I decided to take an extra long weekend and celebrate my birthday in California. As my husband was working in Sacramento, I thought a visit was in order. We then had plans to go to Napa and also to visit friends in Tiburon. You can also check out photos from the trip here.
Day 1
I had booked an evening flight out of Edmonton. Despite warm temperatures just the day before, it actually snowed the entire day that I was to leave. Made me glad I was leaving for a warmer climate.
My 6:30pm flight from Edmonton to Seattle was delayed for almost an hour. But luckily I had (an original) connection time of 2 hours, so I wasn’t worried. Once we were finally boarded, I was happy to see that the seat next to me was empty. I envisioned a pleasant flight where I could stretch out across both seats. However, just before the plane door was closed, the lady across the aisle from me caught my attention and asked if her adult daughter (who was seated in the row behind me) could move into the empty seat so “that she could talk to her daughter during the flight”. Before I could even respond, the flight attendant happened to come by and said “Sure – go ahead and move”. I shot the flight attendant a death glare, but she didn’t notice. Sure, go ahead and inconvenience ME, I don’t mind at all.
Of course, the two of them talked the Whole. Damned. Flight. Ugh. I put in some earphones and tried to watch a video on my iPad to drown them out. Horizon Air offers a free glass of beer or wine, so I definitely took them up on their offer and had a glass of white wine. Luckily the (other) flight attendant filled it right up to the top. So, that helped.
We finally made it to Seattle, where I headed to my next gate for my flight to Sacramento. The flight was really empty, but when we boarded the flight attendant made an announcement that even though the plane wasn’t very full, that everyone was to remain in their assigned seats. A person could move across the aisle to an empty seat, but not to a row ahead or behind. I had decided to upgrade this flight to business class. I had a gentleman sitting next to me, but the 2 rows behind me were empty. Across the aisle was another guy, so obviously there was no point in either of us moving. But, after some pleasant chat while waiting to take off, we both just sat quietly reading for the rest of the flight – which was nice.
During the short flight, we were offered some warm cookies (yum) and drinks. Before we knew it, we were descending into Sacramento. As we were descending, there was quite a bit of turbulence. I’m not a nervous flyer at all, but during some of the rough turbulence, I couldn’t help but think of the TV show Mayday and wondering if this flight would end up being featured on a future episode. But luckily the turbulence ended before we actually touched down, and we landed safely (although, a bit on the hard side).
Day 2
Woke up to drippy weather – which the locals were happy about (as there is a drought in California right now). Randy went off to work, and I hung around the room for a bit, working on the blog.
I walked to a nearby Starbucks to use my birthday reward for a drink. When I told the staff I was using a birthday reward, they asked when my birthday was. I said it was today – so they all wished me a happy birthday. I enjoyed my drink at the Starbucks then headed back to the hotel – where I grabbed the DSLR camera and then went across the street to the State Capitol Rose Garden. Spent quite a bit of time taking various pictures of the flowers. Noticed that there started to be a large group of people gathering at a nearby gazebo. I found out that it was a Naturalization Ceremony. They were setting up a podium and handing out little American flags to the participants.
I dropped the camera off at the hotel, then decided to walk to the Old Town area of Sacramento. This area has some older ‘Western’ style buildings and cobblestone streets. It’s mostly just shops and restaurants and wasn’t overly busy for a Thursday morning.
On the way to Old Town, I had passed a Farmer’s Market, so on the way back I stopped and bought some almonds and pistachios. There were numerous different flavours, so I got some seas salt and pepper pistachios, applewood smoked almonds and orange and honey almonds. All three were quite tasty.
Randy worked until about 1:00pm, and then came back to the hotel to do lunch. Cafeteria 15L was right across the street, so we decided to just go there to eat. We shared some garlic truffle tater tots, and I had a (delicious) beet salad, while Randy had a fried chicken sandwich (which he said was average). With our tummies full, we hopped in the convertible and drove to Napa with the top down.
