California Honeymoon: Mostly Napa

We had been planning a Napa trip for a while, and just been unable to execute it, you know, since we'd been trying and failing to have children for nearly eight years, so we knew it HAD to be a part of this trip to California. I'm calling this part Napa because although we spent a night in San Francisco proper, we determined that we aren't really city vacation people.

It was fun to walk the crazy hilly streets, but the hustle and bustle and the fancy historical hotel with incessant tipping necessary and very few amenities (no water glasses, but you could buy a water bottle for $7! What a bargoon!) were just not our thing, so we hightailed it to the woods before checking in at Napa.

This does not even do justice to the veritable mountain we climbed to get to the top.

Happy first day of vacation! Glowing thanks to the hike to the top, in the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral

Grace Cathedral

The woods we hotfooted to after our brief city stay were Muir Woods, which is a spectacular nature experience. Hot tip: They aren't kidding when they say that parking is crazy, and to take the shuttle. The $5 each for the shuttle from Pohono Street was the best $5 ever -- our car was safe, we got to enjoy the scenery on the insane twisty road to the woods without having to pay attention to the driving, and we didn't have to worry about parking (there were cars parked all along the road for at least a mile) or the dangerous walk to the car, and the shuttle picked you right back up with minimal waiting when you were ready to go home. We decided to hike the Canopy View Trail to the Fern Creek Trail and then back to the main trail to get to the visitor center area, per the recommendation of a young National Parks ranger near the entrance.

It was gorgeous.

Again, no justice is done to the massive scale of these redwood beasts.

At the beginning of the hike, all refreshed and such, breathing in the smells of redwood and eucalyptus

There was a trail we might have missed if there weren't people, that went up from the Canopy View trail to the top. We decided to give it a try...and we definitely weren't sorry.

Came out of the woods to this view

Pretty trail at the top

Yeah, it was gorgeous.

My favorite shot of Bryce from here, channeling a bear of some sort in a redwood trunk cave

It was incredible. The sights, the smells, the sounds, the flowers...I loved when it felt like it was just us on the trail (a feeling that didn't come as often as I'd have liked, as it's a REALLY popular national monument).

From Muir Woods we went to our hotel, The Inn on Randolph. This was probably my absolute favorite place to stay of the trip. I'd found it on a gluten free blog. Traveling with celiac disease is a bummer -- the last thing you want to do is get sick on your vacation (and destroy your nice clean hotel bathroom in the process). But you also want to eat delicious food. This is sometimes hard to accomplish, and I've been known to travel with packets of gluten free oatmeal in my purse as continental breakfasts are no good for me (unless they have Cheerios now, because I can have those since they started using certified gluten free oats. Yup, that's a thing.). Well. The Inn on Randolph has a TOTALLY GLUTEN FREE kitchen, and it is completely delicious. Gluten free gets a bad rap for being horrible tasting, and while there is definitely bad gluten free, there is also increasingly terrific gluten free. This place had two-course gluten free breakfasts (a sweet course followed by a savory course), and they baked chocolate chip cookies all the time and they were ALWAYS THERE in the kitchen for the sneaking. I felt like I was at my best friend's mom's house growing up, where chocolate chips (as they called the cookies) were a staple, like milk. I was definitely not going to have to smuggle dry goods in here. It was heaven.

Day One Course One: crepes with whipped cream, berries, and nutella.

Day One Course Two: Breakfast Salad with sauteed baby chard, bacon, hard boiled eggs, fruits, feta, and a completely delicious bacon balsamic dressing that I dipped my incredible gluten free toast into, per the recommendation of the innkeeper. NOM NOM NOM

Day Two Course One: Arroz Con Leche (basically insanely delicious rice pudding)

Day Two Course Two: Chicken Chilaquiles -- easily my favorite OF THE TRIP. I need to figure out how to make this. (Apparently they have TWO cookbooks, so hopefully it's in there?)

Day Three Course One: Housemade yogurt with gluten free granola and berries. 

Day Three Course Two: French toast with triple berry sauce and maple syrup, scrambled eggs, and turkey bacon

Everything was delicious. Bryce kept having to stop the impulse to smack bread out of my hand as if I'd lost my mind. He doesn't have to eat gluten free, but he thought everything was incredible, too.

