Spring Break - the old couple version

The wife and I took a little trip for Spring Break since, for the first time in our relationship, our spring breaks coincided. We hit all the hot Spring Break locations - San Padre Island, Daytona, even did a little New Orleans. Amanda flashed anybody that seemed remotely interested. We went out to all kinds of clubs - some with foam, some with jello wrestling, some with wet t-shirt contests. Man - it was crazy.

Oh wait. Actually, we went to wine country. It was a perfect Spring Break trip for a couple of married 50 year-olds. No topless chicks, no guys with wife-beaters and too much hair gel, nobody throwing up off the balcony. And before I go on I have to admit that I was very excited to be going on this trip and I enjoyed every minute of it. Which says a lot about the impending completion of my 20s. (a little over 4 months left as I write this)

A brief itinerary: 1 night in San Luis Obispo, 2 nights in Sonoma and Napa, 2 nights in Monterey. I'm going to do a couple of posts with some thoughts about our trip and some pictures. Enjoy.

Day One: San Luis Obispo.
We started, just like every other trip, with a trip to McDonald's for breakfast. The drive up the 101 is a great drive once you get past Hollywood. Trees, water, etc. It gets better after you pass Oxnard. Upon arriving we checked into our fancy hotel - Le Travelodge. Now, if you ever decide to make a trip to San Luis Obispo you must stop at Firestone and get a tri-tip sandwich. I love tri-tip and have had much of it in sandwich form. The one thing that annoys me about tri-tip sandwiches is that you must revert to your carnivorous roots to tear the meat apart, thus making the sandwich more of a challenge than a meal. Not at Firestone. You'll walk in thinking that its a corporate chain generic sports bar, but you'll leave with a belly-full of sandwich. 4 things make this sandwich awesome. #1: toasted buttered bun - a rare commodity in the tri-tip sandwich world. #2: delicious sauce, which regulars will tell you to get an extra cup of since they never put enough on the sandwich. I actually like that because you can regulate the sauciness. #3: they put enough meat for a guy and too much for a girl, so the guy can eat the little bits that his girlfriend/wife/lover/friend-with-benefits leaves on the plate. #4: meat so tender that you can actually bite through it. An absolutely awesome sandwich.

Later that day we went on a little wine tour. We went to Tolosa, which has a huge gorgeous facility, but doesn't really make much wine. They had a really good garlic olive oil, a really nasty almond olive oil, and we bought a very delicious bottle of unoaked chardonnay. The second winery, Kynsi, was the location for my proposal to Amanda back in May 2006. There is no photo evidence of this since Target killed the film, but at least they gave me $50 in gift cards to restore the memory of that event. Here's a picture at Kynsi:


That lizard is about 18 inches long and tried to bite me. OK, it was pretty much 4 inches, but it looks giant. They have owls that hang out in their barn, so that is why they have an owl in their logo. They make less than 1000 cases of each wine (which is not a lot). We bought their estate Pinot Noir and a bottle of their Pinot Blanc. These may have been my favorite wines of the whole trip.

We went on to Wolff Vineyards. This is where I would have proposed to Amanda had she taken my suggestion that we walk around in their vineyards. By the time we got to Kynsi last time, she had enough wine to be convinced. Wolff is our favorite spot since it is a small place, it has outdoor seating, and has the best view of any vineyard I could imagine. Take a look:

After wine we hit up the Apple Farm for dinner. Don't go there unless you really like gravy. Think Mimi's Cafe, but brought down to a more 909 level. Nasty. We then retired to our fancy hotel and slept for our long drive to Sonoma the next morning. We walked around a bit in San Luis too, which was nice. I saw a lot of green hills that I wanted to run to the top of, but they were probably steeper than I thought, so I didn't.