Leslie and I recently visited Point Reyes, and I took many many photos, because it is a magical misty windswept wonderland. I’ll post more later from the point itself (as in the lighthouse, and the avenue of the cypresses, which I’ve wanted to visit for ages), but first I need to share some shipwreck porn. Which sounds so, so wrong.
…Because a houseboat party ends at a reasonable time when everyone is sleepy from the sun and the wine and the gentle rocking of the waves. Woot woot! Here are some shots from the shindig for which I baked the almond cake I posted yesterday. You can see more photos of our friend’s houseboat on my tour from a few weeks ago here.
It is possible, it turns out, to live in a place for a decade – to live in it long enough to feel that it’s time to move on – and still be madly in love with it. San Francisco and I are like high school sweethearts in the last weeks before college, ready to break up but still reveling in our time together. We’re rolling around on the beach, in the salt spray, in golden light. We’re holding hands and skipping down the street, laughing at our good fortune in having found each other. We’re gazing at the same moon, breathing in the same fog-dampened night air, sighing longingly into the same dark night.
With that extended metaphor in mind, know that Mike and I have been walking all over this damn city, discovering art installations, grabbing meals at new-to-us restaurants, stumbling upon breweries down industrial alleys (more on that in a future post), and getting to know all the jewel-like parks that dot these 49 square miles.
Continuing Monday’s recap of our perfect Northern California weekend…
On Sunday we picked up our usual bounty of loaves at Wildflour Bread in Freestone, tucked in between vineyards, dairy farms, and redwoods. (Years ago, on one of our first visits to western Sonoma, we wandered in and drooled over the bread and sticky buns before realizing the place was cash only. But then! The lovely Wildflour folks told us we could walk out the door with arms full of bread and mail them a check later. THE BEST.)
We brought a warm cheese-studded fougasse to our friend’s houseboat in Sausalito for brunch, and spent the day on her sunny deck (slash dock), feet in the water, watching the pelicans dive bomb for herring. When the sun got too strong we moved inside to lounge on the hammock. This is not a drill, guys: it was an actual idyll. (more…)
The Superbowl may have been a San Francisco shitshow, but the weather played very very nice this weekend. I’m going to do a two-part recap of our adventures, because we really killed it on the weekend-in-Sonoma front.
First up: a lovely dinner party with friends in Sebastopol on Friday night – I made a gooey chocolate cake that I promise to post about soon – then a stay overnight at the Inn at Occidental (thanks to a Travelzoo voucher). This place is charming as hell: the innkeepers are lovely, tasty breakfast is included, and there’s free wine every evening. Our room was a bit kitschy (the Folk Art room, not my style) but comfortable, and the bath tubs are huge – and come with rubber duckies! Our balcony looked out over Occidental, a tiny town tucked into the redwoods like a little upscale-hippie jewel. (more…)
