Welcome to San Diego, City of a Little Less Sprawl
We were graciously welcomed in San Diego by my second cousin, Johnny, his wife Caya and daughter, Jaclyn. Johnny is Lisa’s (my cousin in Portland) older brother and the two have a little sibling rivalry going on…especially about where they live. We were super pumped to check out San Diego and we were already digging the weather, 75 degrees and sunny most of the year.
The night we arrived, we had a delicious dinner prepared by kitchen wizard, Caya. If we’ve learned one thing on this trip, it’s that home cooked meals are always the best. And this one was complete with salad, salmon, veggies and mashed potatoes…Yum. After dinner, we celebrated our recent engagement with some champaign, beer and wine. It was nice to sit and chat with such wonderful people. I guess Lisa and Johnny have that in common. Before we headed to bed, Johnny and Caya laid out a bunch of maps for us and pointed us in the right direction for fun.
The next morning, we met up with one of Erica’s friends from UC Davis who had recently moved back to her hometown in San Diego. Christine was a great person to show us around because she knew about all the neighborhoods and could tell us the relative affordability of each one. We toured a bunch of places, including Ocean Beach where the hippies hang out and North Park where many young working professionals live. We also went to a great authentic Mexican place (with veggie options) for lunch. It was greasy, bean-y and good.
Next stop was Balboa Park where we saw arts and crafts shops at Mexican Village (including a live outdoor glass blowing shop), The Center for Photography (free that day), and some beautiful architecture and gardens. Balboa is one of the nicest city parks we’ve been to, especially with all those great museums all lined up there. While we were there, we also met up with another one of Erica’s friends, Casey, who gave us two tickets to the San Diego Zoo…she used to work there. It was a really awesome treat to get those tickets and we planned to spend the next morning soaking in the sun and the exotic zoo animals.
After the zoo and a cup coffee at Christine’s favorite coffee shop, we said goodbye to our amazing tour guide and headed to the Gaslamp Quarter, a fun downtown San Diego area for walking around. And we did just that until dinner time. Although we were surrounded by tons of restaurants downtown, we looked up an interesting veggie place called Spread (can you guess what they specialize in?) and headed over to University Heights.
Okay, this was definitely one of the best meals we’ve had on this trip…with interesting combinations and exotic ingredients, Spread was delicious. We started with mixed drinks (Nick had a basil lime mojito) and a Caramel Apple Salad with edible flowers and the best salad dressing I’ve ever had in my life. Scouts honor. It was so good, we had them package some up and sell it to us. The main course was a Thai peanut (they specialize in nut spreads) pizza and a black rice sweet veggie stir fry. Although Nick thought the whole meal was a little too sweet, I loved all of it (except the pizza because I am a wimp and it was a little spicy).
After a scrumptious dinner, we headed back to Johnny’s and arrived in time to watch an episode of House with the family. Then it was off to bed for everyone and we said our goodbyes (though we did get to see Johnny and Jaclyn the next morning, too). It was so great to see everyone; we just wish that we could have spent more time with them! But we hope to see them again soon. When is the next family reunion, mom?
Thanks Johnny, Caya and Jaclyn for sharing your home with us!
Our last morning in San Diego was spent making faces at the monkeys, singing to the birds and growling with the lions at the San Diego Zoo. Though Nick and I are sometimes against zoos, this one was particularly observant of fair animal treatment and seemed concerned about preserving the remaining species of our increasingly less diverse planet…so we gave it a thumbs up.
We had a great time in San Diego, but we don’t think it’s the city for us. Though it’s rich in tasty restaurants, fantastic museums, interesting neighborhoods, and perfect weather, it’s just too spread out for our liking. And you end up paying a huge premium for living downtown where you’ll probably still end up needing your car because public transport is lacking. So we watched the beautiful desert canyon scenery wave goodbye to us and headed to our nest destination…Tucson, Arizona.
Mo' Videos, Mo' Problems
The Interweb hasn’t been cooperating with us lately, so we’ve been having trouble posting some of our videos. But we’ve got that mostly fixed now…
You can watch us rock out at the Oregon Sand Dunes above, check out a Muscle Beach swinger, listen to sea lions bark, or check out any of our other videos.
Welcome to LA, City of Sprawl
We landed in the City of Angels on Friday evening ready to meet up with Brangelina, but alas, they had other plans that night. Instead, we headed over to Santa Monica to meet our host, Kurt (my cousin Lisa’s good friend), and check out our spacious digs for the weekend. And although it was a Friday night, the bed just looked too comfy to pass up so we hit the hay.
