Coachella Valley-RV Adventure

January 20, 2019 by Mariah Leave a Comment

Our first “official” Airstream trip to test the Airstream out was to Emerald Desert RV Resort in Palm Desert.

I’m dubbing it our first “official” trip because the very first trip for the Airstream was to the Pala Casino RV Resort for 3 days as our first shake down trip.

The Pala Casino Resort was only 5 miles from the Airstream dealer in Temecula, we wanted to stay close in case of issues. Pala was really a very nice resort, but we only went to try out the Airstream. We did go to the buffet while we were there, but no other exploring.

So Palm Desert is really the second Airstream trip, but what I think of as the first actual trip.

We went the first round for 3 days in the beginning of December, had an issue with the Airstream batteries overheating, so we had to cut that trip short (it ended up being a bad battery). We then went back over the week of Christmas for our first “official, official” Airstream trip.

It was a great week, and the Emerald Desert RV Resort was a nice stay. It has a very nice pool, well maintained property, gym, and nice bathhouse. Also, if you have a dog they had an amazing, large run behind the storage area.

I didn’t capture too many picture of the resort. We lounged at the pool on Christmas Eve, but the rest of the week was pretty chilly weather-wise.

Eats + Drinks

Sandfish Sushi & Whiskey
Great food, good staff, small place. I would definitely recommend a reservation.

Mr. Lyons
We really enjoyed our Prime Rib. It’s a very old school vibe steakhouse. It was a pricey but nice dinner. Though fair warning their dirty martini was not very dirty.

Eureka! (Lunch)
The food was super impressive. I particularly liked the fried mac and cheese. Good beer selection too. Highly recommend for a nice sit down lunch. Maybe consider a reservation, it got busy quick.

Sherman’s Deli (Lunch)
A very popular Jewish deli, the sandwiches were spot quite good. I recommend calling in your order and just picking it up though (we ended up getting our’s to go to avoid the wait).

Cheeky’s
Yummy little brunch spot that has been on our list forever (but both our prior trips it has been closed). They have a bacon flight, good flavor but not wowed by it. Unique offerings we had a breakfast tamale and oxtail fried rice. Warning their “pickled” green beans, in the bloody mary is actually vodka soaked not pickled.

Lulu California Bistro
Super big space, and they take brunch reservations (yay). Good meal, good michelada even though it’s not listed on the menu (I spied it on another table).

Coachella Valley Brewing Company
Good beers, just check the abv they had some high ones.

Draughtsman
Super nice space, good beer list and cocktails. We did have the pimento cheese and that was good, but that was all we ate there, just drinks.

Hikes + The Great Outdoors

Joshua Tree!!

It’s amazing, such a different landscape. We did 3 different hikes in Joshua Tree (two the first round in early December and one December 26th).

Hi-View Nature Trail (1.3 Miles–Loop)

This was my least favorite of the three, I just didn’t feel like it had the same views as the other two, it’s on the edge of the park so you don’t have the weird rock formations that the other two hikes had. It’s listed as High view on the link, but in the joshua tree park hike list it’s listed as Hi-View.

Barker Dam (1.1 Miles–Loop/Flat)

Super easy hike, really it’s all very flat and wide trail, it’s more of a walk. You do in fact see the damn, lots of joshua trees and rocks to see. There are some other trails that you can take to make this longer but we stayed on the loop.

Ryan Mountain (3.3 miles total–Up and Down–1500ft elevation gain)

This one was intense because it was COLD and WINDY. Once we got to the top the wind was whipping making it crazy cold. The views were really nice, but this one was definitely a work out, but not too too challenging (and I’m out of shape).

Coachella Valley Preserve

McCallum Pond (2 Miles–Loop/Flat)

Super easy “hike” to see the palm oasis. Pretty cool to see the massive palm trees. Beware the water does smell and I’m sure in the summer months it’s much smellier. There are other more challenging trails in the same area as well.

I highly recommend a trip out towards Palm Springs/Palm Desert/Joshua Tree. We saw a TON of RVs on our trip in December, the particular park we stayed was filling up fast by the end of Christmas week so make a reservation.

We really liked staying more in the city and just driving up to Joshua Tree, rather than staying in the Joshua Tree area. This way we could take full advantage of eating and drinking (and taking a Lyft). It was about an hour drive to get into Joshua Tree from Emerald Desert.

