Lighthouse, now moved to Shelter Cove (Jul 2025)

The first thing you notice at Shelter Cove, after driving past an airstrip— I guess flying is an easier way to get here than driving the steep mountain roads— and a shockingly packed "campground" that is just a parking lot full of RVs and trailers parked next to each other, is a lighthouse. And it's a short light house. Like, the lamp in it (which has been removed) wouldn't have been much higher than about 22' (6.5 meters) above the ground. Why not a tall lighthouse like the classic ones seen all over the Atlantic coast and even around the Great Lakes?

The answer is explained in a historical marker outside the lighthouse. This lighthouse wasn't originally located here, on this flat field atop a low cliff. It was originally built for Cape Mendocino 30 miles north, where it sat atop a cliff 400' above the ocean. It didn't need to be tall since it was already high. Its light could be seen 28 miles out at sea.

The lighthouse went into operation at Cape Mendocino in 1868. It served for over 100 years before the Coast Guard decommissioned it due to its clifftop perch become unstable and becoming too expensive to maintain. The lighthouse was moved here and restored in the 1990s by a nonprofit group.

Visiting the tide pools at Shelter Cove on the Lost Coast (Jul 2025)

While we were at the cove we also climbed down the stairs to beach to see the cove. There are rocky shallows here where the innkeeper this morning boasted that, if our timing was right, we'd see all five kinds of starfish in the tide pools. Five kinds of starfish? WTF, they come in 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-armed varieties in addition to the standard 5 shape? 😂

Well, it was a bad day for starfish as we saw exactly zero of them in the tide pools. These were frankly very lame tide pools, just stinky water and weeds. It's nothing like the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego. And the grim weather here is nothing like that beautiful sunny day in February we enjoyed in San Diego.

Of course, it is a sunny day here. It's sunny above the fog layer. As one of my high school guidance counselors years ago loved to say on rainy/cloudy days, The sun is shining, you just can't see it! 😎

canyonwalker: Hangin' in a hammock (life's a beach)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 5th, 2025 07:54 pm)
North Coast Roadtrip travelog #7
Shelter Cove · Sun, 27 Jul 2025, 10:30am

Life's a beach. Sometimes it's a dreary beach. Alas that has been our experience this morning on the Lost Coast. We drove out here yesterday afternoon on our North Coast roadtrip and stayed last night at a nice inn perched on the cliffs. Alas all we've had to see for the high cost of lodging and food out here is fog. We knew fog would be a thing, but our weather apps promised us there'd be some clearing in the afternoon. Nope. Not while we've been out here anyway.

We lingered at our room at the inn this morning to see if the fog might lift like the weather forecast even today said it would. Still nope. So we decided to go visit some beaches in the fog. Nearby Shelter Cove are Black Sand Beach and Little Black Sand Beach.

Little Black Sand Beach on the Lost Coast (Jul 2025)

We started with a drive to Little Black Sands Beach (photo) because it's just up the road from where we stayed. There's not a lot out here; just an end-of-the-road gravel parking/turnaround area and a crumbling bit of old road that serves as a footpath down to the beach.

That beach isn't really black sand, by the way. It is gravel. It's not particular fun to spend any time on. And it's not helped at all by the fact that a) the temperature is cool, b) the fog makes it so that we can't see much, and c) the water is super dangerous— as attested to by warning signs that caution visitors not even to dip a toe in the water, the ocean is so dangerous!

The ocean's too dangerous even to dip a toe in! (Jul 2025)

After visiting Little Black Sand Beach we drove up the road two miles to (big) Black Sand Beach. It was the same thing but... bigger. I actually preferred the smaller scaled of the little beach. It felt more intimate and more like a place we could have to ourselves. The bigger beach was far from crowded but there were usually a few other people in sight at any point. And the water was just as murderous.

In beauty I walk. In dreary, murderous beauty.

canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 5th, 2025 08:09 am)
Last night I got back from my same-day, out-and-back trip to Phoenix. I walked through my front door at 9:50pm, just slightly ahead of schedule.

All in all it wasn't bad, as far as the traveling part of trips goes. The "bungee jump" style of same-day trips certainly isn't easy, particularly with Phoenix, which entails 60-90 minutes more round-trip travel time than, say, Los Angeles or Orange County; but it also wasn't quite like running a marathon.

