Visit to the Wine Country

It had been a while since we took any long trips after Las Vegas. So we wanted to go some place during the Independence day long weekend. It was also a way to celebrate our second wedding anniversary, albeit a week in advance. Since we have both been very busy and stressed out at work, we decided to keep it all very simple. No flights to catch, no waking up early for the guided tours and no getting tired at the end of it all. Just a long relaxing break and exploring places at our own pace. The best place that fit the bill was the wine country.

  

I had heard that Napa is way too commercial and crowded so we skipped it and headed straight to Sonoma-less touristy but beautiful. Since this vacation was going to be different from all our previous ones, I decided to forgo the hotel and look for a cottage instead. Thanks to this amazing website (Airbnb.com), I found a small cottage in the countryside within a reasonable budget.

 

 

The cottage is located in a bamboo nursery in Cotati- a small, sleepy town in Sonoma County. We drove up to Cotati on Thursday morning and reached there in an hour and half.

One of the important lessons that I learnt during my previous travels was that I usually waste a lot of time looking for food mainly due to two reasons-I'm a vegetarian and a picky eater. To avoid this problem, I picked up a lot of ready-to-eat instant food and that took care of the 'where to eat' issue.

 

The plan for four days was simple-spend two days in the cottage and two days site-seeing. This gave us enough time to rest and relax without feeling like we hadn't explored the new place. Per plan, we stayed indoor on day one spending time reading, playing games and doing nothing. 

 

Day two we decided to visit a winery. We zeroed in on Foppiano Winery in Healdsburg since they didn't require an appointment for the vineyard tour. We were handed a brochure for the free self guided estate tour which gave us general information about the business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After walking around the vineyard, we took the Highway 116 to Sonoma. It is a scenic route with breathtakingly beautiful wineries along the way. The drive was just perfect-windy roads, fantastic scenery, no traffic and great weather! 

 

We headed straight to Sonoma downtown for some wine tasting. For only $5, we got to taste 7 different wines. Since I'm not a wine drinker, I wasn't too fascinated by this but tried it for the experience anyway. Afterall what is a trip to the wine country without any wine tasting?

The next day we just stepped out for a quick lunch at the Cotati downtown and spent the rest of the day at home. On the last day, after checking out of the cottage, we drove to Bodega Bay. Again, the drive was very pleasant. We stopped at the famous 'The Birds' Cafe which was very disappointing. Long wait time and bad food. 

 

 

 

We continued driving along the Sonoma Coast State beach. It was overcast yet extremely picturesque. We halted at the Schoolhouse beach. Unlike all the other beaches that I have been to, this one has no sand at all; it's all small pebbles which prick your feet and the water is freezing. But it is a nice quiet place for a picnic-not too crowded.

Our drive continued and took us to the Russian river in Monte Rio. It was pretty crowded with people kayaking, swimming and sunbathing. we spent time walking across the small stream and then headed to Sebastapol downtown for a quick bite. We walked around the downtown and ate some hummus and pita at a small Mediterranean place. After that, we drove straight home-tired but content after a relaxing and refreshing vacation.

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum

While looking for things to do on the weekend, I hit upon the Rosicrucian Egyptian museum in San Jose. Since I'm very fascinated by Egyptian history, I decided to check this place out.

This museum is located in San Jose and is the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in Western North America.  There are four main galleries and they take the visitor through the ancient Egyptian dynasties up until the Islamic era. One can get a complete picture of the history, rise and fall of the mighty Egyptian empire. Since we visited post noon, we could only cover one gallery in detail. I glanced through the other three as it was nearing closing time.

The first gallery is the 'Daily life,  trade and neighbors' and it has a huge collection of items of daily use. This includes the vessels, toys, seals, hairpins, mirrors, perfume bottles, razors, seals etc. Tablets with Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform scripts were my favorite.

 The second gallery 'Burial practices, mummies and afterlife' had a lot of mummies on display and items relating to the burial practices and mummification. I skimmed through the next two galleries 'Gods and religion' and 'Kings and Pharoahs' so I'm not writing much about them.

There was a docent-led tour of the replica tomb. There is a composite replica of the rock cut tomb of Khnumhotep II. I found it very educational and fun.

Some fun facts that I learnt from the museum:
-The ancient Egyptians, including the children drank beer instead of water as they did not have access to clean water
-They believed in the power of visualization and hence got their walls of the pyramids painted with images of a life they wanted to live in the afterlife.
-The hierogylphic script was written from  left to right, right to left or up to down. One can identify the direction based on the direction in which the characters are facing.
-Men and women both used makeup and painted their face green.

I will have to visit the museum once again to complete the tour of the other three galleries. There is also a planetarium which is temporarily closed so we could not visit it. Outside the museum,there is a beautiful garden called the Peace garden where one can relax.

