Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

All's Fair for Wine Tasting in Fair Play

I kid my sister for moving to a hick town near Sacramento -- although in the last decade, her Sierra foothills suburb has become a lot more upscale than the one I occupy in the San Fernando Valley.

I kid her anyway. I am, after all, a resident of Los Angeles and therefore, a sophisticate (before you protest, please note the tongue placed firmly in my cheek.)

The majority of the population of her town are conservative white people, both politically and culturally, and it's still just a tiny bastion of civilization in the middle of farmland. (Look - tongue still in cheek.)

But there are some advantages to living in the agriculture capital of California: a lot of those farms are planted with one of our state's most popular crops -- GRAPES.

My sister's home is just a one or two hour drive to some of the best wine regions in the world: Napa and Sonoma, and we often try to squeeze a tasting trip into our holiday visits up there. So I was enthusiastic when Linda suggested it over Thanksgiving weekend, pointing out that Friday was my husband's birthday -- and that it would also be her first opportunity to engage in this little family tradition with her eldest daughter, who had turned 21 a couple of weeks ago.

But with the current state of the economy, Linda suggested we skip Napa and Sonoma this time around, as the tasting rooms there charge as much as $10 (or more!) to sample their offerings. She thought we might enjoy checking out one of the newer wine regions in the area: El Dorado County.

El Dorado County is located to the east of Sacramento and stretches out to Lake Tahoe (as do some of the adjacent state counties). It boasts some of the oldest vineyards in the state and is home to 50 wineries in two different appellations: El Dorado County and Fair Play.

Our visit was to the latter, which had been an appellation only since 2001. As it turns out, my sister has wine club memberships there ("Gives me an excuse to go every quarter to pick up my wine," she says) and there were some bottles waiting for them. 

There are around 20 boutique (mostly family-owned) wineries in Fair Play, and as we did not arrive there until after noon, I think we fared really well by hitting five of them (that's 20% of the total in just four hours!)

Our first stop was the winery at Toogood Estate. Owner Paul Toogood (yes, that's his real name) was a successful veterinarian with a passion for wine. He started building his winery by excavating a huge cave and put the entire operation inside, including the tasting room and a unique Flintstone-style dining room. You enter the winery through a corridor lined with oaken barrels of aging wine (which were merrily decorated for the holidays with cheery Christmas lights).

This is one of the wine clubs my sister belongs to, and she had arranged for our use of the dining area. As long as we were there, we uncorked one of her wine club bottles and enjoyed it with our picnic lunch.

The tasting room at Toogood was packed that day. There must have been close to a hundred people crammed next to the wine bar, all enjoying wine with names like Foreplay, Red Mutt and Who's Your Daddy? I have to hand it to them - they have a great sense of style and humor. I just wish their wine was as much fun as their winery. The ones we sampled were not "too good" -- just OK. We did not buy any bottles to take home.

The next stop was more promising. Shadow Ranch Winery is a gem, in a restored homestead built in 1888 (on one of the state's original land grants). The young owner, Sam Patterson, comes from a winemaking family. Like many vintners in the area, he has a degree in Enology and Viticulture from UC Davis (as well as a degree in business).

Sam is assisted n the tasting room by his sister (drat! I didn't get her name!). Both originally hail from Chatsworth (here in the San Fernando Valley), and we had a lively discussion about how different it is down here.

But as pleasant as it is to hang out with the Pattersons, the real joy is the taste of their wines. Sam is good at what he does. I especially liked the Shadow Ranch Zinfandel -- which is weird, because I'm not usually a big fan of Zins. Sam explained the process he uses that results in fewer tannins in the fruit.

I wish I could remember what that was; by this time I was a little snockered. I had been pretty free about using the spill bucket over at Toogood - but I didn't want to waste a drop of the wines served at Shadow Ranch.

Unfortunately, the winery's website is being overhauled so as of this post, there isn't a lot of information there. I did find an article about them at California Wine Magazine -- and you can email Sam about the Shadow Ranch wine club at wineclub@shadowranchwinery.com.

We hit three more wineries that day: Single Leaf, Oakstone and Iverson -- where we spent a long time chatting with friendly owners Mike and Melodie Iverson, the hospitable tasting room hosts. The Iverson wines were really easy to drink - and Mike was happy to pour us a sample of everything he had (including vintages that were NOT on the tasting menu - yeah, we bought a few of those).