I attribute that to me being able to catch a 9:00am departing flight. That allowed for getting up at the mostly civilized hour of 6:15. If I'd had to catch a 6:30am departure, say to be in Phoenix in time for an 11am meeting, I'd have had to get up at 4am or even earlier. That's exactly what I've got planned in two weeks.... So maybe I'll switch that Monday morning oh-dark-thirty wakeup for a Sunday evening flight and stay in a hotel.

canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 4th, 2025 07:28 pm)
Today I've taken a day trip to Phoenix. Similar to a day trip I made two years agowow, was it really that long ago?— I got up this morning, drove to the airport, caught a flight to Phoenix, traveled across town to meet a customer for several hours, then traveled back to the airport for my flight home.

My timing's gone something like this so far today:

6:15am: Morning alarm. Get up to start my usual weekday morning process, albeit 30 minute earlier than usual.

7:15am: Heading to the airport. I opt to drive instead of hail a ride because parking at SJC in a lot from which I can walk to the terminal is just $30/day, versus Uber and Lyft which are now usually at least $30 each way. Plus, I get the certainty of driving my own car on my own schedule, rather than waiting who-knows-how-long for a driver to be assigned only to cancel a few minutes later and make me wait for another assignment.

7:45am: In the terminal. The walk from my parking spot took 6 minutes. I didn't get as nice a parking spot as last time. Security took a few minutes with PreCheck. I have time to grab a bagel as second breakfast.

9:30am: Whoopsie at 35,000'. We're en route to PHX. I've got one of the few empty middle seats next to me, yay! But I'm also surrounded by crying babies, boo. And one of my neighbors ordered a double vodka-tonic that the flight attendant just poured all over my pants leg. Yeah, that's going to go over well, walking into my client's office smelling like I came straight from the bar.

10:45am: Landing in Phoenix. The flight was scheduled at just under 2 hours and arrived about 10 minutes ahead of schedule. And you know what comes after I had second breakfast a few hours ago, right?

11 am: Elevensies. 🤣 Yes, I have time for an early lunch at PHX airport.

11:45am: Sync time with colleague. Mike arrived on a later flight, and we meet up and sit down for a while at the airport Starbucks to sync on what we'll cover in today's meeting. I research a few issues to be ready with answers in case the customer gets testy.

1pm: Arriving to meet my customer. They're on the north side of town. It's quite a haul out here from the airport.

3pm: We're done beating around the bush! I've spent the past 2 hours with the customer being cagey and asking us trap questions about how we count users. Nearly the whole time I've realized that what they're really fighting about is the last 3% of the user count. Like, is it 11,100 or is it 11,400? Finally I feel they've come around enough for me to ask, "So, can we agree that 11,100 is a reasonable number to base our cost planning on?" They agree.

4pm: Headed back to the airport. We had another meeting, a brief one, with a senior VP. Guess how much he cares about whether the number is 11,100 or 11,400? Pretty much zero. He's ready to talk in terms of, "Okay, what's the value your solution delivers to my business?" Which is what we'd much rather talk about.

4:45pm: Time for the airport shuffle— and a beer. Clearing security is quick. There's nobody in the PreCheck line ahead of us. Mike and I post up at Four Peaks, a local brewery that has a franchise at the airport. Mmm, beer!

6:20pm: Walking to the gate. And PHX airport is so spread out this is like, half a mile, from one part of Terminal 4 to another. And it's not even one-third the length of the terminal!

7:25pm: In my seat, ready for takeoff. We're running a few minutes late for our 7:25 scheduled departure but we should start rolling within 5 minutes.

UpdateHome slightly ahead of schedule, before 10pm!