Then, the room and space. It was just so beautiful and private and perfect for a honeymoon! We stayed in one of the cottages, and ours had a private garden with a gate that closed so we could basically call it our sitting area. The weather in Napa is nuts -- it got up to the 90s during the day (hoooot) but then would plunge down to the lower 60s at night (ahhhh). So we could really take advantage of the outdoor area, especially since it really doesn't rain.

Our lovely welcome, with gluten free snacks (that cellophane bag is COOKIES) and a half bottle of yummy cab (and how nice that our room had a butterfly pillow? I mean, they might all have butterfly pillows, but I felt it was serendipitous)

We totally took advantage of the gas fireplace. 

The room was so cozy, even the dresser was cute and cottage-y!

Enjoying our first night in a new hotel champagne toast on the steps

We think kissing pictures are awkward and weird

Felt like home!

Bye, Washington Cottage, we'll miss you!

Of course we went wine tasting, you sort of have to (plus we love wine). We booked two wineries -- Artesa and Robert Biale. Artesa because we heard it was the most beautiful surroundings, and Robert Biale because we love their wine and their story.

Artesa:

Yeah, I'd say that's beautiful.

Just us, enjoying champagne at 10:00 am (hey, someone had to take that slot!)

Enjoying some pinot noir in the tasting salon

The view out to the terrace from our seats at the salon bar

After our many, many pours with our fabulous pourer (? Is that the technical term?) who was WAY knowledgeable about wine and also a huge Hamilton fan

Robert Biale:

What a welcome! We did NOT knock over those glasses thankyouverymuch. (Also, go me for figuring out how to retouch this myself! I am learning things!)

Zinfandel! This is the vineyard for their Black Chicken wines. We also saw a fire break out on that hill as we were tasting, which at first seemed like a controlled burn and then planes circled it a la King Kong and dropped red firefighting pixie dust on it (I'm sure that's accurate) and put it out to a smolder...NEVER A BORING DAY

Beautiful, dusky zinfandel grapes. SO MUCH SELF CONTROL exercised in not popping one in my mouth.

So, their flagship wine is Black Chicken, which goes back to Prohibition when they made wine but would sell it illegally under the code name "black chicken" since they legally had a bunch of chickens. Pretty sneaky, eh? 

Okay, fine, this one's not black but it's a chicken!

Bye Biale, see you in the store! 

We heard people say that they were going to five wineries in one day (with a driver, of course). Two seemed like plenty for us, especially since we spent THREE HOURS at Artesa thanks to the amazing personality of our pourer and the variety of wines that we tasted. We did actually ship some Artesa home, because we tasted Single Vineyard wines you can't buy in the stores back home. Smart, Artesa. Biale we bought a bottle for a dinner one night because we know where we can find it (and we may rejoin their wine club, the Black Chicken Society).  Two was PLENTY if you want to take your time and get to know people and really find out interesting stuff about the wine (and maybe witness a small wildfire...).

Our second full day in Napa was Outdoor Exploration Day. We had intended to go to this park with redwoods and a frog pond and a nice 4 mile hike, but apparently that park was an hour and fifteen minutes from us and we had a late start after our delicious chilaquiles breakfast, so we decided to go for the kitsch. We drove up to Calistoga and went to the Petrified Forest, where there were redwoods petrified over a million years ago when Mt St Helena erupted and there was ashfall and stuff all over the area (part of what makes the soil great for wine!). It was a small park, maybe 2 miles of trail. A lot of trails were closed everywhere we went due to dangers from the wet winter weather or wildfires, or rattlesnakes. (!) I love snakes but can do without that kind of encounter!

Manzanita trees with interesting lichen at the Petrified Forest

This petrified log looks like the Loch Ness Monster! This area had the logs all mossy and natural so you could see what they looked like before they get powerwashed so you can see the petrified-ness

GIANT petrified redwood! I think this might have been the Queen Tree

Lookin' classy

Hey, Mt St Helena! So glad you're dormant now

Ashfall from the eruption. To the left was a sign that said KEEP OUT, RATTLESNAKES. Yessir, no problem.

Did I mention it was hot? My pastiness is not meant for such sun!  

Then, we headed to the completely hilarious Old Faithful Geyser Of California, which was a gloriously fun roadside tourist trap with an actual natural geyser, but also a funhouse mirror, a gift shop full of Turkish evil eye medallions, a sort-of petting zoo of goats -- Tennessee Fainting Goats, regular goats, four-horned sheep, and a Guard Llama, and a museum of geology that was interesting, but a small hot room of informational posters. It was the source of SO MUCH LAUGHTER though, so totally worth the $30 it cost for the two of us to get in.