Sunday morning we awoke to the sweet aroma of breakfast being made…and the sweeter sound of our alarm clock beeping. And beeping some more. C’mon, did you think an aroma could actually wake me up? Luckily, Kurt had some extra pancake mix and blueberries and we filled up on the syrupy goodness of pancakes and some french pressed coffee. Thanks, Kurt!
After our carb coma, we headed out to walk around Santa Monica and Venice Beach. It was a Saturday, so we were able to check out the Farmer’s Market on the Promenade…made famous when a guy drove his SUV through it and killed 5 people a couple years ago. Ouch. Luckily, neither Paris nor Nicole were in the vicinity while we were walking around so we strolled in peace, grabbed some grapes and found a place to grab some lunch. Lunch was an uneventful mistake at The California Pizza Kitchen…again, we’ve had really good pizza on this trip and this place was comparable to Pizza Hut.
Next stop was the solar powered ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier. I could only get Nick to go on it with me by telling him that it was solar powered and he still clung to the poll and whimpered for the whole ride. The views were magnificent as the ferris wheel was perched over the Pacific and it was nice and quiet up so high. After the ride, we walked over to a coffee shop that had valet parking and 45 minute sitting limits at the tables…weird.
Next, we stopped at a gallery (by far, the best thing we saw in LA) with unique mixed media pieces by an artist named Ron Pippin. And by mixed media, I mean animal bones, creepy antique dolls and old photos. Lucky us, it was the gallery opening show, and we each chugged a free (and delicious) glass of wine.
Our last stop of the evening was The Library Alehouse with our friend, Wes. We met Wes in Jersey when he was staying with our friends from our apt. building, Mark and Caroline. He is hilarious. Dinner was good…especially the pumpkin ravioli and the vanilla smoked porter…but best of all, was the conversation with Wes, who is working on a horror movie about people who live in the NYC subways (like the Mole People) and was flying out to Bulgaria for filming that very week. After dinner, we got a sneak peak at the costumes that Wes had designed (he is the Costume Director for the flick) and even got to try them on. Think homeless men with vomit and other fluids worn into their clothing and you’ll have a good idea what we looked like. Or just look at the photos.
It was great to see Wes and we wish him the best for his journey to Bulgaria…he works incredibly hard and we’re sure he’ll be as famous as Sylvester Stalone one day. After chatting with him, we got a more candid picture of LA, and went to bed contemplating our diets, skin care regime and aversion to valet parking.
Don’t worry, we woke up thinking clearly and Nick decided against the full body seaweed scrub and collagen shots he had planned for the day. Our late start on this morning meant we didn’t get to see a whole lot, but we did make it to the Getty Center, a beautiful museum with immaculately sculpted grounds and a view of LA like no other. We spent most of the day here and then headed over to Hollywood to take a photo of the infamous sign and see what all the fuss is about. Sadly, due to LA sprawl (something that plagued our entire LA experience), we arrived at the Hollywood sign when it was too dark to really get a good photo of it. But we did catch the glitz and glam of the red carpet premier of Feel the Noise (a movie we knew nothing about at the time).
We finished up the night at a delicious Thai food restaurant near a small airport…chosen by our lovely host, Kurt. Apparently, they have a lot of parties at the hangar because there is so much open space up there. The food was great as was the company and watching the small planes land right next to us. Thanks for a great stay in LA, Kurt!
The next morning, before heading to San Diego, we stopped at the famous West Coast cupcake place, Sprinkles. I opted for a traditional Vanilla and it was mighty good, but not quite as good as my fav in NYC, Sugarsweet Sunshine. Last stop in LA was Rodeo Drive where we saw some more wealth and glam and then busted outta town. No celebrity sightings and Brangelina kept making other plans (we think they were avoiding us) so we left LA cruising along in the HOV lane and laughing at all the single, non-carpooling drivers we passed.
Santa Summers on the California Coast
We were psyched to check out some of the famed liberal beach towns on our drive from the Bay Area down to Los Angeles (where California begins to turn right). Santa Cruz was our first stop, a college and surfing town known for its progressive activism (they were the first U.S. city to officially denounce the Iraq War). To our surprise, we got there to find out that the whole beach area basically closes after September (besides on weekends). All the tourists leave, the boardwalk shuts down, and the homeless take over (Santa Cruz residents have fought to not have the homeless kicked out of their town).