vvalkyri: (Default)
([personal profile] vvalkyri Aug. 4th, 2025 12:14 pm)
Crosspost:
Dayum was I exhausted last night. But I'm still glad I got up yesterday in time to manage brunch with Cousin on Dad's birthday.
We also found a great mediterranean place near Union Station.
And then I drove past Billionaire Brunch, failed to find parking, drove out for a quick visit with a high school friend in town (who brought my purple charger block), got some laundry done, had to fall over for a nap, eventually got to acro at 7, didn't really do much acro, and eventually got to First Sunday Fusion.
Given the prior day's Billy Goat Trail and mostly standing near Union Station including walking to and from the Capitol from there and then to and from Kelly's (and a couple hours extra being up on account of acquiring a broken phone'd gal in the middle of breaking up with her boyfriend who Would Not Leave Her Alone)
I'm not surprised my legs were less than pleased with climbing up the stairs after the dance.
Final step count (not counting in-house time with watch charging):
Yesterday: 16,078, 173 min, 17 active hours (and no detected floors despite many)
Sunday: 17,723, 193 min, 17 active hours (and 4 detected floors despite us going down and back from the river)
Friday: 13,185, 141 min, 20 active hours, 2 floors
Thursday: 9,692, 101 min, 15 active hours, 2 floors (and now I'm trying to remember Thursday. Did I get to blues?)


I was planning on writing a lot more here, but it's already 2p and I have not done any of the stuff I'dd hoped to do for the Monument City Mutual Aid resources fair on 8/23, especially the part where I was going to cross reference the spreadsheet with groups I could list from a particular facebook group.

The broken phone'd gal eventually went off looking for the boyfriend (facepalm), leaving where we'd led her so he couldn't easily find her. I didn't accept my smarttrip card back.

The Rave Against The Regime wasn't much of a rave but was a really good discussion and later networking.
I probably pissed off some people from Delaware. Dunno. I wasn't expecting to be trying to lead groups to the capitol and back let alone lead group discussion. They'd come expecting a big thing and we'd been trying for chill on little to no notice.

It disturbs me that I'll need to look in Finch to figure out what I did on Thursday.

I should try to get myself out past some of the traffic.
This past weekend was pleasant. In addition to going wine tasting on Saturday— which was my first wine tasting trip since before the Pandemic 😧 if my blog is accurate, yikes!— I got in some #PoolLife on Friday and Sunday.

Friday I cut out early from work, heading out to the pool around 3pm. Hawk was already out there with our friends Barbara and Jesse and their son. Jesse had cut out early from work, too.

Relaxing at the pool on a warm-ish afternoon (Aug 2025)

Since I was late to the pool party I stayed late, too, after everyone else headed in or headed out to their next thing. Visiting with friends for a while was fun, but so was enjoying the peace and quiet next to the pool alone. I've felt drained from work a lot recently so taking it easy relaxing quietly by the pool was just my speed.

Cooler-than-normal weather this summer in California has continued. Friday was another cooler-than-average day. It was just as well I wasn't gung-ho about swimming in the pool because it wasn't quite warm enough to enjoy it. It was a beautiful day, though, for soaking the hot tub— which I did— and then sitting in the shade, reading.

Sunday afternoon I spent a while out by the pool again. Again it was a few degrees cooler than normal— and even this weather is warmer than much of the past week. This time I decided to use the pool for a while despite it not being quite warm enough. It was okay for a while, but I tired of it quicker than on a warmer day. We soaked in the hot tub for a while after that then stretched out on lounge chairs to read while drying.

Now it's Monday, which means back to work for me. And it's an early-ish day because I'm headed to the airport for a day-trip to Phoenix. Here I am grousing about it being shy of 80° at home... it's been 110°+ in Phoenix lately!


Saturday was a day for wine tasting at two wineries. After visiting David Bruce Winery with my friend Anthony and I drove up along Skyline Boulevard to Thomas Fogarty Winery in the mountains of Woodside, California.

Thomas Fogarty Winery in Woodside (Aug 2025)

It's with a bit of irony I say it was a day for vistiing two wineries. Initially my plan had been to visit three!  I'd made reservations (yes, reservations are all but required nowadays) for David Bruce at 1pm, Byington at 2, and Thomas Fogarty at 4. Already it was 1:15 as we were halfway through our first of five samples at David Bruce. I could tell there was no way we'd get to Byington anywhere close to 2pm. So I canceled the appointment with Byington and figured we'd stretch out our time at David Bruce, leaving plenty of time to get to Thomas Fogarty. It turned out we got there just in time, arriving a few minutes after our 4pm reservation..

My plan of visiting three wineries in the afternoon wasn't unreasonable... or even aggressive. It was just... not the way it works anymore. Years ago wine tastings were done at a bar in a tasting room. Tasting coordinators served like bartenders and poured one tasting after another. Get 'em in, get 'em out was the operating philosophy back then.