Also near Emerald Desert was a Bristol Farms grocery store, which is really nice. Tons of prepared foods if you aren’t in the mood to cook but want to eat in. There are several other grocery store options near there as well (like Ralphs and Vons). Plenty of other stores to fit any needs too. On set-up/arrival day we went to Panera for an easy easy dinner on a long day (can’t beat broccoli and cheese soup). This might become a tradition.

You’re Going To Live In An RV!?!

January 13, 2019 by Mariah Leave a Comment

Yes, we are have decided to go totally outside the box of life (once again), give up a permanent residence and live in a RV for at least a year. How did this come about?

It’s really a short story for what feels like a big change in lifestyle and a huge shakeup of routine and everything we know.

In April of 2018, we went on a wonderful trip to Denver to see our friends. I could not have asked for a better trip, we dined, we brewered (wined is a word, maybe it should be we beered?) , we did all the things we love and it was great.

On the flight home I got to thinking about all the things we want to see or say, oh next time we should do this or that on a trip. P and I rarely get out of the city when we visit anywhere (because much of our favorite things are in cities) but we also enjoy hiking and seeing the views of unexplored (to us) places.

I believe life is what you make of it. While we enjoy a wonderful life, our normal daily routines could only allow us so many new experiences, so many new places to explore. There is only so much time and money to go to new places (or to go to old places to see old friends-#thestruggleisreal).

Driving cross-country definitely awakened a desire to see more of the American landscape. It was amazing to see all the changes in landscape as we drove from NC to CA. And since moving to CA we have tried to do more hiking and get out into nature.

P has always joked about living in an RV, and I was always like umm nope. I’ve never been a camping kind of girl. So while the idea may seemed left-field, it is something that had come up in short conversations.

The Saturday after our trip, after the idea struck me on the flight home. I mentioned to P, what if when our lease is up in 2019 we should figure out how to live on the road for a year. And that afternoon, we were out looking at RVs (no joke).

Now at least one year out of our lives will be constant adventure of new experiences.

For me, such a big change in routine is scary because I don’t know what to expect (and I’m a little bit of a control freak). BUT I’m also so driven by wanting to see and experience new things, and this is the ticket for that.

Of course a ton of research and negotiations happened between that first outing to look at RVs and when I’m writing this (and the research continues, this is a big learning experience for sure).

April idea announced, May we bought the truck, September the Airstream, and in March we hit the road.

Other factors in making this move is that we currently do not have any pets (having lost Eddie in January of 2018 and Sam the year before), our lease was ending and we had discussed maybe seeing if we could move to a new location (depending on P’s work), and the fact that P’s work agreed to him working remotely.

It just felt like the timing was right. I wanted to do it when I felt like we can really take advantage of the adventure; when we are physically able to explore and hike. If not now, when?

I’m not sure when (if) we reach retirement age that we will be able to explore so freely (plus none of us are guaranteed that anyway). We both have seen too many people say, “we will do that when we retire” and one or both don’t make it to retirement.

Are we incredibly lucky and privileged to be able to do this now? YES! But part of that is realizing that nothing changes unless you make the change, unless you ask if it’s doable and take the steps to make it happen.

Here are a few common questions about this whole adventure:

Are we getting rid of all our stuff? NO. It’s all going in storage, however we had already tagged quite a few big pieces to be replaced when we moved next so that cuts down on some of what we will store.

Are you working? YES. We are both still going to work full-time, and we aren’t traveling each week. Most places we will be staying a month to a few weeks so that we can enjoy the location and the travel won’t be disruptive to our work week. There was a lot of research that has went into how to make sure we stay connected on the road.

How can you afford it? Given what we pay in rent + car payment + utilities already, the budget for our monthly expenses living on the road is roughly the same (maybe a little less). Since we are not maintaining a house that big expense goes to the rv payment and rv park rentals. Plus see above, we are both working, it’s a new way of life not a vacation.

How will Philip brew beer? He won’t. He’s going to have to hang up his brewing hat for our life on the road. But if he’s lucky he gets to visit even more breweries than we have already. 😉

No matter what it will be an adventure. We might hate it and can’t wait for the year to be up (also by the way that’s a pretty arbitrary deadline set my me but I feel like we need to stick it out for a year). We might love it and make it two years (or more?!?) We might fall in love with a place we visit and never want to leave.

