Back from Cali’

Erin and I decided to take advantage of the thousands of frequent flyer miles and tons of Hilton points (some from me, most from her) we have accumulated over the past few years and spend some time in Northern California. It was nice for a four day weekend, and for those of you that may be interested (I have no idea why) I have included some details below.

• Day 1 – San Fran and Drive to Elk Cove Inn – After arriving at about midnight the night before, Erin and I drove Highway 1 all the way up to the Elk Cove Inn in Mendocino County. We drove by the Twit Cottage (I think) when we went through Petaluma but we didn’t go in. Maybe next time we will email for a visit. We spent some time at the beach and enjoyed our first set of afternoon cocktails at the Inn. We finished the day with an decent dinner at the Bridget Dolan’s Pub.
• Day 2 – Elk Cove Inn and Relaxation – We had a pretty laid back day with a hike through Van Damme State Park and the Pygmy Forest. We had a brief visit to the Spa and then enjoyed afternoon happy hour at the inn (detecting a trend here?). We had dinner that night at the Greenwood Pier Inn. The company and the food was excellent but the service at the Inn is just brutal. A great meal with pretty bad service, but the pickings in Elk are a little limited so your hands are tied.
• Day 3 – Elk Cove Inn – Since we were in wine country, we figured we should finally visit some wineries. Based on the recommendations on some people we met, we visited the Greenwood Ridge Vineyards. It was a really nice winery and their Mojo is a great table wine, I only wish you could get it in Chicago. Also, based on the recommendation of one of my clients/friends, we visited the Husch Vineyards. It is a beautiful place and it was well worth it to have to check our luggage to be able to take some bottles home. Somehow, we also managed to include a visit to Glass Beach in Fort Bragg. The pictures we took were amazing and got some great macro shots of the “sand” and some really cool shadow pics of Erin doing yoga. We finished with dinner at the Greenwood Pier Inn mainly because it was the only location open in town and we didn’t want to drive after coming within 10 yards of hitting a deer while driving back.
• Day 4 – Back to San Francisco – We took a leisurely drive back to San Fran and spent some time on the Fisherman’s Wharf. We had a nice lunch at Boudin and saw some of the BBoys doing their break dancing (see the YouTube Video). It is sometimes nice to be tourists for a change. After a late flight, we were back home in Chicago by the ripe old hour of 2AM. Whew!

See our pictures on Flickr and the video of the BBoys on YouTube.