Lighthouse Party of Six

This weekend we fulfilled a bucket list item: staying at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse off of Highway 1 in Pescadero, CA.  The hostel is a steal, offering a secluded getaway with stunning ocean views, a relaxed ambiance, and a private hot tub on the cliff for pennies quarters on the dollar.  Since it's a hostel, everyone is extremely friendly (some people a little too much so! #lighthouseofpartyof8?) and our favorite new friend was Michael, the unhurried, all-smiles man at the front desk who gets to live there all the time.

Our group was made up of six girls, including Brittany, Melissa, Gio, and Gio's two roommates, Hannah and Marie, who are childhood friends from Wisconsin.  It was such a great group of girls, and we're already planning what our next five weekend getaways together could be.

As I said, the views were spectacular, and we got particularly lucky with the weather, as it was the clearest of weekends.  

(Photo credit: Giovanna)

Downtown Pescadero, a 10-minute drive from the lighthouse, was a quaint whistle-stop filled with surprises.  At Duarte's Tavern, which was founded in 1894, we enjoyed their famous artichoke soup and ollallieberry pie.  At Pescadero Country Store, we relaxed in the sun as we scarfed down delicious sandwiches and played with dogs.  This little town had it all: cute shops amidst old barns and secret gardens; wine tastings with cute assistant vintners named Luke; groceries with warm artichoke garlic bread.  As Melissa said, we were pretty much eating or laughing or both the entire weekend, and it was great.

Nearby, we visited Harley Farms Goat Dairy, whose restored barn was originally built by Azorean men!  A surprise baby goat had been born two weeks earlier, and we got to ooh and ahh over him for awhile.  He seems to spend much of his day trying to climb into this trough (a trend we noticed among goats).

The lower level of the barn is their cheese shop, where they sell anything you can imagine related to goats, and then some.  Highlights were these artistic cheeses, especially the one second from the left entitled "Van Goat", and their spectacular habanero jelly that's not to be missed!

On the upper level, they were setting up for a lovely farm wedding reception that evening.  This wildflower bouquet was probably taller than me (I can't tell you the number of delightful wildflowers we saw over the weekend).  Harley would be a fantastic venue for a magical 20-person dinner party.

A little farther south from the lighthouse, we had Sunday brunch at Highway 1 Brewery (I finally ate chicken & waffles) and then we went to Pie Ranch for...more pie, and...more goats.  

Despite all these jaunts, the majority of our time was spent taking advantage of the hostel.  Late in the evenings, we were huddled in our tiny room, playing games, having our tarot cards ready by Melissa ("Hope on top of joy"; "Cups on cups on cups"), eating pie, and trying not to sweat.

The best meal we had the whole trip was one we assembled ourselves from the markets and farms in Pescadero, complete with local berries and tomatoes, goat chèvre and feta from the farm, freshly made guacamole, lemon-stuffed olives, salami, and that killer artichoke garlic bread I'm mentioning again because it's just that damn good.  Later that evening Marie built a fire and we made s'mores while Brittany told us a ghost story about the lighthouse ("Light!  Daaaaarkness.  Light!  Daaaaarkness."  "One week and seven days later...") that had some of us spooked, but more often than not we were in stitches of laughter.

And finally, the crowning glory of the hostel: the cliff-top hot tub.  We took a dip both evenings, but by the second we were seasoned professionals, being sure to reserve the time slot during sunset, which was jaw-dropping.  Drinking blackberry wine prosecco and listening to our special playlist, with feet in the tub and this view?  It was heaven.

(Photo credit: Brittany)

Brittany: "I don't want to say 'goodbye' to the lighthouse."

Melissa: "It's not 'goodbye', it's 'see you later!'"  

The level of corniness demonstrates just how attached we were to our special weekend at Pigeon Point.  We will definitely be returning customers!

Portland: Food, Flowers, and Folk

At the beginning of June, I got to go to Portland with work for a snack fair.  Yes, a snack fair!  The convention center was filled with stalls featuring different vendors' snacks and drinks, and we walked around sampling to explore new options for Box.  It was hard work.  Best stalls: anything with ice cream.  Worst stalls: anything with organic, natural, gluten-free, energizing bars (hint: this was all bars).

Our hosts even took us to Portland City Grill for a fancy dinner, complete with sushi, steaks, and fine wine.  They successfully wooed us.

On Friday, Brittany flew up to join me so we could spend the rest of the weekend exploring Portland.  We stayed at an Airbnb in the Northwest, and our whole weekend ended up revolving around three things: food, flowers, and folk.  

We started with the most obligatory tourist stop: Voodoo Doughnut.  Covered in kitchy, colorful decor, this place has every kind of wacky doughnut creation you could imagine.  Our two most interesting orders were the one with Cap'n Crunch toppings, and the chocolate voodoo doll, complete with a pretzel stabbed in his side.