What: Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum
Where:1660 Park Avenue San Jose CA 95191
When: Wednesday - Friday: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Saturday and Sunday: 10:00am - 6:00pm
Monday - Tuesday: Closed 
Cost: $9

Santa Cruz

After last week's short trip to Half Moon Bay, this week we ventured out to explore Santa Cruz beach. We were accompanied by our lovely friends mentioned in this post.

Santa Cruz is an hours drive southwards from Sunnyvale. We took the scenic CA-17 route. The traffic this week was no different than last time and we were slowed down tremendously. After a very frustratingly slow drive through the over crowded, winding roads. we reached the Santa Cruz beach.

It was different from the Half Moon Bay beach because it was very lively and colorful. Shops, eateries dotted one side of the beach. There is a small amusement park  called 'The Boardwalk' on the beach. It has a whole bunch of fun looking rides. 

Boardwalk Entrance

There is a heritage train that starts at the beach and takes you to the Roaring Camp in Felton. It is an hour long ride that goes through the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park and stops at Felton and returns after an hour. The tickets are sold on board and costs $28 per head for a return ticket. The train is has an open top and the ride through the Redwood forests is superb. There is nothing much to do at Felton except walk around the big camp. There is only one food stall which, like all tourist spots, serves over-priced bad food. I'd advice you to carry a picnic lunch with you to enjoy there.

 

Train through the Redwood forest

Train going through the tunnel

We came back to the beach after a bad lunch at Felton. The weather had suddenly become much colder and we were shivering. We walked along the beach, visited the curio shops and grabbed a quick bite. The cold wind made it quite difficult for us to stay and so we started back home at around 6 pm.

Santa Cruz Beach

Half Moon Bay

  To take our new car for a spin, we went on a long drive to Half Moon Bay last Sunday. Half Moon Bay is 45 minutes drive (roughly 35 miles) from Sunnyvale. After checking out the weather forecast, we decided to start in the afternoon to avoid the chilly breeze.    

The car was an absolute treat on the freeway. It zip, zap, zoomed at great speed with ease. CA-92 W is supposed to be the best part of the route since it is very scenic and windy. V was looking forward to check out how the car behaves on the turns. But it looked like everyone was going to the beach that day and the road was packed. At one point, we were going at 11 mph on a 45 mph stretch! 

After getting the wrong directions, being lost and finding our way back, we finally reached the Half Moon Bay State beach also known as the Francis beach at around 4 pm. It is a broad, sandy beach and is picturesque. Fishing, surfing, sunbathing, picnicking and barbecuing are popular activities here. There are campgrounds by the beach where one can camp in tents, trailers or recreational vehicles.

It was a beautiful day to be at the beach. The wind wasn't very chilly and the sun wasn't too harsh. We spent a couple of hours walking on the sand, watching the waves and clicking pictures. There is something very therapeutic about sitting on the beach, watching the waves and the seagulls. It felt very refreshing.

There is a small downtown close by where we got some lunch. But I think it would would have been nicer if we had carried a picnic lunch to have on the beach.

A visitor center and restroom facilities are available. I hear there is a horse riding trail too along the beach. We saw a few stables along the way which offer pony and horse riding. We headed home around sunset and the roads were pretty empty by then. It was a much nicer drive back home.

Our New Car-Finally!

That's our new baby! Classy, isn't it? It's the 2013 Scion FR-S!

After eight painful months that seemed like a lifetime, we finally bought our own car and it feels amazing. As noted in my previous posts, not having a car was severely limiting our capacity to go anywhere or do anything fun since very few places are accessible via public transportation.

V got his license in January and we have been renting cars ever since. The plan was to get a rental until we decide which car we wanted to buy and then go get it. Sounds simple enough. Obviously, it wasn't.

The in-depth research and analysis (clearly not done by me) to finally narrow down on the car make and model took almost a month. Next step? Calling the dealers and buying one, right? Wrong! Apparently, this particular model has a 2-3 months wait time. There is a high demand, low supply problem and this means we get whatever stock the dealer has (if any).

Every weekend, the routine was similar. Call up all the Toyota dealers in the Bay Area stating the requirements, only to hear them promise that they will call us as soon as they get one. This carried on for a month and a half!

Finally, last Friday we got a call from two dealers informing us that they they had a few Scions in stock. We first went to Sunnyvale Toyota dealer- the car was pearl white-not my first choice. The second dealer in Burlingame had said he had a black one in stock. So we drove all the way to Burlingame. The car was obviously the right color but the dealer was a slimy fellow. He was so pushy, unaccommodating and annoying that we were pissed off thoroughly and preferred to go with the pearl white color at Sunnyvale than do business with this pest. Anyways, after the harrowing experience at Burlingame we came right back to the Sunnyvale dealer and booked it.

That's us in the dealer's parking lot after we got the keys to our shiny new ride.

It is a head turner and I love it when people stop to notice it :)

The Stanford Theater Experience

It has been a while since I updated this blog as I haven't been on any trip after my the Las Vegas tour during Christmas. However, I have been busy with quite some interesting activities-movies, books, shopping, lunches and job interviews.

