So I guess that today would be a good time to catch everyone up on the happenings of Miss M., and my mom is doing just fine by the way. So Ciso and I went to California for a whole week! I was so excited, I can't remember the last time I was gone from this bloody state for a complete week. So I guess I will do a semi-play by play. The first picture that I put up was from our tasting at Gloria Ferrer. I'll write more about that later though. I think I will write about the first place that we stayed at, which I wrote about on the first day. The Langham Pasadena.
From what Cisco was telling me this place used to be a Ritz Carlton. It was so nice, I did not want to leave, but the second day we headed up North towards San Francisco. We drove along the PCH and I could have sworn that I asked Cisco if this was a straight road and not really curvy. I also was under the impression that he confirmed that yes, the road was in fact straight. No, it wasn't. It was all curvy and pukey. It was a beautiful drive, I do wish that I could have enjoyed it more. I really enjoyed when we stopped to go to the bathroom or to eat, or to just get gas. That was the high light of the PCH for me. Anytime that we got to stop. :) So along one of the stops we were at a beach and saw a ton of Elephant Seals.
I could not believe how many of them there were. Some of them were fighting, some of them were swimming in the water which I thought was really neat. They were just jumping around in the water and swimming around with eachother. It was so cold outside. I could not believe how cold it was, I did not pack for this trip. I packed shorts and t-shirts. I thought for sure that it was going to be hot, hello, it's California. I thought that it might get chilly once we got to San Francisco but not until then. Boy was I wrong.
Cisco was so cold here. I had my jacket on so I was ok. This little piece of beach didn't have anyone on it. It was windy and freezing. We walked down there and Cisco had shorts and his little thin t-shirt on, so when I wanted to keep taking pictures he told me to hurry because of how cold he was. I did not think that I would get any good pictures, but I got this really good one of him and a couple of black and whites. After this it was back on the road again. I swear all that day we just drove, which was great, because I love driving, minus the curvy roads. I guess it was good that we went that way though, because we would have never seen half of the things that we did if we didn't go that way.
The next stop after going through Carmel was Half Moon Bay. I thought that this place was going to be more built up and touristy than it actually was. I had yet another surprise waiting for me there, Cisco made reservations at the Ritz there also. It was so beautiful. I wanted to stay there for the rest of the weekend. I had no interest in going to Mammoth after that stay.
This place had a giant fire pit and it overlooked the ocean. I think it stayed light out a little while until about 9pm, which surprised me. I just loved that place and wished that we had more time so that we could walk around and look at the grounds more and possibly go for a walk on the beach. I wouldn't mind going back for the whole weekend again sometime.
San Francisco here we come! Too bad that we couldn't go into the city and hang out for a while. I love walking around San Francisco, we went to breakfast and then headed out from there. I was one happy camper that morning. It was going to be straight highway from there. But, after breakfast I was a gonner. I think I slept for most of the drive to Sonoma though. When we got to the hotel in Sonoma it was so hot when we got out of the car. Such a shock to what we have been feeling when getting out of the car for the past two days. It made me happy that I was wearing a t-shirt. Not that I had anything else to wear. We went into the hotel to check in, change and then hit the vinyards.
We didn't get there in time for the tour which was a total bummer, because I wanted to go through the caves so badly. But we did a tasting, which wasn't even really a tasting, we pretty much just bought a glass of Sparkling Wine and sat on the balcony and drank it. It was nice though, it was a beautiful view from that balcony.
So that was a good start to a some what short tasting day. The next place that we went to was Gundlach Bundschu.
I think that this winery had some great wines. We bought a couple of bottles before we left. I cannot believe how hot it was there. I was definatly needing some water while we were doing these wine tastings.