On my countless wine tasting trips in the past, visiting only three wineries in one afternoon seemed like taking it easy. A few times I managed to visit 5 wineries in a day with a bit of planning ahead, such as visiting in and around Sonoma's Alexander Valley.  At least once I even managed 6 tasting visits in a day. But that was with the get-'em-in, get-'em-out style of service. Now many wineries have moved toward an "experience" model of wine tasting where they sit you down on a well manicured terrace while a server pours one small glass of wine at a time to savor along with the views. It's nice in that it now matches the ever-rising tasting fees that wineries charge.

The grapes in this wine haven't moved more than 200 feet since birth (Aug 2025)

Saturday, though, Anthony and I embraced the slower model of service. After I canceled our 2:00 with Byington we relaxed on the terrace at David Bruce, letting them define the speed of service. We wound up staying there not just past 1:50pm when we otherwise would've had to jet to make it to Byington just up the road but actually until 3:15 when we had to jet just to make it to Thomas Fogarty!

Again at Thomas Fogarty we enjoyed the relaxed pace of service, chatting amiably on the terrace in between sips of two different wine flights. We didn't finish there until after 5:45pm. We were hurried just a bit at the end as we were the last customers there.

As for the wines? Well, it's ironic that Thomas Fogarty is a local winery I've been meaning to visit for over 25 years. And now that I've finally gotten there, I found the wines all forgettable. Oh, they were good wines, but they weren't amazing— the eye-popping scores in the menu notwithstanding. And they were all priced like amazing wines, with the cheapest starting at about $60 and the priciest an even $100.

The wine that I found the most memorable was not for its taste but its place. The glass I'm holding in the photo above is a pinot noir from grapes grown on the hilltop right beyond the terrace. With the winemaking operation being in the building right behind me I quipped out loud, "The grapes in this glass haven't moved more than 200 feet since they were born!"

How's that for "farm to table"? I've got your MF table right next to your MF farm. 🤣

View across Silicon Valley and south SF Bay from Thomas Fogarty Winery in Woodside (Aug 2025)

After the tasting we finished the day by continuing the drive along Skyline Boulevard. Anthony was oohing and aahing the whole way as he'd never ridden in a convertible before. At the 35/84 junction we pulled aside across from Alice's Restaurant to call Hawk to coordinate dinner. Then we drove down Woodside Road to I-280 and into Palo Alto to meet Hawk and Amy (Anthony's wife) for dinner at Palo Alto Sol. Delicious enchiladas and margaritas.... It was a great ending to a great day.

canyonwalker: Cheers! (wine tasting)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 3rd, 2025 09:58 am)
I've been trying to get a wine tasting trip going for a while. Not a big trip, just a local trip, as there are more than a dozen wineries in the foothills and up the near side of the Santa Cruz mountains near where I live. (There are also multiple dozen wineries 45-60 minutes in the other direction, in the Livermore Valley, but I toured that region extensively several times years ago. I've spent way less time visiting wineries in the mountains I can literally see from my house.) And when I say I've been trying to get this trip going for a while I mean both "for a couple of months" and "for several years". 😰

The "for a couple of months" part is because I've been waiting for the right opportunity: a weekend with nice weather when we didn't have conflicting plans and when, ideally, I could find a friend to do tastings with.

Yesterday was finally the day! A buddy and I visited a few wineries in the mountains and had a great time, enjoying the wine, the camaraderie, and the weather. Our first stop, after grabbing a quick lunch together in town, was David Bruce Winery in Los Gatos, in mountains above San Jose.

David Bruce Winery in the mountains above San Jose (Aug 2025)

Why wait for nice weather? I mean, why not? 😂 But seriously, wineries are definitely open in shitty weather, too. And I've had some memorable experiences doing wine tasting when it's gloomy and cold outside but warm and intimate inside an old time-y building with a fire going in the fireplace and a glass of good red wine in my hand.

My idea for this trip was to go on a warm, clear afternoon so we could drop the top on the convertible and enjoy the drive through the mountains as well as the wine. And that's exactly the weather we had on tap for this weekend. ...The last few weekends, too, but I either had conflicting plans for those or didn't make plans in time.