Tasting in Fair Play reminded me of our first forays into this activity -- before it became big business. The wineries were small and the owners themselves poured the wine in the tasting rooms. We didn't have to pay for the privilege of tasting, which left us more cash we could use to buy wines to take home.

It's true that the wine in Fair Play is not as fine as the product they serve in Napa and Sonoma... but it's also a lot more affordable, and you're bringing home vintages that you can drink every day. And ultimately, that makes it a lot more fun.

Sushi and the Single Girl

Many of you already know that I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter, especially between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00, when I am usually parked across the street from my daughter's school. Texting my "Twitter Peeps" over the phone makes that time go by quickly... and you never know what you'll find out.

Like last week, when Busy Mom announced that she had never tasted sushi. NEVER. As in, "not ever."

I told her that I found this mind boggling. I had heard rumors that sushi was not so prevalent in other parts of the country, but out here, it's everywhere. All the supermarket chains devote deli space to the stuff (and most have chefs behind the counter, making it fresh all day). All the food court malls have a sushi option, and it's common here to see little kids bellied up to the sushi bar with their parents.

As it turns out, Busy Mom's turn-off isn't so much that the fish is raw, but that it's fish. She doesn't eat seafood, and I can relate to that, because I have suffered from allergies since childhood. Sometimes (as in the case of white fish like cod, sole and halibut) my reaction is somewhat mild: tingling and/or swelling of my tongue and lips. But there was one time I ate something and I thought I was going to die.

The occasion was a visit to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I didn't think it would do too much harm to sample one of the little shrimp cocktails they sell in the stalls there. Huge mistake. My heart began to race and I felt like I couldn't breathe, and it lasted for a good long time.

Epi pens? I'd never heard of them. They may not have been invented yet. This was over 30 years ago, and needless to say, I have not had a bite of shrimp since.

So when sushi first became popular in SoCal, I kept my distance. The closest I came was buying a refrigerator magnet that looked like a miniature plate of the stuff. It was pretty.

At the time, the only fish I was certain I could consume without problems was tuna, and I wasn't about to try it raw. However, as a single gal living alone in the early '80's, keeping out of sushi bars was starting to impact my social life. The kicker was the day I interviewed Bay Area rocker Greg Kihn (who was promoting his hit, "The Break-Up Song." Yes, that's how long ago this was).

I guess I should mention now that my first job out of college was really cool: I worked for a radio syndicator, where I wrote and (eventually) produced a weekly Top 30 countdown show. It didn't pay well, but I got perks in the form of free records, concerts, and the opportunity to chat with about half the people who made the Billboard Hot 100 between 1980 and 1983.

The problem was, even though I had a cool job, I wasn't anythng close to cool: I've always been the same geeky person you know today -- only worse, because I was young, naive, a total fan -- and self-aware enough to know it. As much as I tried to project the image of a young hipster, it didn't work.

I'm pretty sure some of the artists I interviewed tried to flirt with me, but I was too stupid to recognize it. Instead, I focused on trying to be "professional," and the next day, while transcribing my tape, I would wonder why the guy I was talking to had suddenly started telling me how his wife or girlfriend didn't understand him (as if I was a therapist).

I don't think that was the case with Greg Kihn, but I definitely think he had become bored with the interview, because about halfway through my questions, he cut the session short.

"My friends and I are going out for sushi. Do you want to come?"

"No thank you," I replied automatically. "I'm allergic to fish."

D'oh! The interview was over, I only had about half the material I needed for my show, and I'd missed an opportunity that might have been fun (or at least given me a better anecdote to relate to you now that I'm middle-aged and terminally uncool).

But it was a catalyst. At the time, I lived in an apartment in Studio City, just a short walk from Ventura Boulevard. Today, people think of that part of town as "Sushi Row," because that stretch of the Boulevard is home to at least one sushi joint per block. In 1981, there were about a half dozen places to choose from, and so one night, I went into one of them and sat myself down at the bar.

"I'm allergic to fish," I told the sushi chef. "What can I have?"

He thought for a minute and then got creative. He made me a hand roll out of rice, cucumber, pickled burdock and grilled chicken, and it was delicious. I also sampled his cucumber roll, futomaki and tamago (which is a kind of sweet egg omelet, traditionally ordered at the end of a sushi meal).