It was nice to just drive around and enjoy the scenery and enjoy the wine and enjoy eachother. This was so great because it was time alone doing something that we both enjoy. So this day was so exciting for me, because it just showed me what was to come on this trip. The next place and the last for the day was Matanzas Creek Winery
Cisco was telling me that Matanzas is a word meaning massacre so he was interested to find out what the story was behind that. If I remember correctly the guy that was giving us our tasting was saying that it is because they used to kill animals here, the natives that lived on the land a long time ago. I think Cisco thought that they were killing people or something. This was a beautiful winery. It had tons of Lavender all over the place growing, inside of the winery they sold lavender and soaps and shampoo's that were made with the lavender that grows on that property. I thought that it was really neat. Since the winery's close around 4 or 5pm that was the last one that we visited that day. There wasn't much to do where we stayed, I think that night we tried to go to a movie, but the guy that told me where to go was totally wrong and instead we went back to the hotel, which was fine with me. It had been a long day. The next day we woke up early and headed out to Napa Valley. We ate breakfast and then tried to go to Domaine Chandon, but we had just missed the tour so we decided that we wouid go back there later. So we headed out and went to Mumm Napa Valley
I just loved going here because it was almost like a private tour, it was only us and one other couple. We walked around and I had not known how that made Sparkling Wine before so they were so descriptive on how the process was done, there were windows everywhere so that you could see what was going on. I loved the tasting that we did also. I didn't want to leave there. It was nice. While we were waiting for the tour to start I found this book that gave all the winery's in Napa and in Sonoma, which was a better map and book than I got from the visitors center that morning, that thing sucked. Cisco made reservations for us to go on a tour of Cakebread Cellars
I liked this winery also, hell, I think that I liked all of them. By the time we finished that tasting, I was pretty toasted, and it was hot and I didn't have any water...you know what that means...Warning, warning, sick, sick, sick! But luckily that didn't happen, I found some water and drank the hell out of some. The guy that gave us our tasting was so informative, he was going to school to be a somminer (I don't know how to spell it) so he knew so many things! It was great.
I was ready to leave, but Cisco found some friends when we were leaving, so when he came back to the car he had a big bag of tamales with him, he bought 12 of them! I couldn't figure out why we needed so many, but holy crap they were so good, we were so hungry. We drove down the street to see what other winery we could fit in before it was time to call it quits for the day and he drove into Grgich Hills for a tasting.
They had some really good wine and a great tasting...uh, atleast that is what I remember. While Cisco was deciding about a bottle of wine and cashing out I decided to go back to the car. I was just about done for the day, I was pretty buzzed from all of our adventures from the day.
But just when we thought that we were done for the day, we remembered that the last tour for Domaine Chandon was at 5pm and it was about 4:30 so we thought that we would go and check it out.
We signed up for the tasting and for the tour. I didn't stay for the entire tasting. This place had huge slide open doors, and it was about 90 degrees outside so the air that they had on was off shot by the open windows, and I couldn't take it any longer. I had Cisco finish off my glasses and I snagged a bottle of water and took off to cool down and sit down while we waited for the tour to start, which totally sucked, so anyone that is interested, don't go to that one. I'm really glad that we went to Mumm first because it gave some great information and you walked around in more places and saw the way things were done better. Chandon only showed a video in a different part of the place.
I love this picture that I took, there is a wall with empty sparkling wine bottles with some light behind it and it curves. It was one of the things that I did to recover from the excess of wine :)
One of the exciting things that did happen on that crappy tour though was the fact that in the middle of our tour the wine maker was walking through and stopped to talk to us for a while. It was really neat to see the person that makes it happen. It was great. Later that night we went back to the hotel and then dinner. I talked to someone that actually knew where the movie theater was so we went and saw two for one, it was so easy to sneak into a movie there. Then our little trip in Sonoma / Napa was over and it was off to Mammoth.
I have never been up to Mammoth before, it is really nice, it's really high up and there is no air up there. We stayed with my parents outside in a tent on a blow up mattress. It was no Ritz, but it's ok. We had a good time there and took some really great pictures, it was so close to this waterfall, that's all you listened to while you were sleeping. It was really nice. We didn't do much up there, I didn't go hiking or anything because I had a really hard time breathing, so I stayed with the kids, my mom and my brothers girlfriend Lisa. We had fun.
Up in Mammoth they have bears up there, so one of the big rules is that you can't have any food or ice coolers laying around because the bears will come into your camp area and go through your things. Anthony forgot to take his backpack into the trailer one night so the next day we found his pack with a tear in it and the food that was in it was gone.
Anthony chopping wood in the modern way that only he could.
Anthony and Miss O just hanging out.
It was a wonderful trip and I was so glad that we went, eventhough we were broke when we came home. It was a great and wonderful experience, we got to spend lots of time with the kids and family so it was great.
So I don't think that it is a huge secret that I love baking. It is also no secret that I have been told by several people that I should open my own bakery. So the desire to do this has been getting greater and greater. I was registered to start school at CSN next month and figured while I was doing that I would look into Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts School. Well while I was there I started the application process and am now registered there for this fall and will graduate from there in 2009. It is a nine month class, but very intensive. Considering I will be there for 5 hours every night of the week, but I think that I will finally be happy at work, since I will enjoy doing things that interest me. I think that I will eventually have my own business but I will take that step slow, I still have some ways to go with the training and technical parts of things, but it's all very exciting! 