As I’ve said before and I’m sure I will continue saying, probably well into the trip I’m excited and nervous, and can’t wait to share the adventure! I guess I’ve really taken to heart “all the places you will go”.

Portland Oregon in January

July 16, 2016 by Mariah 8 Comments

Howdy, blogging friends!!! I thought I would pop back in and finally share my post on our trip to Portland Oregon this past January. We liked Portland so much we are actually going back this month! So needless to say we loved our trip in January. I’m actually so glad we went in January (the off-season), it was a lovely trip and I got Voodoo Doughnuts (original location) with NO wait ? The weather wasn’t too bad either, we actually had some sunshine, and overall it was not too cold. Of course the trip was ALL about the FOOD and BOOZE, like we seriously did not do anything else. We did stop by Powell’s books, which I fully intent to pay a longer visit to on our trip back and that was about it other than walking or riding to our next bar or meal.

FOOD

Dinner

Beast

My favorite first! Beast was AMAZING, I highly recommend it. Do the late seating (they only do two seatings a night) and get the wine pairing. The food was great and we enjoyed the overall experience. The seating is communal and you are all served at the same time, our table mates were so friendly and all around our age. There are no menu choices, other than drinks and you get six courses. I thought it was well worth the price. Pictures are in order of courses, the second being my favorite course, the foie gras truffle is in the far back with the square gel on top (so good).

Le Pigeon

This is considered a Portland foodie destination, and it was certainly good, but Beast won out if I had to choose just one. With that said we did have a very good meal. Le Pigeon went on the must-go-to list as soon as I read that they had Foie Gras profiteroles. We enjoyed the 5-course chef tasting menu, all our dishes were lovely and huge. I could never have made it through the 7-course. My favorite course was the first one, the scallop crudo. It’s a very small space, with communal tables, not exactly a relaxed fine dining experience, it’s a bit uncomfortable to get in and out of the tables. The profiteroles were good and unique but I would have liked a little more saltiness than sweetness. The foie gras truffle we had at Beast was better. I’m very happy we got to say we tried Le Pigeon and add it to our foodie passport.

Taylor Railworks

Some of the dishes were really good, some were pretty blah, continuing down to the dessert being just terrible. It’s hard to leave with a good perspective on the overall meal when the final dish is SO terrible. No flavor, the pear was undercooked, the whole dish was ill-conceived. If you don’t want to come up with a decent dessert than just offer cheese and be done with it. The scallops that started our meal were amazing, though. This is one of those places you can walk away with an amazing meal or a blah meal, just depending on what you choose to order. Pictured below the best dish and the worst dish.

Breakfast/Lunch/And In Between

Tasty N Sons

Just look at that biscuit sandwich and bloody marys, the picture says it all. In need of a cure for (maybe) overindulging the night before? This is your spot. We went for breakfast, but I’m sure their dinner would not disappoint.

Voodoo Doughnuts vs Blue Star Donut

The Portland donut/doughnut smack down. While I’ve wanted to try Voodoo Doughnuts FOREVER, I’m ruling in favor of Blue Star Donuts. I’ve been ruined by our neighborhood donut shop,Nomads and just prefer the less sticky sweet version of the yeasty breakfast bite. Again, glad I got to check Voodoo Doughnuts off my food bucket list, but it’s not on the revisit list. Blue Star Donut’s fancy flavor combinations won me over.

Blue Star

Voodoo Doughnuts

Olympic Provisions (Southeast)

Such a cool interior, and of course you can’t keep me away from any place that the central theme is cured meats. We stopped in for a later lunch, where neither one of us were all that hungry. So we opted for the cheese and meat plates, both great. The sandwiches looked amazing, and I wished we had more stomach space to try one.

Genie’s Cafe

This was a last minute change to the itinerary based on our Lyft driver’s suggestion. He won us over to change directions by his description of over 10 varieties of bloody marys. The food was good, in a laid back kitchen cafe vibe. I liked my bloody mary from Tasty N Son a bit more, but not bad and such variety!

Beer & Booze

I’m sharing my two favorites first.