I decided I sitting at the sushi bar. For one thing, eating Lean Cuisine alone in my apartment had gotten old. I had taken to eating alone in restaurants a couple of nights a week, so I could take in the energy of being among people -- and dining solo at the sushi bar was a lot less awkward than getting a table for one.

I returned a few more times to the same restaurant before I felt comfortable enough to suggest going there together with some friends. That's when I learned that if you buy your sushi chef a drink, he will often reward you with a langniappe - a little something extra, at no charge. With the first drink, we got some edamame (boiled soybeans - yummy!) ... the second drink brought us some tsunemono (a salad of pickled vegetables, often with some seafood, which I picked out and gave to my friends)...

Of course, every time we bought the chef a drink, we'd ordered another round for ourselves. So by the time the waitress brought me my third hot sake, I was feeling pretty good (inhibitions? What inhibitions?). And so when the chef rewarded our third drink with a gift of baby squid, I said "what the hell?" And I ate them.

And a funny thing happened: nothing. I discovered that night that I'm not allergic to squid. I also sampled a friend's California roll and found out that I'm not allergic to crab. Over time, I learned that raw tuna (especially in spicy tuna rolls) tastes WAY better than Starkist, and that I like yellowtail and salmon, too. I am still, however, allergic to all kinds of white fish, and keep the hell away from shrimp and lobster. I'm certain I am avoiding foods that I could consume without harm, but the memory of that long ago shrimp cocktail keeps me from being too adventurous -- I mean, why take that risk?

By the time I met the man I eventually married, sushi (which is low in fat and high in protein) had become my favorite cuisine. So of course, I suggested it for our first date. I learned later that he only went along with it to impress me. Like Busy Mom, he wasn't that in to the seafood, and the thought of eating it raw disgusted him.

But eventually, he learned to like the stuff. Love it, actually. In the years before our daughter was born, we frequented Teru Sushi so often (as much as three times per week) that we used to get invited to their customer appreciation parties. Alas, it is amazing what a baby and a mortgage do to your disposable income. Sometimes I wonder if all the weight I gained in the ensuing years was due to cutting all that sushi out of my diet.

Today, Japanese food is about the only cuisine the entire family can agree upon, and that includes my daughter who (I wonder why this keeps coming up?) won't eat seafood (even though she has grown up going to sushi bars with us). So I was confident when I told Busy Mom that I would be happy to introduce her to sushi (and sushi-type food) when we meet at BlogHer his summer -- that's because several years ago, the concierge at the Westin St. Francis directed us to a nice, casual Japanese place that's Megan-friendly and within walking distance. I figure Busy Mom can have some cucumber roll, futomaki, and grilled dishes like chicken yaki-tori.

And if she drinks enough sake, who knows? She just might be ready for adventure.

Holiday Open House at the Empire Mine

"The car won't start."

Those were the first words I heard when I woke up yesterday morning. My husband had planned to run off early to the nearest Starbucks to get some work done before everyone else was up. Instead, he had to wait for AAA to tow him to the nearest mechanic to replace his battery. Of course, the mechanic found other things to fix. Four hours and $700 later, we were ready to start our day.

But what to do? We had floated around the idea of visiting the Sacramento Delta area, but we had hoped for an early start so we could do it right.

Then we remembered Empire Mine State Historic Park, out in Grass Valley, which offers a "Holiday Open House" each year on Thanksgiving weekend. We had stumbled upon it several years ago -- without the youngest kids, and we've always wanted to return with them.

Of course, our two middle school girls are now too old to care about seeing Santa and Mrs. Claus in the old Clubhouse. But everyone in the family is able to enjoy the warm apple cider and cookies that docents in Victorian garb were handing out in the old cottage that was the home of the mine's original owner.

The park is on the grounds of California's largest gold mine, which was in operation for the first half of the 20th century. It is located up in the Sierra foothills, not far from the site where the gold rush began in 1849. There is still plenty of gold in them thar hills, but retrieving more of it became so cost prohibitive that the mine was closed in 1956.

The land was sold to the state and recreated as a park in the 1970's, but the mining company that had owned it retained the mineral rights, so if the price of gold ever gets to the point where it makes financial sense, the mine could start operating again.

This park has something for everyone in our family. My sister and I enjoy the beautiful buildings, the forested grounds and the landscaped gardens of the property. 