We spent the night in Santa Cruz at a hostel near the (desolate) beach. The hostel was the normal mix of slightly unsanitary conditions and rude staff, but it had a well stocked communal kitchen and plenty of pre-Halloween kitsch including a showing of the “scary” movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. The next day we spent wondering around the beach area, unsuccessfully looking for a decent cup of coffee (it tasted like burnt plastic and neither of us was able to stomach enough to get our caffeine fix). We then checked out the groovy-diner-themed veggie restaurant, Saturn Cafe, where we got a veggie burger, “turkey” club, sweet potato fries, some slightly better coffee, and the worst butternut squash soup we’ve ever had (with the only recognizable flavor being dried oregano).
We peaced out of Santa Cruz past the Biodiesel station, unconvinced of the California Dream, then headed further down the coast to the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium. We first heard of this aquarium because of their Seafood Watch program, where they promote sustainable fishing practices. They distribute a great wallet size pamphlet on the best fish to eat (in every area of the US) and which to avoid to help protect endangered populations (click here to order free copies or print your own). Besides doing awesome advocacy work, they are also known as one of the best aquariums in the world (and we probably couldn’t argue with that). We got to experience a scuba diver feeding all the fish in their Kelp Forest; he was hooked up to a microphone to answer visitor questions. The other highlight was “Jellies: Living Art”, an exhibit of jellyfish framed as paintings with actual ocean inspired artworks dispersed throughout. Check out the pics!
That evening we drove through Big Sur and enjoyed the gorgeous Pacific coastal views again as we headed towards San Simeon, home of Hearst Castle. As you probably know, William Randolph Hearst was a newspaper and media mogul in the early part of the 20th century, the Rupert Murdoch of his time (his heirs are still among the wealthiest people in the world). He used his wealth to buy real estate around the world, including miles of land on the central California coast that would become a mega-castle with stunning views and the largest privately owned zoo (complete with Polar Bears which they had to ship ice in for). Willy spent over a quarter century working with architect Julia Morgan to patch together over-the-top ancient artifacts and modern recreations of Spanish, Greek, Roman, Italian, and Egyptian (maybe more) art and architecture. We found his wealth a bit appalling, and the hero worship by the California State Parks seemed odd (perhaps because the Hearst Family still reserves the right to hold lavish parties on the property). Needless to say, we were disappointed that one man could have so much and live in such opulence. We were also $40 poorer.
We continued our route down the coast to our next Cali-cool destination, Santa Barbara. This city is often described as what would happen if Santa Cruz and Los Angeles had a baby. Unfortunately, all we saw of it was a large strip of mostly high end mall stores (I guess this was the LA part, apparently the Santa Cruz portion is on a different side of town). It was getting late, so we didn’t get to explore the cooler parts of town, and headed to our final destination of the evening in Santa Monica (Santa #3).
Note: I know… I’ve been hating on Cali all over this post. Perhaps its just because I had such high expectations of all those cool beach towns I would see in the hundreds of skateboard videos I watched throughout my youth.
The Bay Area is for Lovers
We arrived in Oakland in the early evening and were warmly welcomed by our couchsurfing host, Maya. We also got to meet her friend, Kevin, who is working with a start-up alternative energy company. After a little chatting, we decided to check out the neighborhood (Rockridge) and grab a bite to eat.
Rockridge is a really nice part of Oakland with lots of little boutique stores, beautiful craftsman homes and yummy restaurants. We somehow gravitated to the local pizza shop, Zachary’s…don’t know how that happened. They specialize in Chicago style pizza, but the menu confused us a bit and we just ordered a regular pizza with tons of veggies…it was delicious, but probably would have been better with all that deep dish crust. We are sometimes not so smart.
The next morning we woke up early and headed out to grab some brunch with Nick’s old work cronie, Mark and his fiance (I know, everyone is doing it), Joanna. We had some yummy breakfasty foods and then spent a while driving around Oakland and Berkeley neighborhoods that we might like/be able to afford. And, surprisingly, Oakland is not a completely scary place anymore and is reasonably inexpensive (compared to NYC and its boroughs).
Then onto the farmer’s market where we tasted mouth poppable mini kiwis and bought some gigantic organic peppers. Okay, now, we’ve been to a ton of farmer’s markets on our trip so far and we are always stunned to see that most of them are almost entirely organic. What’s up with NYC? The Union Square market only has a handful of organic vendors and it’s one of the largest in the country. Very strange.
