Showing posts with label Road Trips. Show all posts

We spent our Labor Day Monday exploring some of the best (in our opinion) wineries Napa Valley has to offer. Waking up at 7AM after hiking was difficult, but it was worth it knowing we had a FREE tour of Mumm Napa waiting for us! Mumm does one free 10AM tour daily, which saves you from $10 - $25 depending on whether or not you do a tasting. The tour was great! We had a phenomenal guide, Penn, who taught us everything we wanted to know and more about sparkling wines – take note (as Penn informed us) that Mumm, and all other “champagne” manufacturers in the US are actually producing “sparkling wine,” and true champagne can only come from Champagne, France. As bartenders both Kyle and Megan were entranced by the process of how this sparkling wine is made, and the many steps from production to extracting yeast with the Madame Clicquot’s (Veuve Clicquot) method of six rotation yeast sediment extraction. After our tour we did a tasting, where each of us picked a different flight that allowed us to try every sparkling wine Mumm had to offer. Our gracious server, James C. even allowed a sample of a sparkling Pinot Noir, which was not on our flight list. We concluded that this Pinot Noir was by far our favorite – and if you ever come across it we highly recommend trying it! The tab for the four flights was minimal, and coupled with the free tour entirely worth every penny.

With a slight buzz on we left Mumm and headed off to Megan and our old roommate Nikki’s favorite red wine maker, Ménage à trois, which also makes Folie à deux and shares a building with Napa Cellars. There the two Megan’s shared two flights of wine, at a 2 for 1 price, and Kyle bought some BBQ sauce. We were excited for our third stop because Megan had heard many good things about Turnbull Wine Cellars. The stop at Turnbull quickly became one of our favorites because of the amazing staff, not to mention delicious wines – and again a 2 for 1 flight tasting! Our two servers, Abby and Burroughs helped the two Megan’s to more than their fair share of Turnbull wines – which left them giggly as could be. As the boys noticed the girls slipping away they hauled them off to the Farmstead Restaurant, at the advice of Abby. The four of us fell in love with this amazing boutique restaurant, with farm fresh vegetables, obviously great wine list and an ultra clean menu, what wasn’t to love?! We especially like walking up and smelling the fresh herb garden right outside.

Our final stop was Sutter Home, who shares free wine flights daily. Unfortunately this winery left much to be desired – unless you’re on a tight, tight budget we recommend avoiding this winery! By the time we had visited Sutter Home, our fourth winery, the Megan’s had, had enough. The couples said their good-byes as Megan and Kyle left to Rohnert Park, where they had booked a hotel for the night. All in all our day in Napa was to be treasured. We had come across many wonderful wineries that offered great specials and allowed us to discover that we like red wine over white, and Mumm sparkline Pinot Noir over everything else! We highly encourage anyone taking a trip to Napa to do a little research on winery specials, and of course stop by the wineries we were lucky enough to try – you will certainly not be disappointed!

Xo,
M&K

Traveling has defined so much of our relationship, as well as who we are as individuals. We have tons of pictures and stories from past trips. We thought it would be fun to do "Throwback Thursdays" to share with you the fun we've had over the years! For our first Throwback post we would like to highlight a real "in the moment" trip, San Diego-Los Angeles-Big Bear in January 2011. Yes, it spontaneously unfolded into a triple destination vacation and all in under 48 hours!

Bored from winter break, and dreading the five months of student teaching that was ahead of her - Megan decided spur of the moment that she was packing up the car and heading out SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE... When it came to packing we knew we had to prepare ourselves for anything, which literally meant cram your beach, snow and upscale attire all in one bag. As luck would have it, Megan was driving and she decided on California, more specifically San Diego! We took the I-10 South toward Tucson, hopped on Interstate 8 from there and off we went into the desert. :)

Highlights of the drive included Kyle's first time seeing the sand dunes between AZ and CA, our close call with being stopped at the border, and eating enough Goldfish crackers to feed an entire pre-school! Our first stop in San Diego was Seaport Village - Megan wanted to cruise the gift shops and sip craft beer on the pier. After that we headed over to the Gas Lamp Quarter to have a quick peek around the bars and restaurants - unfortunately nothing caught our eye so we headed to Old Town San Diego FOR TACO TUESDAY!!! So of course in our true silly style we purchased Mexican inspired "serape" Baja Hoodies to help us get in the mood. We ransacked every restaurant and taco stand we could find. After we were bloated we bought salt water taffy, and continued walking around. We got to an area Kyle deemed "familiar," claiming he had once eaten excellent sushi there with his friend Barrett... and somehow we cleared room in our stomaches for sake bombers and sushi rolls at Harney Sushi.

The next morning we headed out to the Birch Aquarium, and as luck would have it no one was there, we ran around like we owned the place! Later that afternoon we found ourselves back on the road again (Pacific Coast Highway) in hopes of meeting up with our friend "Daddy Kyle" who is a Navy Medic in Encinitas, but all we found was crappy burritos and consignment shops. Back on the PCH we stopped in Laguna Beach to watch the sunset, there we played in tide pools and took pictures. Megan's PinkBerry addiction led us to a mall somewhere in Orange County, and a trip across the Long Beach bridge left us spending the night at Barrett's place in Sherman Oaks.

Early Thursday morning we headed home... Until Kyle got a call from his good friend Haley, who invited us to come up to Big Bear for the weekend to hangout with her friends and boyfriend! Megan jumped on Hotels.com and booked a room in a lodge/log cabin. After a lengthy trip up the mountain we spent the night in Big Bear, CA - a town that time forgot. Unfortunately we didn't snowboard while there, but we did spend a great night hanging out with good friends... here's to playing beer pong in the snow, and yes, the mountains are always blue! Friday morning we headed home, and of course Kyle wanted to take the path less traveled, which took us down the backside of the mountain and toward Ninety-Nine Palms, and on the North side of Joshua Tree National Forest (if you've ever been to Joshua Tree, you know that there are no "Joshua Trees"), and there wasn't much to see on the North side of the park either. Megan strongly believes that is where the government hides UFOs and alien activity ;)

Overall the trip was amazing! The driving was intense, and it was a lot to do in four days - but we are professionals! We always recommend taking short driving trips when possible, you never know where the road might lead you.

Xo,
M&K