We basically restaurant-hopped the whole trip, one night even getting a pasta app at Grassa before moving on to tapas at Tasty N Alder.  We joked that for a successful restaurant/bar/boutique in Portland it needed only be named "______ &/And/N _______".  Another restaurant we were eager to try was Pok Pok, an authentic-meets-inventive Thai place covered in twinkle lights and fish sauce.  The most interesting thing about the place was that they also own the bar across the street so that while you're waiting, you can have a drink and an app, and then your waitress at the bar will let you know when your table is ready at Pok Pok.  Amazing way to capitalize on wait times!

For Sunday brunch, we walked a couple blocks from our place to Besaw's, an adorable cafe I could've moved into, that had killer delicious food, plus views of dogs and babies.

After food, our visit was dominated by gardens and flowers.  We visited the Chinese Gardens, the Japanese Gardens, and the Rose Garden in Washington Park.  My favorite was surprisingly the Chinese Gardens, which was condensed into a single city block, provided a beautiful pamphlet describing all the elements of the gardens, and had a lovely little tea house for us to enjoy.

City of Roses indeed!  We saw them everywhere we went, and more than I could imagine at the Rose Gardens.  The flowers were incredibly fragrant, and the names of the roses were so unique, often sounding more like ice cream flavors.

One of our favorite nights was spent in the SE part of the city, and after dinner we headed to Landmark Saloon, which had a great folk/blues/Americana band playing, and lots of people swing dancing.  We enjoyed our sweet tea vodkas in between being asked to dance by the locals.  It was such fun, and we commented on the fact that in San Juan we salsa danced, in North Carolina we square danced, and in Portland we tried our foot at swing.  So many travels, so many kinds of dancing.  What's next?!

Finally, the quintessential "Keep Portland Weird" photo, with supplementary evidence.

Only in SF

It's been a rather festive few weeks in San Francisco.  First, there was Bay to Breakers, a bay area tradition that transcends clothing, and then for Memorial Day Weekend, we went to the roller disco at the Church of 8 Wheels and the horse races at Golden Gate Fields.

For Bay to Breakers, Brittany, Gio, and I attached ourselves to James and his group, who were going as race cars.  We decided to compliment their idea by turning ourselves into all varieties of street paraphernalia, altogether a stoplight, with racing flags, street signs, traffic cone hats, and road dashes down our backs.

I'd never participated in this race parade before, and felt it was my duty as an SF resident to experience it at least once.  The experience is perfect for anyone who likes to be silly and dress up, day drink, people watch, and give up all physiological needs.  I only like half those things, but had a great time anyway!  

There were some great group costumes.  My favorites were:

1. A clutch of chickens, including Colonel Sanders with a butcher knife
2. Trophy Wives, dressed in wedding gowns with their heads in portable wall plaques
3. Human Beer Pong, with people wearing life-size solo cups, asking strangers to try to shoot in the volleyball

Still, it's not all fun and games, with people having a hard time getting their physiological needs met.  Brittany almost got in a fight while trying to bribe people to cut, and simultaneously getting mad at someone for cutting her.  Here she is trying to reason:

To continue the quirkiness, the next weekend we went to the roller disco at The Church of 8 Wheels, hosted by the Godfather of Skate.  We made sure to dress 70s disco for the occasion-lots of costumes in the month of May!

The venue is a church exclusively turned skating rink, with pews lining the walls, crosses hanging all around, and a whole bunch of bearded hippies roller skating under a disco ball to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.  

We got to interact with lots of characters who are there on a more than weekly basis, and a couple of them helped to teach us how to skate better.  I was even going backwards by the end!  It really was a hilariously fun night.

The next day we went to Golden Gate Fields to watch the horse races, which is something I've always wanted and have never taken the opportunity to do.  It was a gorgeous day, and such a high-energy experience.  I didn't realize how non-relaxing it would be, as we ended up running in the following cycle every race: run to the stables to see the horses and decide which ones will win, run to the counter to place our bets, and run upstairs so we have a good view of the race.  Plus the races are about every 25 minutes, and we were there for seven of them.  It was quite a constant rush!

What made it even more fun was not only learning how the betting and probabilities work, but winning bets.  In all seven races, at least one of the five of us won.  Sometimes it would be winning just a couple bucks back, but also Brittany and I each won $38 at one point for correctly guessing the first and second place finishers, and Melissa won $160 for correctly choosing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.  That was really incredible!

Seriously, it was such a thrill.  I can't wait to go back, now that I'm a seasoned professional!

North Carolina Birthday Surprise

The first weekend in May, Brittany and I flew out to North Carolina to surprise Kristen (a friendship that originated back in our early UCSD days!) for her birthday.  We had been scheming with her boyfriend, Daniel, for months, and somehow we pulled it off without her having a clue.  Here's footage of the surprise:

The first night we got dinner at a local place called Venable, and spent the time catching up.  Once Kristen acclimated to the idea of us visiting for the weekend (rather than her presumed yet unconfirmed conjecture of a trip away with Daniel), we put together a slew of ideas of fun things to do over our four-day weekend.  The weather was phenomenal, so most of them took place outside!