Speaking of making plans in time, it was only Friday night I called a couple of friends to see about going wine tasting on Saturday. Damn procrastination. One already had drinking plans for Friday night and didn't think he'd be able to get up in time Saturday. The other, Anthony, also had drinking plans Friday night— in fact, he choked on a shot of liquor when he answered the phone and said "Hello" 🤣— but he's a lot younger so he figured he'd snap back just fine by Saturday morning. 💪

Enjoying the views at David Bruce Winery (Aug 2025)

David Bruce is a beautiful winery. As you can see in the first photo above it's not much to look at from the parking lot. It looks kind of like a stone behemoth half-buried in the hillside. But that's also part of its beauty. The designers created natural cooling for the winemaking process by using heavy natural materials and locating it half underground. And all the greenery around it helps it blend into the natural landscape of the hills. The second pic above I took as we walked along the terrace to the tasting room.

Reservations Required (Also: We're Married Now)

I'd had to call ahead for a reservation for wine tasting. That's one thing that's different about wine tasting now vs. years ago.... It used to be you only needed an appointment for a private, high-end tasting or a tour— and even those you could even sign up for on the day of, very often. Now wineries ask for reservations even for basic tastings. So I made reservations with 3 wineries for Saturday.

David Bruce I had to call on the phone at 11am (when they opened) because their online ressy system wouldn't accept day-of reservations. The coordinator I spoke to hemmed and hawed as she dug up the appointments book. She sure made it seemed like they were squeezing us in. Yet when we arrived at 1pm the winery the parking lot was less than 20% full. There were only three small groups in the tasting area, and two of the couples were leaving.

"Oops, we're married" my buddy texts our wives (Aug 2025)

As a coordinator sat us on the terrace overlooking the hillside with glasses of rosé to start, we both chuckled as the reservation card set out for us. "We're married now!" Anthony texted to both of our spouses. 🤣

Taste 'em All, Buy a Few Bottles Each

The winery offered two choices for tasting. We figured since we're married now we could each order a different flight and then share it with one another. I even joked that we could intertwine arms as we did so. Spoiler: we didn't. 🤣

We generally liked all the wines poured at David Bruce. The reisling was light and gently fruity. It was on the dry side of the reisling variety but with natural sweetness coming from the subtle fruit flavors. That was nice because it didn't have the syrupy mouth feel that comes along with sweeter reislings due to their residual sugar content. Anthony bought a bottle of that because he liked it and thought his wife would really like it, too. I considered it but opted to spend my chips on the pinot noir.

Speaking of pinot noir, there were four pinot noir examples on the tasting menu. One of the flights was just 4 pinots. Actually five, if you count the freebie rosé of pinot noir they started us with. (The rosé is shown in the pic above.) I generally liked all of them. For me the top two were the Russian River pinot (grapes grown in the Russian River appellation of Sonoma County) and the estate pinot (possibly growing on the hillside in the photos here). The Russian River example had a nicely spicy characteristic that's rare. But the estate pinot is the one I bought, two bottles even, because it balanced a warm, spicy dimension with delicious fruit flavor.

We finished up with a petite sirah. To me it wasn't very special; likely because I've had a lot of petite sirah before when I made regular wine tasting trips to Livermore Valley. I'm not saying it's bad, just that I'm a little jaded on the variety. Anthony was really into it and bought a bottle to take home.

As we stood to leave it was time to pay the piper. Many wineries advertise their bottle prices right on the tasting card, so you know what you're drinking. David Bruce didn't, which seemed a little suspicious. I was prepared for them to hit us with, like $55+ prices per bottle. I remember when I visited David Bruce 10 years ago the prices were all $35+, which was a lot back then. With inflation today those prices would be at least $55. So I was surprised that most of the bottles were priced at $39. That makes David Bruce... well, not a bargain, but definitely a solid quality-price ratio.

Oh, except the wine I liked best turned out to be the most expensive on the list. The estate pinot was $65. It's like they knew which was best, too. 😅 But by that point I'd already decided on it and didn't want to settle for second best. Plus, I figured with them comping the $30 tasting fee for buying two bottles it worked out to effectively $50 per bottle. I've groused before about $50 bottles of pinot noir.... Well, that was before the significant inflation of the past several years. And this one genuinely seemed worth it.