After trying and failing to get pizza at the Cheese Board Collective (it’s closed both Sunday and Monday, who would of thought?), we headed back to Rockridge to check out the street festival there. It was full of lots of local food, vendors, and non profits…sadly, the only free samples were given out by the new Trader Joe’s in the area. Next stop was the Mountain View Cemetery, designed by Olmsted (that guy who designed Central Park) to watch the sun set over the distant Golden Gate Bridge. Bellissimo. The evening ended with some great homemade dinner (with fresh ingredients from Maya’s garden), a bottle of wine and some great conversation with our gracious host. Thanks for all the Bay Area info, Maya!
The next day we met up with Mark and Eve (Nick’s old work peeps) at the shiny new M & R Berkeley office. We picked up some Gregoire’s Takeout and sat in the park behind the office to soak up the sun and chow down. After lunch, we walked around a bit in Berkeley and checked more neighborhoods.
The rest of the evening was a big surprise planned by Nick…I didn’t know what we would be doing first, but I had a hunch. When we showed up at Chez Panisse, I knew my hunch had been right on. My taste buds were pumped! For those of you who don’t keep up to date on gourmet restaurants across the US, Chez Panisse was created by Alice Waters, queen of farm to table organic dining. She started the Edible Schoolyard program in Berkeley, too. Needless to say, the food was excellent…we had a creme fraiche fig salad, sardines with eggplant and tilapia with beans and tomatoes. Of course, everything had fancier names than I remember. And we ate in the cafe section (the less expensive upstairs with a more varied menu) which was just enough fanciness for us.
Then, we headed into San Francisco for the part of the night I didn’t have a hunch about. Our first stop was at Bi-Rite Ice Cream, supposedly the best ice cream place in San Fran. We ordered a gigantic brownie sundae with all the works and brought it back to the car to indulge. But, as I got into the car, Nick got down on his knee and I knew my life was over. Just kidding. Of course I said yes when he actually popped the question, but only because the diamond on top of the Sunday was huge. Later, I found out it was fake. OMG.
If that wasn’t enough, the next surprise was that Nick had booked a room at the eco-friendly hotel we had stayed at 3 years earlier. This time, we were headed for an eco-king room. But when we arrived, they didn’t have any of those rooms left so we were upgraded to the Kathy Griffin Suite. Hilarious. So Kathy, Nick and I celebrated in style…meaning we all cuddled and watched surround sound HGTV all night.
The next day we ordered some room service breakfast in bed and headed out to do some real ring and other shopping. But there was another surprise waiting for me…a much needed haircut that Nick had booked for me. It felt great to get that scraggly mullet off my neck. Then we checked out some rings, explained our limited budget and desire for something very old, and left a little discouraged. The rest of the day was a blur of walking around, shopping, and eating at a yummy vegan place called Herbivore. Another highlight of the day was shopping at a great artists clothing co-op where we bought a few one of a kind garments that we definitely didn’t need. The evening was spent eating Subway sandwiches and sleeping really hard.
The next afternoon, we headed back to The Cheese Board Collective for some delicious pizza (caramelized onion, walnut, etc.) and then to another antique jewelry place. There, we found the ring of all rings, “the precious” if you will. Though I’m not usually a fan of diamonds, the ring is from the 1920’s and was hand made so it’s pretty damn cool (and the jeweler gave us a bottle of champagne, too). After watching it sparkle a little, we realized our time in paradise, AKA Kathy Griffin’s Suite, was over. Back to reality and onto to Santa Cruz.
P.S. Check out these neat-o blogs that our friends put together…one is about food, the other is about food, bikes, and wool. You’ll have to check ‘em to find out which is which.
Erica’s Blog (see Davis post)
Eve’s Blog
Pirates & Bikes
Davis, California is home to many, many bikes – likely more bikes than there are people – and is consistently rated as one of the most bike friendly cities in the world (Portland and San Francisco are up there as well). It is also home to lots of college kids (some of who attend the local “wine college”, UC-Davis), a sweet co-op, and some toad bridges (whatever those are).
Luckily, a few days before we were heading down through Californ-I-A towards the Sacramento and Davis area, Emily randomly made contact with an old friend from high school who happened to be going to UC-Davis. Though Em and Erica hadn’t spoken in about 6 years, she trusted that we weren’t serial killers and invited us to stay with her for a few days… so we happily obliged.
