Ten days, three locations, nine wineries. So much to say that I decided to write this in parts..

This trip was over a year in discussion and almost a year in the planning stage. We started as a group of 8 and due to some unexpected changes (you know the old phrase: “men make plans, god laughs”) ended up with a core group of 6 (which expanded and contracted during the actual trip). The three core couples: Sue and I, Laura and Tracy, and Tori and Paul, all left at different times on different days from different airports and yet, it all went fine. This is mostly about the path Sue and I took, though it will be intertwined with tales of the entire group (and the extended group as well), so buckle up and enjoy the ride:

Saturday 8/5: Sue and I head to Savannah Airport for a 6AM flight to Monterey, CA by way of Dallas. We managed to time it pretty well (even with insisting the dreaded “bag checking”). Both legs were smooth and both departed and landed early. The layover in Dallas allowed us to spend a bit of time in the Amex lounge where the food and the drinks were excellent and we were away from the madding crowd. As an aside, we were both impressed with DFW airport. The layout was very easy to navigate in spite of its size and while clearly busy and crowded, it flowed very nicely and there was a lot of space. We landed in Monterey and very quickly were in the rental car, and off to location #1: The BLu Pacific Hotel (that’s the way it’s spelled) I chose it just as a place to spend the night and rest up for the remainder of the trip, the reviews were solid….not quite sure who wrote the largely favorable reviews…The desk folks were very nice (we got there early, but they had the room ready right after we went for lunch). The room…oy…small, tired, noisier than my old bronx apartment, a bathroom door so warped that anyone using it in the middle of the night faced the quandary: Do you leave it open or do you try to close it and have it screech like a treed bobcat. The kicker was at 12:40 am, a car alarm in the parking lot went off and it took a good 10 minutes for the owner to figure out how to stop it. So, after being up since 3AM east coast time we didn’t get the sleep we were hoping for.

Sunday 8/6: Up earlier than we’d hoped, we did find a fabulous local place for breakfast (yup, eggs benedict for both of us), we showered and could not get out of there fast enough. Off we were to Paso Robles but, since we couldn’t get into the house we had all rented till 4 pm, we decided to head to San Simeon and go to Hearst Castle. It was on both our lists of things to do since we had seen MANK, and Citizen Hearst (a great PBS two parter) as well as Citizen Kane. Coincidentally Laura and Tracy (who also flew in a day earlier) were doing the same thing so we met them there. It is impossible to accurately portray the scope of the estate in words, I will leave it at the fact that it was everything we thought it would be and sooo very much more. After the tour the four of us stopped for a small bite and a small libation in a town on the way to Paso and a sign on the wall sparked my continued quest for Pliny The Elder (it’s a rare west coast beer), which will make a return appearance much later in this blog. In the meantime, Tori and Paul had landed in San Fran and were on their way to Paso as well. The timing worked out perfectly and we all met at the very large home we had rented for the week. [4 king bedrooms all en suite, remember there were originally 4 couples in the group, 2 more bedrooms with a connecting bathroom and an additional “apartment” with it’s own bath, and a loft up a spiral staircase that would have slept an additional 4 if needed]. A pool, wood fired grill, a wood fired pizza oven (all these will factor in later), large kitchen, living area, deck, dining room, billiard room more outdoor space..all in all, more space than we needed but managed to use most all of it. Dinner that evening was at BL Brasserie (http://bistrolaurent.com) and was both relaxed and delicious.