Keep reading: we visit Thomas Fogarty Winery next!
canyonwalker: Hangin' in a hammock (life's a beach)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 2nd, 2025 08:33 pm)
North Coast Roadtrip travelog #6
Shelter Cove · Sat, 26 Jul 2025, 9pm

Tonight we're bedding down on the Lost Coast. "Wait, isn't that a brewery?" you might ask. Well, yes, we did visit the Lost Coast Brewery this afternoon, but this is different. The brewery is in Eureka and is named for a place, a really remote place, a bit south. Now we're actually in that place. The Lost Coast.

We've had a good day of adventure so far. We started in Garberville, a tiny town just off the highway that's basically a dot on the map (pop. fewer than 1,000) then drove north toward Eureka, driving the scenic byway of the Avenue of the Giants. We passed through Eureka en route to Sue-meg State Park, where we went rock-hounding on Agate Beach. Passing back through Eureka we stopped for lunch and the aforementioned brewery. Then, it was like, "You've tried the beer, now try the place!" Lost Coast. 🤣

Okay, but seriously, why's it called the Lost Coast? For one, it's seriously remote. There's a mountain range hard against the coast here, the Kings Range mountains. Yeah, there are mountains along most of the California coast, and these aren't even the highest— King's Peak is just over 2,000' elevation, which is lower than the highest peaks in the Santa Cruz Mountains near my home— but they are steep and rugged. The drive down from the peak to our hotel in Shelter Cove felt a bit like going down a roller coaster. The gal who checked us in at the hotel even asked, with a smirk, if we had trouble driving or with the brakes on our car as we came down the mountain. Hawk told me a few minutes later she was offended by the hotelier's almost snide humor about people having car trouble. Whereas I was like, Girl, we have a sports car, and we know how to drive it!

Anyway, long story short, it's seriously remote out here. The name Lost Coast apparently stems from when European settlers gave up trying to live out here around 100 years ago. The mountains isolate it too much from the rest of the state.

So, why are we staying out here? Well, one, because it's the Lost Coast. Just the name sounds awesome. And two, because we want to explore the area & stay at a hotel perched on cliffs overlooking the ocean.

Our room at the Lost Coast Inn (Jul 2025)

And three, we didn't really want to stay another night in Garberville. Our motel room there was strictly basic accommodations; an 8-hours-and-a-shower kind of place. Here we've got a larger room with a nice little table to sit at, a sofa, and kitchenette, and a balcony. Yeah, it also costs like 3x more, but did I also mention there's an ocean view? Our room in Garberville had a literal parking lot view.

The Lost Coast Inn (Jul 2025)

This inn also has a hot tub on its deck overlooking the ocean. That was one of the selling points for us, too; though it turns out it's broken. ☹️ Oh well, we'll just have to enjoy the hell out of our balcony.

View from our balcony at the Lost Coast Inn (Jul 2025)

And yeah, that's what we've done this evening: enjoyed the hell out of our balcony. We bought dinner at the pizza cafe attached to the hotel (I got a pizza; Hawk got a dish of lasagna) and took it back to our room to eat while watching the sunset. After the sun set Hawk grabbed a spare blanked and curled up with it on the balcony while I stayed inside, stretching out on the bed with the sliding glass door open and the heater running. It turns out the heater blows most of its heat onto the balcony. That seems like a design or maintenance problem, but for this evening it's been perfect. It's kept Hawk from shivering out on the balcony!
First of all, no, I haven't resumed watching Better Call Saul. I paused the series 2 episodes from the end in May and haven't picked it back up since then. This blog is just me catching up on the last 2 episodes I did watch. The fact that I'm just getting to writing about those 10 weeks later is both a measure of how backlogged I've been and how badly this series lost my attention right at the end.

What happened? What happened is that the series shifted gears for its last 4 episodes. Across the first 5½ seasons we'd seen occasionally flash-forwards to Jimmy McGill's life post Saul Goodman. These were a narrative device similar to flashbacks but instead of filling in details or color about the past they were teasing us with the future. In this case, the future some 6 years later, after the Breaking Series, to which Better Call Saul is a prequel. So it's like the prequel changed to the post-postquel.

In the life-after-Breaking-Bad timeline, Jimmy/Saul is on the lam. He's living under a new identity as Gene Takavic, who manages a Cinnabon store in Omaha. This situation is a nod to a seemingly throwaway line Jimmy/Saul makes in his last scene in Breaking Bad, where he tells Walter White, "With any luck by this time next year I'll be managing a Cinnabon in Omaha."