We met up with our friend Georgeann at her house and after settling in, we broke out some bubbly (Domaine Carneros wine) and sat around visiting until it was time to head for supper at Morimoto Napa. Since there were 3 of us, we decided to order a number of different dishes and share them. Georgeann recommended that I order the sashimi Caesar salad, as that was her favourite. So, we both ordered the salad. As Randy did not order the salad, we let him have more of the other shared dishes, which were:
- Spicy tuna roll
- California roll (with real crab meat, of course)
- Hamachi tacos
- Sticky ribs
- Pork gyoza – which was served with a bacon foam
- Some chilled sake
The entire meal was extremely tasty. The ribs were so tender they fell off the bone, the tacos were inspired, and the salad was as delicious as Georgeann had said it was. The tuna roll and California roll, however, were only average. They were good, but not amazing like the other dishes. Not that it stopped us from eating them, or anything!
After supper, it was back to the house, where we opened up another bottle of champagne before toddling off to bed.
Day 3
Spent a lazing morning hanging around the house before heading out to sample some of Napa’s delights. As it was close to noon, our first stop was V. Sattui winery to have lunch. This winery has an extensive deli and a large garden with picnic tables shaded by big oak trees. It had been closed to 20 years since I was last here, and I was happy to see that it was just as good as I remember.
As we were hungry, we headed straight to the deli and got some lunch fixings. We decided to share a roasted turkey panini, mustard shrimp, crab cakes and mushroom brie. We then took our basket of goodies and wandered over to the tasty room to find a wine to have with lunch. We were greeted by a nice lady who then found us a spot to do a tasting.
As we strolled up with our basket of food, our wine guide (Marc) correctly surmised that we just wanted to find a bottle of wine to go with our lunch. So, instead of charging us for a full wine tasting ($15) each, he just gave us some small tastings for free. We tried a Chardonnay and a Riesling. Both were good, but we ended up going with the Chardonnay. Marc gave us one chilled bottle to have with lunch, and one non-chilled to take home. We then paid for our purchases and went out into the garden to have our meal.
Even though it was a Friday, it was quite busy at the winery. We did manage to find a table and sat down to enjoy our purchases. It was a beautiful sunny day, so it was perfect for having delicious food and wine outside. Sufficiently sated, it was off to our next stop – the Napa Outlet Mall.
Our stop at the mall wasn’t very long, as we only checked out a couple of the shops. On a whim, I went into the Coach store, and ended up buying a jacket for 70% off. What a deal!
Then it was onwards to our final Napa stop – Domaine Carneros winery (my favourite). We sat out on the patio and had some lovely champagne and smoked salmon. Georgeann and I had ordered a glass of champagne each, but Randy didn’t order any as he was the designated driver. Georgeann asked our server if Randy could have a free ‘splash’ of the same champagne we were having. The server filled up Randy’s glass almost as full as our glasses. That was quite a splash! As he was driving, Randy didn’t want to drink the entire glass, so I selflessly offered to finish it for him. (it was a hardship, I know)
Sadly, we had to leave Napa behind and head to Georgeann’s house in Tiburon. We had a nice supper, then sat around visiting and enjoying the view of San Francisco Bay.
Day 4
Had a lazy morning, then went out for lunch at The Counter. This is a burger place where they build your burgers to order. We ended up sitting at the counter (fittingly) as there were no tables immediately available. The server explained the process to us. You are given a sheet where you check off the various options – what size of burger, what type of meat, the toppings and what type of bun. There is also an option to do a burger ‘bowl’ – where the burger is placed on a bed of greens. Randy went for a regular burger with grilled pineapple, while I did a turkey burger on a bed of mixed greens with brie and artichoke hearts. Both were very tasty.