The geyser when quiet. My guidebook from 2007 said it erupted every 40 minutes or so. Now it erupts every 5-10 minutes. Um, concerned much? WHY SO OFTEN if it's MAGMA that heats the water to boiling? Gaaaah

Thar she blows!

A particularly tall spew. Maybe 20, 25 feet in the air?

Because what's a geyser without a goat?

Hot four-horned sheep 

Twinning goats looking for snacks I don't have

It was a highly entertaining, and very, very sweaty day. We discovered that Yountville, a town maybe a couple miles north of the city of Napa, is incredibly fancypants, and they do not appreciate people who clearly have been hiking in the heat and the dust amidst goats coming into their restaurants for lunch. They are expecting more of a high-heeled, cold-shoulder-wearing, fresh-blowout type crowd. We discovered that we didn't give a shit, why have geysers and goats and petrified forests nearby if you don't expect people to visit them? Definitely more Napa than Yountville people (although Yountville is very lovely, I'm not knocking it, it was fine in the evening when we went for dinner all fancied up and showered...just shopping and fanciness is not really our bag, as much as we like fancy things).

The last thing about Napa is the food. I mean, I know I talked about the breakfasts, but the restaurants within walking distance of our inn (another huge plus for me -- I love not having to drive everywhere) were incredible. A place we absolutely loved was the Oxbow Market -- you could get anything there, and our favorite was a tacqueria called C Casa. It was completely delicious, you could sit outside, it wasn't fussy, and EVERYTHING WAS GLUTEN FREE. They also sold Cate & Co baked goods, so I could have a sourdough baguette and a tequila lime loaf cake and things like that, all celiac safe. That is such a gift, to eat like a normal human and not have your body betray you (as it seems to want to do over, and over, and over).

Guacamole and chips to start

We each got an avocado taco

I got a rotisserie duck taco (!) 

Bryce had the skirt steak taco

We also went to dinner at a restaurant called Celadon, and it was very tasty (and gluten free friendly), and walkable!

Mmmmm, most delicious filet I've had in a really long time, with roasted wild mushrooms and a summer squash/potato gratin

Bryce had the pan seared scallops with corn relish and pea shoots. It was so yummy, but he did have a little entree envy when he tasted my beef.

Our last night in Napa we drove up to Yountville to go to Mustard's Grill. We shared the amazing mushroom tamales, I had the smoked duck, and Bryce had the famous Mongolian Porkchop (definitely not gluten free), and we had the butterscotch pots de creme. We had the flight of cabs, which although it looks like there's more wine on the table than everything else, they were small pours so it's less than it seems. :)

All gussied up for the occasion

Mmmm, tamales

That's a lot of liquid goodness right there.

Lest you think we got too fancypants... Yes I did this in a fancy Napa eatery, to protect my dress. Busty lady = messy clothes more often than not. Such a classy dame...

One of the great benefits to walking everywhere from our inn was the sunset view over the river. It was gorgeous. I would definitely return for a repeat visit! Between the inn, the nature, the food, the wine, the scenery, the walkability, the gluten-free-friendliness -- it was a great start to our honeymoon.

City of Napa at sunset

Next up: Carmel-by-the-Sea!

The Bitter With The Sweet

Our California Honeymoon was overwhelmingly sweet -- romantic, relaxing, full of happiness and good food and gorgeous hiking.

But there was a bitter taste from time to time, and before delving into the gloriousness of the places we stayed and the great moments we shared, I'd like to expel the bitter all at once.

In-flight Irony
The first was less a sting than a mildly hilarious irony -- on our flight from Chicago to San Francisco, the in-flight movie was "Born in China." Oh yes, what better way to kick off our celebration of accepting our new life without children than to watch animals raise their babies in the wilds of China. How fascinating that pandas look insanely human as they hold their babies up to the sky, soothing them after a tumble down a hill. Or that a snow leopard can look as annoyed as any mom to be clambered over by her kids. I didn't listen to the audio, I wanted to read my book instead, but I kept seeing these vignettes of motherhood and infancy play over the seat in front of me and was just filled with "are you KIDDING me?" Luckily, the fact that we sprung for first class on this trip meant that I could have some sparkling wine and chardonnay to help make it more funny than sad.