My geologist husband and the kids all enjoy touring what's left of the mine, which includes a short jaunt into the shaft. It was cold up there, so Linda and I wisely stayed behind in the gift shop to do some Chanukah browsing. They had several beautiful (and reasonably priced) items for sale, including some gorgeously preserved fossils, onyx keepsake boxes and gold flake samples.

(My sister and brother-in-law have been complaining about all the family members who are sitting here on their laptops instead of socializing, so I have to cut this post short. I will add some photos to this post, soon.)

Are You Celebrating Your 20th Wedding Anniversary?

I received the following comment from a lady who works for the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, and if you were married in 1987 or 1988, you could win a second honeymoon in one of the most romantic cities in the U.S.:

I'm not sure if it applies to you or your friends, but we're trying to get the word out about the search for one lucky couple who could win a second honeymoon at the Hotel Nikko San Francisco. The hotel, which is right in downtown San Fran, is conducting a nationwide search for a couple that had their wedding, reception or honeymoon at their hotel 20 years ago (Oct. 1987-1988) during their first year open. It’s a way to celebrate the Hotel’s 20th Anniversary, as well as the couple's.

The only catch is that the couple must still be married, which is no small feat these days! The couple wins airfare for two, six nights in the honeymoon suite, breakfast everyday at the hotel, dinner at ANZU (the hotel’s fantastic Japanese fusion restaurant) and champagne. Here’s a link to the contest rules: http://hotelnikkosf.com/PDFs/CurrentSpecials.pdf. 

I certainly hope you’ll be interested in helping us search for the lucky couple!

I have never been to the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, but in my meeting planner days got to tour their Los Angeles property, and it was fabulous. I would enter the contest myself -- but as my husband and I didn't even meet until '89, we're not eligible. I would love it if someone who reads this blog wins the contest! (If you do, you have to let me know!)

Where to Stay in Monterey

Monterey is a town that thrives on tourism, so if you're planning a visit, you've got lots of choices: everything from the five-star opulence of world-famous resorts at Pebble Beach down to one-star motels.

Selecting one depends as much upon your vacation plans as it does your budget. Well, almost as much -- even though the Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that there are 300 hotels, motels and inns on the Monterey Peninsula, demand still exceeds supply... so it pays to shop around.

For a moment, let's pretend that money is no object and you're planning a weekend getaway to Monterey. What will you do there?

Are you a golfer? Then my mention of Pebble Beach above must have caught your eye, as it is Golf Digest's number one ranked golf resort in the United States. The Pebble Beach Resort boasts four golf courses, including two listed in Golf Digest's Top Ten.

The resort's hotels (The Lodge, The Inn at Spanish Bay and Casa Palermo) also offer world-class spas, tennis (their tennis club is ALSO top-ranked!), horseback riding, kayaking and swimming - both at the beach and heated pools. Fine dining and shopping are also on-site, which makes the resort a one-stop visit of its own. 

What will a weekend stay at this paradise cost you? The least expensive room at The Inn at Spanish Bay (which is the least expensive of the three hotels) goes for $535 a night (and this does not include golf course fees). Ocean views at any of the three go for upwards of $730 a night.

There are less expensive options for golfers who are willing to forego the luxury of the Pebble Beach resorts. Monterey a beautiful, woodsy Hyatt Regency just three miles from downtown. A weekend room there will run you $249 a night (a relative bargain compared with the Inn at Spanish Bay), and guests get a special rate at Pebble Beach's Del Monte golf course. The Hyatt also boasts its own tennis facility, swimming pool and T-Mobile wi-fi throughout the property.

As I'm not a golfer, I'm kind of partial to Monterey's downtown hotels. I can also personally vouch for their quality, having managed several meetings and conventions at the Monterey Conference Center in the early '90's. The great thing about a downtown location is that once you park your car, you never have to use it again (until it's time to leave).

Adjacent to the Monterey State Historic Park and Portola Plaza is the Portola Plaza Hotel. Across the street is the Monterey Marriott. These are both pretty standard chain-type hotels (the Portola Plaza was originally a Doubletree, now under new management). While you do get a high level of service and amenities, there isn't anything particularly special about the facility or the rooms. These properties do, however, offer you an enviable location where you can walk to all the sites I mentioned in my first Monterey post). These hotels offer comparable rates: $229 and $249 for the Portola Plaza.