The brief flash-forwards sprinkled across the series show Jimmy living unhappily as Gene, the Cinnabon store manager. His job is a big letdown from his previously high flying career as a dirty lawyer, and he's constantly looking over his shoulder in fear that both people from his criminal past and law enforcement might figure out his true identity. He lives a quiet life going between home and work, doesn't socialize more than perfunctory greetings, and often drinks himself to sleep at night.

In episode 6.10 the show jumps full-time from Jimmy in 2004, right after Kim has left him, to Jimmy as Gene in 2010. Jimmy is panicking that someone from the past has recognized him. Jeff, a cab driver in Omaha who used to live in Albuquerque years earlier, recognizes him through his disguise. Jimmy then perpetrates a series of cons to ingratiate himself with Jeff and his family, starting with Jef's sweet but naive mom, Marion— played in a cameo by Carol Burnett that seems like an utter waste of the legendary comedienne's talent. Jimmy cons Jeff into committing a robbery he plans. The purpose isn't to profit from the loot but to get enough "dirt" on Jeff that he could go to jail for possibly decades if he rats out Jimmy. It's mutually assured destruction.

The thing is, Jimmy is not at all sympathetic in these cons. Younger Jimmy, "Slippin' Jimmy", was somewhat sympathetic when he was conning people because he was typically conning people who were jerks. He played on their greed and turned it against them. Here he's conning Jeff— and his innocent mother— just to protect himself.

Then the cons get worse.

Jimmy goes back to Jeff— after revealing that he conned him just to get "dirt" on him— with another crime proposal. They're going to drug wealthy men, copy their IDs and financial information, and sell it to an identity thief. Why is Jimmy doing this, though? It's not because he needs the money. The flash-forwards already established that Jimmy has a considerable stash of wealth in the form of diamonds. The only conclusion left is that Jimmy's doing it because he's evil.

The worst comes when Jimmy and his accomplices target a man whom they discover is a terminal cancer patient. The sedatives they use, in addition to the medications the man's already on, could be lethal. Jimmy's two accomplices tap out. But Jimmy is determined to see this particular con through, even if it directly kills someone. Evil.

And that's where I stopped watching, with only 2 episodes left in the series. Because why do I care about these characters anymore?

Yeah, I'll finish watching... at some point. But I'm just not that interested anymore.

vvalkyri: (Default)
([personal profile] vvalkyri Aug. 2nd, 2025 02:23 am)
There were some good things, like happening to notice I'd been added to the mutual Aid Facebook group I tried to join on Tuesday and finding that there was a pantry that was going till noon and almost making it and they were willing to talk with me and interested in putting information about the mutual Aid fare on the 23rd and they've got an event on the 9th ...

Of course I was on 4 and 1/2 hours of sleep and now it's past 2:00 and I had told Joe I'd like to go hiking with them but I also have to somehow be back in time for working Rave against the regime at Union Station which starts at 6:00 for the public. I've handed over the glow sticks...

We had a night walk and it was a really good group and we didn't actually really interact with people but we put up a lot of flyers for tomorrow

And I've made a whole lot of flyers

And I was so tired and yet I have not yet gone to sleep

But when I turned on the car to go to Eastern market that's when I learned the corporation for public broadcasting is shutting down

And I think it was earlier today that the jobs report came out and it was not good and it was revised to be worse and Trump fired the person who compiled it and then one of the fed governors retired unxpectedly.

I'm working on putting together this Mutual Aid Fair and that wasn't expecting to but
I've been saying that my main talent is keep it sing. As in you're playing this thing but maybe this should happen? And so I wasn't going to join the meeting and I joined the meeting last night and it turned out that
I changed some of the trajectory.

I'm not making a ton of sense. I posted that it's hard to stay positive and it's true.

I've enjoyed spending the time with basil and with ira and vanilla

I need to figure out the weekend of the 23rd. A friend is having a 60th birthday and would like me to fly out there if I'm willing. It's been a while. It's also opposite sunburn.