On Friday, we visited Chapel Hill's Botanical Gardens, where we learned all about local plants and birds.  Did you know that venus fly traps, in all the world, are only native to the Carolinas?  There was an array of carnivorous plants, poisonous plants, and on the fauna side, really cool lizards with blue rainbow tails.  We also learned that bird-watching is way cooler than it sounds.  Those cardinals are really something!

That night, we headed to Raleigh for dinner at The Pit, and to enjoy the outdoor festivities of "First Fridays".  Apparently down there, "BBQ" exclusively means you roast a whole pig.  If you're just going to throw some meat on the grill, you're having a "cook-out", so be careful if you're inviting some North Carolinians over for a BBQ, because they're going to expect you to roast a whole damn pig.

Look ma, I ate the whole thing!  Fried chicken, BBQ pork, collards, and mac & cheese.  We also got to try fried okra and fried green tomatoes, not to mention the most buttery-delicious biscuits and hush puppies.  Mmm.

Happy birthday, Kristen!  The only reason they knew to bring us cake was because they checked our IDs and thus knew it was her birthday.  People are so nice here.

We continued our tour of the state capital, where we met the statue of one of Daniel's ancestors, once the governor.  These are the three presidents (arguably) originating from North Carolina:

First Fridays, if that indeed is where we ended up, was an energy-filled block party with local artisans, a beer garden, fire dancers, and live music.  We had so much fun taking it all in, especially when an extremely talented and fearless 7-year-old came out to perform in the fire dancing.

We also got to check out a couple bars, meet some of Daniel's friends from college (who would later make an appearance on our beach day) and play some pool, which got a little feisty.

On Saturday we headed to Saxapahaw (sacks-puh-haw), for lunch at the nostalgic General Store and a nice stroll along the river, where we risked poison oak with the ultimate payoff of getting to watch turtles.

That night, we headed to Durham for dinner at the Federal followed by square dancing at Pinhook. 

I never met a beer in North Carolina I didn't like.

At the Pinhook, there was an awesome local band that sat in a tight circle jamming while a tall, wonderfully hoaky man (think Kenneth from 30 Rock, only with a PhD) called out the steps.  The leaders were "biscuits", the followers "gravy", and we would jump to action as the caller proclaimed, "Promenade go two by two, now spin 'em round like you always do!"  We spent the whole evening allemanding and promenading, putting birdies into cages, opening clams, and swinging corners.  It was completely exhausting learning not only a new dance but practically a whole new language, and ridiculously fun!

On Sunday, we headed to Wrightsville to go to the beach.  The water was about as cold as the Pacific in SF, but somehow Kristen and Daniel managed to jump in while we shivered just watching them.  Daniel's friends joined us, and we just hung around chatting for hours, until the po-po arrived and gave us a ticket for having a glass bottle (of lemonade!) on the beach.  Wrightsville?  More like Wrongsville.  Seriously, they are not messing around about foot safety.

That evening we headed back to Daniel's friends' place for a cook-out.  We had veggie shish-kabobs, guac, sweet potatoes, and portabello burgers before retiring to the firepit for a rousing game of boys vs. girls charades.  The PBR was flowing and we really had the chance to feel like locals.  It was one of our favorite nights there!

Monday was Kristen's actual birthday, so we started with Monuts in Durham, where we all got amazing bagel sandwiches that looked and tasted amazing, but sometimes squirted egg yolk all over you, making Daniel gag and the rest laugh as you feebly attempted to de-yolk your watch.

We spent the rest of the day at Duke Gardens, a 55-acre free garden on the university grounds.  This time around, we could actually name a lot of the flowers and plants, and we also spent a great deal of time sitting by the lake, watching the ducks (we about died from baby chick cuteness) as well as geese and a heron.  Flying right over our heads, the ducks would land gracefully in the water, and at the luckiest point of the day, the baby chicks waddled right by us.

 

The gardens were magnificent-so perfectly curated with an unbelievable variety of flowers.  We couldn't help but feel like we had come at the perfect time of year-almost everything was in bloom!

On that last night, we went to Jujube, a delicious Asian fusion restaurant within walking distance of their house to celebrate.  Later, Daniel played the banjo for us and we taught them the card game we learned in Puerto Rico.  A lot of the best moments of the trip were spent just hanging out at home: surprising Kristen, opening birthday presents, making breakfast, or scarfing down some of Louise's Old Fashioned Pecan Pie.  There's nothing like getting to visit with old friends, and our lovely southern getaway with these two awesome hosts did not disappoint!  

Thanks again to Daniel for all his help, ideas, and espionage efforts in planning, and to Kristen, for welcoming the surprise, and being born in the first place!  Love to you both.