Is It Better? IS IT?
Napa really held very few sad moments at all, except for a dinner out at Mustard's Grill (oh holy deliciousness) where I was overcome with sadness towards the end of our meal, and I couldn't really put a finger on the trigger. It was our last night in Napa, and we'd had a wonderful time, and I think maybe there was some sense of "See? See how our life can be amazing and beautiful and full of wonderful things and travel and occasional extravagance?" and I think I somehow interpreted that as "see, isn't this better?" and I couldn't see it at that moment in time. All I could think was I'd trade all the smoked duck and cabernet flights and butterscotch pots de creme in order to have a baby in my arms, a child to share these things with. It consumed me to the point where I had to excuse myself to the ladies' room because the tears just rolled down my face without any stopping, and I sobbed in the pretty bathroom until I could fix my face and come back out, somewhat reset by catharsis. I don't think anything was said in particular and I can't figure out when things shifted from "oh wow this is awesome" to "I feel so acutely all we've lost," but I was able to recover and we had a lovely evening after we returned to our beautiful room with its gas fireplace and cozy quiet.

Cosmic Ha-Ha 
Carmel wasn't as sad for me as it was for Bryce, as we arrived at our hotel and found that a couple with a baby were situated next to us. The hotel was much more family friendly than the Napa inn, and I think we were a little surprised and a little disappointed that our first foray into our room with its beautiful veranda and spacious sitting area was so close to a young couple who had what we couldn't achieve. Bryce was worried we'd be awakened to crying in the night, but ironically we heard nothing from them and a ton of barking from the couple who replaced them the next day with a very loud dog (this inn was very dog friendly as well). Still, it felt a little like another jab from the universe. I actually contemplated if in the future it would be helpful to note that we would like to be in a room that is not near very small children -- but then I thought maybe that was crazy. Is it? You tell me.

Funk and Fear
Pasadena was great -- we visited with my dad, we went to a fancy botanical garden, we went to Universal Studios. There was some brou-ha-ha at Universal where Bryce got sick, and I was in a bit of a funk already since despite my friend who brought the baby home from the same agency we'd used told me it was okay to hide her on facebook and that I might want to, I hadn't yet and so that morning I was just flipping through my feed when I saw the 6-week pictures posted, and they were beautiful and so happy. The pictures didn't get me. It was the hashtags: #worththewait and #dreamsdocometrue. These are great for them, just incredibly stabby for me. In no way do I think that they shouldn't use these, or that they aren't applicable to them, but it felt like hot acid in my wounds and all I heard from my nasty little voice was failure! see what you could have had? dreams don't come true for YOU, you're not worthy! you couldn't even wait properly! you don't deserve this happiness! Which is cruel, and I know it's not true, but it just seemed like such a contrast and while our trip had been amazing and beautiful it was like this little pokethrough of an alternate reality that won't ever be ours. I hid her. And I wasn't myself all morning. So when Bryce got unexpectedly sick and we couldn't connect with him for a little bit, I immediately went into worst-case-scenario mode and could visualize him ill on the floor of a men's room somewhere, not wanting to cause any inconvenience to anyone but then dying alone on a piss-soaked floor. My dad was like, "uh, that's not really a likely scenario, that's not going to happen," and I freaked out and hissed, "REALLY? You think given everything that's happened that I'd be spared that sort of thing too? You think it's not possible that I could end up childless and widowed, here on our honeymoon?" I sort of wished I'd brought my anxiety medication with me (it was in the hotel) but it worked out okay. My dad was unaware of the developments of the two people bringing babies home recently, and how that had made me feel, and how sad I was from the morning's ill-advised facebook viewing...after he was made aware and got teary-eyed himself, he said he'd check restrooms for me. But then, Bryce found us and said he was going to go to the hotel and we'd meet up with him later, to have a good time, but that he was feeling icky enough that he needed to go home and lie down and he'd be fine tomorrow. I was relieved but also just overwhelmed with anxiety, with the fear that I could lose everything. It was quite the bump in an otherwise great part of the trip, and it all turned out okay, but it really brought a ton of fears and feelings to the forefront.

