California Trip-Part 3!!

After hanging out at Chris and Olivia's sweet pad, some of us took a brief jaunt to the local crunchy-organic corner store. Our walking there earned us 2 carbon credits! I used my share to by this jerky.
It tasted utterly horrible...It made my mouth sad :(

On the adventure walk, we saw some great views of the city. David attempted a hand stand, his injured wrist only allowed for this much hand standing... We applauded the effort though.

After that we all headed out for some fun winery touring! (I forgot the names of every winery we went to so I will refer to them as winery #1, 2 and 3)

At winery #1 we enjoyed the unseasonably hot weather by sitting outside, drinking wine and eating an assortment of fun snacks we brought along. Below is David munching on an organic smoked turkey leg. David was just about to throw away the skin, when Casey said "gimme that." He does love his poultry skin!

Dipa and I approved the first winery... on to the next one!!!

At Winery #2 we enjoyed watching equestrian gymnastics, and of course more wine! Casey had some great descriptions of these wines: Its wet.... Its purple.... notes of grape... it has alcohol in it.
Winery #3 had great views of the redwood forests! I think they also had the best wine, but it could just be that this was the 3rd one and my normally sharp tastebuds had been dulled by rich tannins and notes of grape.

This was the last winery.. now its off to Santa Cruz!!

Our first surprise (other than how awesome David and Marta's place was) was that D & M had brewed Roxanne and I a special beer. Bo Rox Red!! We were both honored!!!

The 4 labels all have communist propaganda beer slogans such as: The brewers control the means of production; Beer drinkers of the world, unite! ; Beer is the opium of the masses; and each (beer) according to its grains.

Not only was it aesthetically pleasing and funny, it tasted great!!

We took a quick walk to the beach that evening. For me it was my first time setting foot in the pacific!! It was freezing!! Bot that didn't stop Olivia from swimming in it, to all our disbelief.

We then returned to D and M's pad for some side porch hanging out and had Fajitas with a veritable cornucopia of fixins!! It was quite a feast!

We then proceeded to party well into the night!! For more information see the California trip picture links on the right... it takes you to the Kodak Gallery website with all of the pics from the trip uploaded on it with insightful comments by Roxanne and I.

Saying Goodbye is hard to do! The next morning, Casey, Dipa, Olivia, and Chris had to leave, it was sad, but we had a great time with them!!

We stayed with David and Marta and went to a state park with old growth redwoods in it. Let me tell you, these trees were huge and impressive. This was one thing we really wanted to see when we got to Cali and we loved it!

The park rangers told us it wasn't very nice to stand on a tree's crotch, but Roxanne wouldn't listen.

Here is a video of a tree... its not Oscar material, but I think it gives a good perspective.




After tree gazing, we went to the boardwalk. There are lots of games and rides.
Here is one we briefly considered going on, but then thought better of it.

Deep Fried Twinkie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roxanne taped this seal lion under the boardwalk!! There were a lot of them around just hangin out at the end of the wharf scratching his head.

Below is Marta with her favorite street kitty sassafrass... He is a big snuggly boy!!


We spent one more night at David and Marta's and then David drove us to San Jose the next morning for our flight. Overall it was a great vacation, we are so glad we could share the awesome places we went with awesome friends!! PPPHHHwweeeww.!! I am done blogging for a while...