Commons Brewery

Exceptionally done Belgian style beers and cheese, what more could you ask for. Oh and a big, open space, they still felt warm…perfection. I just HAD to order a cheese plate, even though we had dinner in less than 2 hours. I love cheese and cheese with good beer is hard to beat. Very friendly staff. This is on our revisit list!

Hamlet

A bar that serves only ham…how could we not go here?!? Very friendly, funny bartender, beautiful interior and one of the more memorable cocktails I’ve had. Trumper’s Revenge, house-infused horseradish vodka, mint and fresh carrot juice, OMG so good. This and the Dream Weaver (from Husk in Charleston) are two of my top cocktails ever. This is also on our revisit list!!

Baerlic Brewing Company

My favorite space award for a brewery goes to Baerlic, really cool, well designed, and well lit tasting room. The beer was good too, but I just really liked how bright and fresh their space felt. It’s tucked away in a neighborhood which only added to it’s cool factor (not that anywhere in Portland would try to be cool or anything).

Hair of the Dog Brewing

This is one of the original breweries of Portland, so we just had to go. I’ve never been a huge fan of their beer, but it was neat to visit their space and get to try a wider variety. We stopped here before walking over to Taylor Railworks for dinner. We had a little fun on the way while waiting on a train to pass.

Ex Novo Brewing Co

This was our very first stop for a bite and beer when we landed in Portland! It was a great choice, the food and beer were both great. Cool space to boot, that filled up quickly as people started to get off work.

Base Camp Brewing Co

A very open, warehouse style brewery. Cool space and nice variety of beer, I especially liked that one of my tasters came with a toasted marshmallow. We are actually staying in this neighborhood on our return trip this month.

Burnside Brewing Company

Home of a million beers. We got every single one of their beers as a taster (15 beers!). Not my favorite brewery of the trip, but very friendly staff and worth a stop in (just maybe stick to a few tasters at first to see how you like it).

Lodging/Transporation

We stayed at the River’s Edge Hotel. I would not recommend it, it’s a bit out of the way and the rooms were clean but not overly nice. We did the Priceline Name Your Own Price, and it was the one that was furthest away from downtown. We got a good deal so I don’t have too much to complain about, but if I was paying what the asking rate was I would have been disappointed. Really we didn’t mind the location too much because so many of our destinations were on the other side of the river anyway, and we would have been calling a car even if we were closer to downtown. Portland is fairly spread out and while they have public transportation (which we did use for some trips), it’s not that convenient/quick to get from neighborhood to neighborhood and requires a quite a bit of walking to get to stops. Lyft/Uber rides were readily available so no problem there, just be prepared to do some car rides unless you are only concentrating on downtown for your itinerary.

I’m looking forward to reporting back on our Portland adventure this month, hopefully, it will not take me 6 months to get it published ? We have decided to do AirBNB for this trip that way we can stay in more of a neighborhood area. I will let you know how that works out for us.

Finally Thoughts: I highly recommend visiting Portland in the off-season, our trip in January was awesome!

Have you been to Portland, Oregon? If so, what was your favorite stop?

Napa

December 10, 2015 by Mariah 18 Comments

Alternative titles…. “That Time We Drove 9 hours For Dinner”, “Other Things To Do In The Napa Valley Other Than Eat At The French Laundry”, “Last Minute Napa”

This was such a very last minute trip, I didn’t stress too much over getting the most out of Napa. We did not do our regular “how much can we fit in one day” itinerary like we do on many trips. We drove up on Thursday, and drove home on Saturday. Thursday night was our dinner at The French Laundry. We did not have much spare time between arriving and our 9:00 reservation. Friday was really the only day to worry about, and we just decided to see how the day went without too much of a plan.

We stayed our first night in Yountville, so that we could be within walking distance of the primary objective of the whole trip, TFL 🙂 I’m really glad we did, it was a beautiful walk up and back to the restaurant, and the town is very cute. We did have a bit of a issue with lodging. We were going to stay at the Napa Valley Railroad Inn, since it was the cheapest option, however upon checking-in (I mean letting ourselves into our room) we just couldn’t stay there. The room was dirty and gross (hair in the bathroom, holes in the wall, and a wrapper on the floor). The key to our room was hard to work as well and we did not want to come back at midnight to find we could not get in and no one there to help. However, to their credit they did refund our room. With a phone call to the help number we got confirmation they would refund our night and we checked into Villagio Inn & Spa, that is right beside the Railroad Inn. The cost difference was under $100 so it was 110% worth the hassle. I would not have been comfortable in the first hotel. The Villagio room was very clean, huge, but just a little dated looking. Plenty of space to relax in the room, including a little private courtyard (or balcony).