Haunted by What Could Have Been
The last real sad moment was in Santa Barbara. It was pretty much one per leg of the trip, which is interesting for me to look back on. We went to another botanical garden, a more rugged hike-y one than the fancypants one in Pasadena. It was beautiful -- all canyon trails and redwoods and rocky mountainside backdrops. There was an exhibit in one of the conservation buildings about bees, and we went in. It was incredible -- they had all these really high-quality microscopes set up with little acrylic boxes of bee specimens so that you could see the way they carry pollen, or differentiate between bee families, or try to tell the difference between bees and look-alike flies and wasps, or examine specimens with their tongues out. It was beyond cool. There were little sweat bees that were brilliant green, or mermaid blue and purple. The microscopes made it possible to see their little faces, with the antennae and multi-faceted eyes. It was enjoyable (and air-conditioned). A family walked in -- a mom and two kids, one an older boy (maybe 9) and one a younger girl (maybe 5). The girl was hilarious, looking at the bees and exclaiming, "Ack! Ugly face...peace out, bee!" and the boy was ironically a huge fan of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum. His mom kept saying, "Everything he knows about that movie is hearsay! He hasn't seen it himself!" as if we might judge her parenting skills. (She didn't know her audience, clearly.) He kept saying that they should make a new movie with Jeff Goldblum and call it The Bee, and put a bee head on him instead. Bryce said, "You know, before seeing that version, you should watch the black-and-white 1940s one -- it's great and not gory at all, but real disturbing!" I'm not sure if the mom appreciated that film recommendation, but the kid really loved it. We set up the microscopes for the kids and showed them where some of the neater specimens were for exploring, with the mom saying "that's awfully nice of you!" as we left. And then I stood out in the manzanita garden behind the building, away from any windows where they could see me, and I just cried and cried and cried. It was so sad, because this is just the kind of thing we would have loved to do with our own child, and here what we have is these brief moments of interaction to cling to. I am grateful for those brief moments, and I so enjoy children of that age, particularly ones who are curious about nature and want to know more, but it made me so unbearably sad that we won't ever curate that in our own home. That these passing experiences with other people's children will have to satiate that unfulfilled desire to raise children who appreciate nature, who are inquisitive and experimental and would take the time to explore bee faces under a microscope. I pulled myself together, and Bryce assured me that he was very sad too, but that moments like that gave him hope that he could still have those interactions, no matter how briefly.

Even in these moments of bitter, there was the sweet.


It's hard to not have that balance -- how do you have a trip that celebrates this new beginning without acknowledging the loss that brought you here? How do you accept that with all these beautiful moments, there will always be a tinge of the life that will never be? I know to expect these moments of grief, or moments of "really???" that will crop up even in the most romantic and celebratory of times. To honor them yet move forward in acceptance and the joy of what we can have, of the experiences we enjoyed that we couldn't have if we were parents...that is the important part.

#Microblog Mondays: Back From Our "Honeymoon"

I have about a zillion thoughts from our two-week, extravagant honeymoon to celebrate our new life together after so many years of striving for parenthood through so, so many avenues and coming up short. I fully intended to blog from across the country, we even packed a little laptop, but it stayed shut and off in Bryce's backpack. I wanted to be present in each and every moment, knowing I still have three weeks before school starts to play catchup.

Here are a few highlights from our trip, which was incredible and had just the right balance of hiking, nature, fancy food and drink, decadence, silliness, and a whole lot of romance:

What a wonderful welcome!

It was interesting to me that Bryce felt incredibly uncomfortable calling this our honeymoon and needed to explain to everyone that we'd been married for almost 8 years but were just now able to take this trip. We didn't get anything extra or special for calling it our honeymoon (that welcome basket comes to everyone who stays at this amazing inn that I'll be writing about separately), just well wishes and happy feelings. It was fun to feel celebrated!

First full day, hanging out with the redwoods in Muir Woods

Hiked to the top, what a view!

Started our day of winetasting at Artesa...at 10 a.m. (!)

First night sunset in Carmel-by-the-Sea (no tinkering with color)

Absolutely loved the jellyfish (and everything else) at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

At Andrew Moleta State Park in Big Sur

Gorgeous view at Garrapata State Park a little further north in Big Sur area

Ubiquitous lizards (I must have at least 100 pictures of the cute little devils)

A butterfly on an aloe! Pretty pretty, not quite like at home

Saw my dad, here we're on line for the Flight of the Hippogryff in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Santa Barbara sidewalk butterfly

It was a place of incredible beauty, some of it only captured if you stopped and just took it all in, ignoring any hustle and bustle. It was a gloriously happy time, only occasionally marred by grief and reminders of what we've lost. But man, if this is just a taste of what we have to look forward to, it's not too shabby.

Off to catch up on reading! I feel so out of the loop...

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!