eurobimbo's journey to enlightenment

Sideways? We INVENTED Sideways.

We decided to make one last run up to the Santa Barbara/Santa Maria wine country this weekend with some very good friends.  Keith and I normally do the trip alone but we had a fantastic time dragging everyone out to the wineries we love to visit.

Keith and I started out on Friday and hit some incredible rain storms out by Lake Cachuma.  It was just pouring down for quite a while.  We had dinner at the now infamous Hitching Post and had to have the standard oak grilled artichoke appetizer and a bottle of the Hitching Post Bien Nacido Pinot Noir.  We ended up purchasing a bottle of the Santa Rita's Earth Pinot for the following evening because it is just oh so good!

Claire and Mike met up with us the next morning in Los Olivos, and proceeded to attempt to follow us up Foxen Canyon Road to Rancho Sisquoc Winery.  (Claire would be that car blurred in the background behind the warp speed Mini Cooper!)

After all the rain the night before, Saturday was just absolutely spectacular.  One time a year in California everything turns green and it is the most beautiful sight. 

At Rancho Sisquoc we met up with Sam and Corrie who are about the funnest and funniest people we know.  Corrie's dad works at the local fire station (which is a great "in" for someone <that would be us> who someday want to start a winery in the area and need a little "wink, wink" help getting all our inspections).  Sam and Corrie never have a dull moment, and can I point out how nice Sam looks in pink?

On our way towards Santa Maria we stopped by to see Corrie's dad and he gave us the ins and outs on the equipment.  We were very impressed.

We ended the perfect day with a late, late, late (2 hour wait) at Jocko's, the best steak house in California.  The oak grill and Santa Maria style seasonings make the steaks melt in your mouth like butter.   

We had an array of local wines we'd picked up during the day to go with the fantastic dinner, a Consilience Petite Syrah, the Hitching Post Santa Rita's Earth Pinot Noir, and a wonderful Rancho Sisquoc Malbec.  What a great end to a fantastic day!

The next day we headed up to the Arroyo Grande for a little more wine tasting and before heading back visited our favorite valley in Santa Maria, the Bien Nacido vineyard where Qupe, Au Bon Climat and Tantara are located, and many others use grapes from this fantastic vineyard.

You won't catch most of this in Sideways!

Soaring the Skies

We made a great escape up to Santa Maria for a 3 day wine cruise and I got to fly a glider for the first time! What an incredible experience! We soared over Santa Ynez and Solvang, you could see so far into the distance, the islands you never realize are out there. We went up over the mountains and our tow plane left us and all you could hear was the rushing of the wind. The glider was so easy to navigate and quick to respond. It's probably the bravest thing I've done so far, considering my fear of heights. You sit right up front and there doesn't seem to be much between you and the edge of the horizon.

Well, on to my fear of depths next. Should be a summer of growth.

Western Highlander on ScotRail

We reluctantly woke at a harsh 6:00 a.m. and tried to get ourselves together for a full day of travel on through the Scottish Western Highlands. But to start off the day in style, we had an introduction to a FULL Scottish breakfast. As you can see, this consists of fried eggs, fried bacon, fried sausage, fried hashbrowns, fried tomato, and well, just regular toast. I almost needed to nap after breakfast. The earl gray tea did nothing to help me from the fried daze.

We caught a cab to the train station (a mere 5 minute hop) with plenty of time to grab a much needed macchiato to wake us up.

We chose to do the Western Highland train route as it was described as being the most scenic and was quite easy to do in a day. We only had 4 days to spend in Scotland and wanted to see the most but still experience quite a bit as well. We found a great Rover pass, 4 out of 8 days for L 59.00 , also good on Citylink buses.

The scenery on the train was absolutely incredible, and became even more unbelievable the farther north we went. From rolling green hills the landscape turned into desolate bogs and craggy hills. We travelled north from Glasgow, through Fort Williams and on to Mallaig, a very small fishing town and also ferry town mainly for the Isle of Skye.

The trip took about 5 hours, and we were quite famished by the time we got in. The town was so little and quaint, and we found a sports shop willing to make a few extra pounds for watching our bags. We found a local little cafe and had the best seafood meal around. Keith had to try a kelp beer (eww!), I settled on a Chardonnay. We finally felt like we were really on vacation!

I'm glad we decided to stay in Oban as Mallaig was so small I think we would have soon become bored. We were more than happy to hop a train back down to Fort William 2 1/2 hours later.

Spring in Vermont

We decided to take a trip to Vermont to visit the legendary Grampy (otherwise known as Grumpy) and the elusive Aunt Donna. Had a wonderful little visit, it was so nice to be outside of the land of Coach, Tiffany and Neiman Marcus!

Here's us dining at the Moose Lodge Restaurant at some little town in the middle of nowhere.

The maple sap was a running......fast! The whole process of turning ucky tree sap into wonderful tasting syrup just makes me wonder how it ever was discovered. The sugar houses look so quaint at dusk with the steam rising up. This guy was just up the dirt road from Grandpa, sugaring the first night we arrived....

The syrup burns cooks through three trays until it turns into the wonderful syrup!

Check out all the whole photolog here.