I left my heart in Napa

Day 1

Whenever someone asks me what my favorite part of the trip was, I hesitate to answer. There was not one "best part". There was a best city (San Fran), a best scenic view (Point Lobos State Reserve) but I can't pinpoint one best part. However, Napa comes to mind as one of the most beautiful places.

Our plane landed in Sacramento and we stepped out of the airport and underneath a clear blue sky. This was the beginning of ten straight days of uninterrupted blue sky. I think I have a skewed vision of California weather because of this trip, considering Napa had just had a rainy spell before we arrived. It was about an hour drive to Napa, and I could not stop staring out the window for the whole trip.  As we got closer to the Napa Valley, the landscape became more and more foreign to me.  The rolling hills seemed like they were going to swallow me up.  One minute, the road would be winding through these hills and the next moment we would be in a valley surrounded by a ring of mountains.  I could not figure out what was so different about these hills. I live in Pennsylvania, so I'm used to hills. I think the difference was that the hills that I'm used to are almost always covered in forest. So the trees kind of mask the slope of the land. The hills in the Napa Valley are like green humps that are just dotted by trees.

I had plans to find a cute place in Napa for lunch. Maybe a nice cafe and a salad with locally grown produce. But then we saw In-n-Out Burger. Frank's instincts took over and he swerved the rented Dodge into the fast food palace. I can't say I put up much of a fight. In-n-Out is only on the west coast and we had heard so much about it from friends who had been there. I won't go into detail about a burger, but let me say, best burger I have ever had.

We got into town a bit early so we could not check in yet. We checked out downtown Napa, drove around a bit and stopped in Oxbrow Market.We could not just walk by Kara's Cupcakes without getting something, so we both got mini-cupcakes even though we were feeling the effects from a burger-induced coma.

We checked in to the Inn next and were both a bit nervous. We had never been to a bed and breakfast before and didn't really know what to expect. We stayed at the Old World Inn, which is a famous B&B in Napa and was featured in Oprah magazine (so it had to be good right?) The owner showed us around the cute victorian house and showed us to our room, La Boheme. The room was beautiful and cozy (we had the smallest room because we're poor haha) and smelled like lavender. There were L'Occitane soaps in the bathroom (which of course I snatched up), a pull-chain toilet, clawfoot tub, etc.

We planned to go out to a nice dinner that night, but as soon as I sat down on the bed, extreme exhaustion hit me. We're talking about the kind of exhaustion where you start crying for no reason because your THAT tired. So it was a gorgeous afternoon in Napa, we were at a fancy B&B and we ended up watching trashy talk shows and napping away the rest of the day. We had been traveling since 4 am and we were three hours jet-lagged. I woke up for dinner but wasn't even hungry. I could not justify spending a lot of money on a fancy dinner out when I wasn't even hungry. So we went out, I got a smoothie from Starbucks, Frank got some beef jerky from Target and we called it a night. We went back to the Inn to find a tray of gourmet chocolate desserts and some wine set out in the dining room. Game on.

We spent the rest of the night eating chocolate (ok that was just me) and drinking wine in bed. Of course I had to set up the tripod to capture it.

We both promptly fell asleep before 10 pm, which would happen almost every night of our trip.

Pacific Coast Party!

I have a lot of stuff going on right now, and luckily it's all good stuff!

Remember the post from two days ago, when I was talking about needing to be more positive, especially about my career? Well somehow, in those three days I managed to land three new writing projects! These are my first paid, commercial gigs. I've had commercial gigs before, which were unpaid because I did them as a favor in order to build my portfolio. And of course I get paid for writing, but that stuff has been local magazines and online content writing. But I knew that some of the higher paying gigs were available offline, aka in the REAL WORLD. Contacting these marketing agencies, sending them my resume and writing samples was a pretty big leap for me. I stepped away from the world of low-paying, but consistent online writing jobs. I feel a lot more accomplished now that I'm working with REAL people in REAL offices. Its nice to get out of the house and coffee shops once in a while, and feel like part of the working world. Plus the people at the small marketing and ad firms that I met with have been great. I love to surround myself with creative and enthusiastic people. It is also a huge relief to take a small break from LOOKING for work and to actually be doing what I love: writing.

Now that news was exciting, but what I'm really excited about is the fact that I'm leaving on Friday for a ten day trip to California! This is huge for me, as I have never been west of Indiana. I'm definitely an East Coast girl. I'm a bit afraid that once I get to the west coast, I won't want to leave. But then again, they don't have this guy west of the Mississippi:

Yeah, I think I'll come back for him.

We are flying into Sacramento, then driving to Napa, (where we will be checking into our bed and breakfast (here's the link so you can drool over it). It was on Oprah, so it has to be spectacular, right? )
Day 2 is  a second day in Napa, touring the wineries
Day 3 and 4 are in San Francisco
Day 5 is Monterey and Carmel, plus another bed and breakfast
Day 6 Driving through Big Sur and spending the night at Pismo Beach
Day 7 Driving to LA and stopping at places on the way like Solvang, Santa Barbara, Malibu
Day 8 Spending a second day in LA, the driving to San Diego hotel in the evening
Day 9 A full day in San Diego, hopefully spending the majority of the time poolside, because we will be exhaused at that point
Day 10 back home

I am beyond excited for this. It will be amazing to spend ten days with my love, not thinking about work or his school or bills or anything else. Just driving the beautiful coast, seeing the pacific, exploring new cities, eating amazing food and drinking wine.

I asked my husband last night, "Are you ready to spend ten days with me, 24 hours a day?" The thought scares me a bit, but i'm sure we'll be ok. It will be strange though, not hanging out with another person beside each other. It will be a lot of "quality time" ha. Although we do have a friend in LA that we might hook up with.

My goal is to try to blog once a day if possible, just so I can remember what I did each day. If I don't have time though, I'm not going to feel pressured.