It seems we showed up at the perfect time because our first night in Davis there was a flurry of goings on. We got to Erica’s (awesome) apartment in time to help her cook up some dinner, an eggplant wrap consisting of fresh veggies from her friends garden and a local CSA she is part of. Next was ‘movie night’, a weekly gathering that Erica has at her apartment to share a wonderful thing called Netflix. The flick of the night was Dial M for Murder, a classic Hitchcock film, and the company was great. We drank some local Sudwerk brews from Davis, ate cookies, and made fun of the over-dramatic acting and non-British accents (in a film that was supposed to be taking place in England).
The final activity of the night was a party at the ‘Domes’, a section of student housing made up of 1-2 person round, environmentally-friendly, concrete structures. While Davis, because it is a big agricultural school and is in California, by default attracts a large amount of the hippie variety, this party was extra thick with patchouli and birkenstocks. Think mini Burningman, complete with flaming hoola-hoops, a trance-DJ, and a man dressed entirely in fur (apparently that’s his normal outfit though). We had an excellent time, and the secret stash of gin we found in a Dome bathtub definitely helped (more so than the extra yeasty, homemade hard cider).
The next day, Erica went to class (she’s getting a degree in Horticulture), and we bummed around the small downtown for a while after waking up at the crack of noon. We made it back in the afternoon to begin planning for our next big activity: Pirate and Zombie Critical Mass. Critical Mass is a monthly bike ride held during the Friday evening rush hour in cities across the country (started in San Francisco). The basic idea is to amass enough bicycles on the street to block traffic, and “reclaim the streets”. We were extremely lucky that the night before, Erica secured us an awesome tandem bike to borrow. During the ride we heckled cars passing by, and shouted bike pirate sayings like, “Who’s streets? Rrrrrr streets!” and “We aren’t blocking traffic, we rrrrrrrrr traffic!” The pictures are the best way to show how much fun we had. After the bike ride we got some excellent Thai food at Thai 2K, and then fell asleep cuddled next to each other while trying to watch Nacho Libre.
Our final day in Davis, we joined Erica on a trip to the local, almost-all-organic farmer’s market. We picked up some pastries and fruit for the road, then had a gourmet grilled cheese with arugula and some tomato soup for lunch. We bid Erica farewell, and left her with a glow-in-the-dark 64 oz. growler of Dead Guy Ale that we hope she consumed all by herself (in the dark). Thanks again Erica, you rule!
Before heading to the progressive holy land (the Bay Area), we wanted to make one more stop in Sacramento to meet up with some of my family friends. My family spent almost every Christmas from when I was born through high school with the Aikens, Val & Sara Jane and their kids Chris & Kim. Then, Chris (or known outside of the family as Val Jr.) and his wife Lisa moved out to California, and the rest of the family moved to Jamaica… so, it’s been a while since I’ve seen all of them. It was great to finally see Chris (Val) and Lisa again and finally meet their two kids, Chris and Rose. We met at a great thai restaurant near Sacramento (we love thai food, can’t you tell?), chatting and eating for a while. Little Chris showed us some Taekwondo and Rose giggled and laughed with Emily. We hope to see them again soon… maybe for a nice vacation in Jamaica!
Stay tuned for our adventures in liberal la la land.
The Redwoods...
...Are huge.
(Also on this leg of our trip we traveled to the Oregon Sand Dunes, bought stuff at the huge Eureka Co-op, drank some brews at the Lost Coast Brewery, and watched the California sun set over the Pacific).
Bling. Bling.
Well, we hate to post things out of order… but, we have a big fat announcement to make: We won the California State Lottery for $287.5 million!
Just kidding. But just a couple of days ago in a little town called San Francisco, we got engaged. Nick popped the question with a gi-normous diamond ring (okay, maybe it was plastic) over an even huger-er brownie sundae from the bay area’s finest ice cream shop, Bi-Rite Creamery. Emily could barely find the right words to accept, since her mouth was full of ice cream and dripping with caramel sauce.
The next day, we set out on the town to find a real ring to replace the spoof (Nick thought he had Emily fooled). Nick did a bit of math to figure out what he should spend (two months of salary at $0/month equals…), but we ended up finding a beautiful antique ring from the 1920’s which Emily fell in love with, and then proceeded to accidentally flush down the toilet.
Again, kidding. We lived happily ever after.