If it's a romantic getaway you're after, you'll find plenty of ambiance one block away, at the Hotel Pacific. This all-suite Spanish-influenced garden style inn offers rooms with feather beds, fireplaces, french doors that lead to private patios, and little luxuries like a second TV in the bathroom. If you book online through their website, it will cost you $269 a night -- but when I checked this out at AAA, I found a rate of $209.

This brings me to the subject of hotel room rates in general, which are fluid and dependent upon factors like supply, demand and season. The rate today may be wildly different from the rate tomorrow. To research this post, I selected a weekend in October to check rates and availability. Sites like Hotels.com, Travelocity and Orbitz are good for helping you locate properties to stay in -- however, in most cases you will get a better deal when you book your room through the hotel's own website, especially if you belong to their frequent traveler program and have points to trade for a discounted room. Membership in the Automobile Club can help too (as in the example above), although the discount is not usually as substantial as the one I found at Hotel Pacific.

AAA is also good for giving you accurate ratings of the hotels you're booking -- I've found that the big travel websites don't always concur on the number of stars awarded a particular property.

If the purpose of your visit is to see the Monterey Bay Aquarium, you should check out the many hotels and motels that have sprung up around Cannery Row. The one I've always wanted to try is the elegant Monterey Plaza, with its beautiful dolphin fountain and dramatic views of the bay. Alas, this property's rates are in Pebble Beach territory, with ocean view rooms for the weekend in question starting at $410.

More affordable options are the three-star Best Western Victorian Inn ($210), and the two-star Cannery Row Inn ($169) and Otter Inn ($139).

Notice how the rate gets lower the fewer stars the property is awarded and the farther you are from the attraction you are visiting? I wanted to save more money on my recent Monterey visit, so opted to try one of the many motels located in the Carmel Hill area of Monterey. This is a hillside strip on Munras avenue, roughly two miles from the Aquarium that is home to over a dozen little motels of the Days Inn, Clarion and TraveLodge variety. Our choice was the Comfort Inn Carmel Hill, with a AAA rate of $129. Even though it was a no-frills kind of place (vending machines instead of a coffee shop, plastic cups in the bathroom instead of real glass), it was clean, it felt safe, it had a decent little pool, and offered free high-speed Internet and continental breakfast in the morning.

It was also located right next door to La Giostra, a pretty good little Italian restaurant and was just a block away from the Del Monte Shopping Center, which had more places to eat and a Whole Foods Market to boot.

If I was worried that my daughter would miss the amenities she's used to in more luxurious places, those fears were quickly rested. "I like the Comfort Inn," she said, as she grabbed the remote and sank into her very own comfortable queen bed. I did, too.

Next: Final Monterey post.

The Jewel in Monterey's Crown

For all its beauty and abundance of vacation activities (golf, tennis, beach stuff), the one attraction that makes Monterey a wonderful family destination is the world class Monterey Bay Aquarium. Now, those of us in SoCal are blessed to have not just one, but TWO terrific oceanic museums in our vicinity (the Cabrillo in San Pedro and Long Beach's Aquarium of the Pacific), plus Sea World in San Diego...

All of these facilities do a good job of enlightening, educating and entertaining our kids, and our family has visited them all within the last year. You would think that I, as a parent easily bored with the kid stuff, might tell my daughter I'd had enough. (If it was a zoo, I probably would!)

But Monterey's Aquarium is special. It is the one that the others are measured against -- and if I'd wondered why, those questions were erased at the very first exhibit we encountered on our visit this week: Sharks, Myths and Mystery.

Now, anyone who's ever watched the Discovery Channel knows that no one ever lost money by doing a feature on sharks, and every aquarium worth its salt water has a species or two or three to satisfy our fascination with them. However, Monterey's exhibit -- which features at least one kind of shark from just about every body of water in the world -- attempts to put our relationship with these fearsome fish into context.

From videos of Hawaiians telling the legend of the shark god and Pele through hula dance... to Amazonian shark masks... to Far Side shark cartoons and clips of Jaws and SNL's classic "land shark" sketch... the curators in Monterey have created a multi-faceted examination of the animals and why humans should care about them. There is even a family activity room within the exhibit for your youngest kids, where aquarium volunteers tell stories and supervise shark-related arts and crafts.

(If you are planning a visit, you need to hurry! This exhibit will close at 5:00 p.m. on Labor Day.)