After getting our burger fix, we did some shopping. Got some groceries to go with the steaks we were going to have for supper, and picked up some wine at BevMo. BevMo had a 5 cent wine sale, where if you bought one bottle, you got the second for 5 cents. Since we were leaving the next day, we couldn’t really splurge and buy a bunch of bottles (I can drink a fair share of wine, but not THAT much). So, we resisted the temptation and didn’t leave the store with a cart full of wine. Then it was back to our friends’ house to relax on the deck and enjoy the view.
Some other friends of ours – Rich and Alice – came over to the house to have grilled steaks for supper with several bottles of wine. I was having so much fun visiting with everyone that I managed to stay up to midnight (on previous nights, the intake of wine had made me sleepy much earlier in the evening). As I ended up drinking almost an entire bottle of wine myself, once I did go to bed, I fell asleep almost immediately.
Day 5
Because we like it so much, we had made a reservation to go back to Domaine Carneros on our way back to Sacramento. This time Georgeann’s husband Desmond was able to join us. I had another glass of champagne, and since Randy was driving, he just had a splash again. However, this time the waiter wasn’t as generous with the splash. Oh well. To tide us over on our journey to Sacramento, we also ordered a cheese plate to share amongst the four of us. It was delightful.
We dropped our friends off at their Napa house, then continued on to Sacramento. The journey was uneventful until we got into downtown Sacramento. Trying to get to the hotel, the street was closed. When looking on Google Maps, it was showing all sorts of streets around the Capitol building as being closed off. As the hotel was right in that area, we had a difficult time finding a way to actually get to the hotel. We tried a few different approaches, but kept coming across blocked streets. After going several streets out of the way and trying a different route, we were finally able to make it to the hotel. Supposedly there was a bike race that day, and that’s why the streets were all closed.
We went to the room and did some re-packing (as I was taking some stuff home for Randy), then headed out to the airport. We had originally planned to stop for a late lunch first, but trying to get to the hotel had eaten up a lot of time. We drove by one place called Chandos that Randy likes to eat at, but there was a line-up, so we decided to head straight to the airport – just in case there were any other traffic surprises.
There weren’t any issues getting to the airport, and no line-up to check in my bag. So, Randy and I split a panini sandwich at a restaurant outside of security and hung out until it was time to go to my gate.
It was a good thing that I had checked my roller bag, because the plane was full, and the overhead bins were stuffed. I had a backpack and a small camera bag, and had to keep both at my feet. The gal in the aisle seat of my row ended up having to gate check her bag as there just wasn’t any room (and it wasn’t that large of a bag).
Flew into Seattle and then had a couple of hours to kill until my next flight. Wandered around for a while, then had some extremely average teriyaki chicken for my supper. So, I just went to wait at the gate. I was joined by someone else who was on the same flight who had just flown in from Africa. She started talking to me, which I didn’t mind. However, she had a bit of an accent, and she talked in a really soft voice, so I could barely hear what she was saying. After I while, I just smiled and nodded and pretended to understand what she was saying.
Finally it was time for my flight back home. I had a window seat and was hoping that the aisle seat wasn’t taken – but no luck there. At the last minute a rather large gentleman sat in the seat. Because the seats are so narrow on a Dash-8, he spilled over into my seat, and I had to hug up against the window for the entire flight. So, not overly comfortable.
The plane arrived in Edmonton at midnight. I was tired. The plane arrived at the same time as a plane from Cancun and Chicago. But, since I have a NEXUS card, I was able to by-pass the customs line and head to the baggage carousel. If I had gate-checked my bag, I would’ve had to wait at the jetway for the bag to be brought up. Last time I did that, it took a long time for them to bring the bags up, and by the time I got through customs, the checked bags were already coming out. I was the only one from my flight that was waiting there. Apparently Alaska Air has some sort of guarantee that your checked bags will come out within 20 minutes or you can get a voucher for the price of your checked bag fee, or 2500 Alaska Air miles.
So, with bag in hand, I headed out of customs and went to get my car from the parking lot. The ride home was much more comfortable than the flights – especially when I turned on the heated seat and massage feature. Ahhh, now that’s better.