One Sunday, while we were waiting to be seated for our brunch at Hobbees, V casually found a bunch of brochures on the table. It was a flyer for the Hitchcock film festival at the Stanford theater. And luckily for us, it has started that week, so we didn't miss out on any films.

Stanford theater is located on University avenue in Palo Alto downtown. We now have a rental car so didn't have to be dependent on the Caltrain. Stanford is a movie theater with an old world charm and features Hollywood classics.

Everything about this theater gives you a chance to experience the movie-going experience of the past. The illuminated movie hoarding, the quaint box office, the food counter serving nothing fancy other than the mandatory pop corn and soda, the seating at two levels and of course the screen with its red curtain. What is even fantastic is that a live organ is played before the evening shows on weekends. They also have a gallery with original posters of many yesteryear classic films. 

They are currently playing the Hitchcock films-2 movies per week. The best part is that for the price of one ticket ($7), you can watch both the movies back-to-back. So far, we have watched all the movies screened every week and intend to continue doing so until the end of the festival in April. 

I had never watched a single Hitchcock flick until now. And I'm glad I got to experience it on the big screen. My favorites films so far have been Rear Window, Rebecca and Rope. 

The Grand Canyon

As promised before, I'm writing about my trip to the Grand Canyon-a natural wonder of the world. It is an enormous canyon formed by the Colorado river in Arizona. On our third day in Vegas, we took an organized bus tour (yes, we still don't drive!)

After scouring the internet for various discount deals, I realized that there is only one single company that conducts these tours and the tickets are sold by a hundred different websites. I booked the bus tour to the South rim of the Grand Canyon. They do have tours to the west rim too. But that one is expensive and I hear the view isn't as good as the southern rim. In fact, the western rim is not even a part of the Grand Canyon National Park. The website mentioned that the entire trip would take 15 hours. We were prepared for this and slept early the previous night. The bus was supposed to pick us up at 6.30 am!

 We diligently woke up and got dressed on time. We even managed to finish breakfast and as expected the bus was late-by half an hour. I could have happily used the extra time for some more sleep. The bus arrived and took us to their office, not far from our hotel. There, the south and west rim passengers were separated. Each of us was given a colored tag, a meal voucher, a danish, orange juice and coffee. Since we already had breakfast, we packed it all up for use during the journey.

It was a double-decker bus with a seating for 75 people. The driver announced that there would be three stops before Grand Canyon-Hoover dam, Mc Donalds and IMAX theatre (a hour show on the Grand Canyon on the big screen for those who purchased tickets).

We were told interesting facts about the villages we passed and about Hoover dam when we reached there. Most of which I have forgotten :D We drove through the Mojave desert and it was a very scenic drive. My idea of a desert was sand dunes but this was a rocky desert. Vast expanses of rocky lands and nothing else around.

We arrived at Hoover dam in about 45 minutes. This dam was constructed to control the flooding of the Colorado river and also to provide a means of employment during the Depression. It saw the influx of workers from all over America. The chief in charge of the dam was a ruthless man who ensured that nothing or nobody stopped the project. When workers developed carbon monoxide poisoning, he pressurized the doctors to falsely report their condition as pneumonia so as to not create a controversy that could potentially stall the project. We only had 15 minutes to see the dam and click a few pictures. There are separate dam tours for those who would like to explore it more.

Next stop was Mc Donalds to get a quick snack. No vegetarian food so I didn't step out. And then the bus began to slow down. It seemed like the engine was having some trouble. The driver continued to drive at snail's pace for about 45 minutes and then it began raining. He slowed down even more. After a while, he stopped and restarted the engine. This seemed to improve things. However, it started snowing. My first experience of snow and I was super thrilled. I had always wanted to see how it looked when it snowed. All the trees were covered with white flakes and the ground had a thick layer of white. It looked serene and mesmerizing. The bus slowed down as the roads were narrow, inclined and icy. We reached the IMAX theatre an hour later than we should have.

We were given meal vouchers and we supposed to get the food at the theatre canteen. The only problem was that all 75 people were queuing up with vouchers. Everyone was hungry as it was well past lunch time. I was glad that they had 2 vegetarian options. By the time my turn came, they only had one cheese pizza left. I quickly grabbed it and gobbled it down.

The driver wasn't sure if the Grand Canyon gates would be still open to tourists due to the heavy snow. The helicopter tours were already cancelled. Luckily, the gates were open and we reached the spot. First look at the snow covered canyon and I was amazed at how such a thing of beauty can ever exist. It was tall and wide and beautiful. I was freezing. I quickly took a few pictures, walked around the rim and the sun set. We got only about 45 minutes of viewing time and the show ended!

We headed back with just one stop on the way back-Mc Donald's again. It was dinner time and they did not have any vegetarian options so I had to make do with french fries and a milkshake. I have strong doubts that the tour company has some kind of contract with Mc Donald's. It was 11.30pm by the time we got back home.

Tired, sleepy, half-hungry yet satisfied at having laid my eyes on such a marvelous natural beauty.