Somehow I need to get to sleep. Joe and Bernadette want to pick me up at 11:30.
canyonwalker: A toast with 2 glasses of beer. Cheers! (beer tasting)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 1st, 2025 08:19 pm)
North Coast Roadtrip travelog #5
Eureka · Sat, 26 Jul 2025, 3:15pm

After driving quite a bit this morning— including a relaxing roll along Avenue of the Giants— and rock-hounding at Agate Beach we'd worked up quite an appetite for lunch. No, we didn't eat at a brewery as the title of this journal entry made lead you to believe. We ate lunch at a regular restaurant. Then we went to the brewery, just for beer tasting. 😅

Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka, California (Jul 2025)Lost Coast Brewing is a small brewery located in Eureka, California. We passed through Eureka this morning driving north, driving right past the brewery just south of downtown, then ate lunch just up the street from it. We mulled eating at the brewery, as it has a small food menu in addition to its beer, but decided the eats might be better at a regular restaurant. So we enjoyed Philadelphia-style cheese steaks first then drove over to the brewery.

I'm familiar with a few of Lost Coast's beers. Grocery stores here in California generally carry their Great White and Downtown Brown varieties. Great White is the one with a Picasso-esque shark on the label. That shark art also exists as a huge wood carving in front of the brewery (photo right/above).

I'm not much of a fan of the Great White, and I've had Downtown Brown various times before, so in picking a handful of beers for my taster sampling I chose a bunch of beers I've never seen before. There was a pilsner, a plain wheat, an amber ale, a dry stout and the Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout. I also grabbed a quick taste of the Great White to remind myself of what I'm not missing.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout by Lost Coast BrewingI liked three of the beers enough to want to buy six-packs to take home: the pilsner, the wheat, and the candy-bar-in-a-glass stout.

Beers I didn't even bother tasting include any of their IPAs and overly fruity wheats. I know I don't care for those. I grabbed a quick taste of their best-selling Great White to remind myself of what I'm not missing.

Unfortunately when I went to check their shop, most of the beers I liked were not sold in bottles or cans; they're only available on tap at the brewery. That left the Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout as the only one I could buy to take home with me. So I bought two boxes. 😂

Update: since getting back home I've enjoyed one can of the candy-bar-in-a-glass stout. It really is like drinking a candy bar in a glass. That's why I've only had one. It's delicious but it's so sweet it's not something I find enjoyable to drink too many of. It's like milkshakes. I love milkshakes— but I've never drank two of them in one day.
canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Aug. 1st, 2025 08:06 am)
It occurred to me the other day that I've got a lot of trips planned in August. I've got 5 trips planned in just 4 weeks!

  • Aug. 4 I'm making a "rubber band" trip (out and back same day) to Phoenix

  • The week of the 11th I'm headed to Chicago on on a business trip for 4 days of sales training

  • On the 18th I've got another rubber band trip to Phoenix

  • The week of the 25th Hawk  and I are traveling to Toronto to see family and visit waterfalls.

  • Somewhere in the middle of all that we've got a weekend road trip to the Eastern Sierra planned.

As I noted in a blog last night, travel is what inspires a lot of my blogging— when I have energy left to write. 😔 We'll see how much I write this month. It could be a little... or a lot.

canyonwalker: Message in a bottle (blogging)
([personal profile] canyonwalker Jul. 31st, 2025 08:06 pm)
I lost my tempo in July. My blogging tempo, that is. For the month I met my mid-level goal of 1.5 blogs/day, scraping in with a 1.55 average, but my pace across the month was not even. I missed my baseline goal of blogging every day.

I churned out journal entries at a rate of 2/day for the first half of the month. My writing was powered by enjoyable activities on a several days long road trip to the Oregon Cascades. But around mid month I lost steam. Even with a few blogs from Oregon still in my backlog I just... couldn't even. I had not one but three missed days in July. Three days when I didn't post to my blog. Before July I only missed two days across a whole year.

Why so many misses last month? I'm not sure. As I noted at the time, partly it was running short on energy, partly it was running short on care. ("Short on care" is the polite form of the expression, "Short on f---s to give". 😨)

It certainly wasn't lack of things to write about. I began the month with a healthy backlog of things to finishing writing about. During July I not only didn't get to anything on that backlog, I grew the backlog. I still haven't finished blogging about our trip to the Oregon Cascades at the start of the month, and I'm at least 4 blogs behind on last weekend's North Coast roadtrip. Why don't I enjoy writing about doing enjoyable things? 😣

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