Yountville certainly is a sleepy kind of town, with very little in way of “nightlife” outside of dining. It seemed like most tasting rooms in the area were only open until 5. I think you would be hard pressed to figure out entertainment in the evening hours after dinner. I was glad we had already decided to stay the second night in Napa.

The next morning, we made a stop at our hotel’s buffet brunch, which looked quite nice, though we only sampled a few items as I wanted to go by Bouchon. We walked around Yountville enjoying the Fall colors and of course stopping by Bouchon…While we did sample the Bouchon bakery when we stayed at the Venetian in Vegas, I was not about to pass up a trip to the original. It was tasty and a lovely way to start the morning. It was super relaxing to sit out in the sun eating and feeding the birds pastry crumbs 🙂 Someone might have been scolding me about feeding the birds, and that someone might have knocked the below onto the ground and we got mobbed. That just MIGHT have happened.

After our snacks we walked back down to get pictures of the French Laundry farm. We checked-out of our hotel and headed to downtown Napa.

There we walked a little more around downtown before heading into the Oxbow Public Market.

The Oxbow Market is sort of like an upscale food court idea. Lots to browse, eat, and drink. Our first stop was at Hog Island Oyster Co, where we enjoyed some oysters on the half shell, baked oysters (SO SO GOOD), and a nice dry wine. We then walked around some of the shops, did a liquor tasting, bought some bitters, and settled outside with a cheese platter and wine. We used that time to find a nearby winery and booked a tasting.

We opted for the winery closest to our hotel. No research on the wine, based solely on location. The William Hill Estate Winery was beautiful, and very relaxing. The service was great and not rushed or stuffy. We should have stuck with their white wines, but we did a mix, two reds and one white. The reds were not that good in my opinion, but the white we tried was great. Still totally worth it for the view and experience. Plus as an unexpected bonus our tasting was buy one, get one, since we were staying at the Silverado Resort.

We then checked into our room, had a little nap, and opened a bottle of wine we had bought at the Oxbow Market. The room was small, but very nice and more updated in decor than the Villagio. Later we headed via Lyft to the Cadet Beer & Wine Bar. This place was so neat, and offered a nice selection of wine and beer. Great service here too…but no pictures. It was so dark and they just did not turn out. P and I both got a flight of wine, and I liked all of the wines served for the flight. It was a great stop.

We then headed to our dinner at Torc. This place got great reviews and we were super happy with our choice. All the dishes were well prepared and had great flavor. We had: Deviled Eggs, Foie Gras (Cooked), Risotto, Short Ribs, and Mac & Cheese. My least favorite was the risotto, it tasted great, and was well cooked, but they added cauliflower to it and it made for a super weird texture. I kept thinking I was getting clumps of uncooked rice. That was my only complaint with the meal. I was stuffed by the time our last course came, so much food! Given that I was stuffed, I was ready to be off to bed.

The next morning we went back to downtown Napa to have breakfast at the Napa General Store & Cafe, before heading back home. The breakfast was good, very solid meal, but not overly fancy. It was a good pick for a sit down but casual breakfast.

The Napa area is just beautiful, and I was so happy we got a little taste of Fall colors. I would certainly love to go back…but maybe not drive 🙂 It was a long, boring drive. We were also fairly traumatized by the amount of pollution you drive through in the Central Valley, and realizing most of what we eat is grown in that chemical bath. This was the worst smog I’ve ever seen, so thick and gross looking. This was also the most farms I’ve ever seen too, it was crazy just miles and miles of farm land.

For more to do in the Napa area, make sure to check out Lauren’s (Eat Drink & Be Lauren) posts on their visit!! They did a bit more planning than we did 🙂

Have you ever been to Napa? If so what is a can’t miss stop? Would you drive 9 hours for dinner?