But as terrific as this exhibit was, the next one we wandered into was even better. Jellies: Living Art was set up as a gallery, with gigantic "picture frames" set around the glass aquariums containing 16 different species of colorful, translucent, pulsating, mesmerizing jellyfish. And again, the curators reinforced the assertion of these creatures as living art by interspersing the fish with actual art -- like rows of lava lamps and the Dale Chihuly installation pictured above.

From there, we moved to the Outer Bay wing of the huge building, so we could view my favorite ocean creatures: the cuddly looking sea otters. The Aquarium has five of the playful mammals, all of whom were rescued and are kept because they are unable to survive in the wild.

We were fortunate to have reached the otters just as they were being fed - also, that we had been smart enough to show up early. I'm obviously not the only otter fan; every other time I've visited the Aquarium, I've not been able to push my way through the crowd to get a really good look at them -- this time, we did.

A centerpiece of the Aquarium is its 28-foot high kelp forest, with an amazing number of different fishes swimming about in a natural-seeming habitat. Be sure to check this out during one of the twice daily feedings, when a diving-suited marine biologist gives you the low-down on what you're viewing.

Kids will love all the different touch ponds - they will have an opportunity to feel the backs of rays, hold a shark's egg case, sea stars (they don't call 'em starfish any more!), sea cucumbers and more. Let your littlest kids out of their strollers to play in the Splash Zone - an interactive, Chuck E. Cheese type playing area that offers a joyful introduction to the biology of the sea.

SoCal Mom's Tips for Visiting with Your Kids

1. Purchase your tickets by phone before your visit. This is an extremely popular attraction, and the ticket line starts forming long before it opens. Why stand around waiting? Buy your tickets ahead of time. (I do recommend doing it by phone because Ticketweb's service charges are per ticket instead of a flat fee per order.)

The number is (800) 756-3737. Cost is $21.95 per adult and $12.95 for children ages 3-12 (under 3 is free).

You may also wish to consider an Aquarium membership for $100 (especially if you live close enough to visit more than once per year). This gives you, one adult guest and your children (or grandchildren) free admission for 365 days from purchase.

The extra money you pay for your membership helps the Aquarium staff continue their work as advocates for the marine life of the world's oceans.

2. Arrive early. The Aquarium opens at 10:00 a.m. Be there then. By noon, it will be PACKED.

They estimate that a typical visit runs for three hours. I can vouch that even in that time, you won't see everything, especially if you stay for the many different videos and demonstrations they hold during the course of a day.

You may also be interested in an add-on activity (for an extra fee): These range from a pre-opening visit to help feed the critters, surface scuba diving in the tanks, a science expedition on the Aquarium's sailboat or a sunset cruise.

3. Bring snacks. I don't have to tell you that one, do I? There are places to eat at the Aquarium, and lots of touristy lunch spots on Cannery Row (you can get your hand stamped for a later return). So you have options.

4. Bring a change of clothes for the kids. I cannot tell you how many times I forgot to pay attention as my husband "watched" our daughter play in the touch pools... and then had to BUY an expensive souvenir  t-shirt because she got herself SOAKED.

Tomorrow: Where to stay in Monterey.

On the Road Again

There are several different north-south conduits in California: (1) the dreaded Highway 5 and slightly easier 99, which take you quickly through the Central Valley, (2) scenic Highway 1, which hugs the coast, and (3) historic Highway 101 (El Camino Real), which roughly follows the trails of the Spanish Missions.

When I decided I would drive to BlogHer, I was determined to take one of the coastal routes back home. We don't do this often, as both routes definitely add several hours to the trip. This is one of the reasons why I decided we would include an overnight stop in Monterey.

The other reason? Monterey happens to be my favorite town in all of California. It's charming, it's small enough that you can park your car downtown and walk to just about all the places on your sightseeing list, it boasts some great restaurants and luxury hotels... and there's plenty to keep the kids interested.

"Are we going to go to the Aquarium?" my daughter asked hopefully. It's been four years since our last visit and I was happy that she had such good memories of the place. I added another night to our hotel reservation so we could visit and not feel rushed.

Monterey is a fairly easy drive from both San Francisco (about two hours) and San Jose (roughly an hour and a half). As our starting point was the latter, and I still wanted to see some redwoods, we took Highway 17 up through the hills to Santa Cruz, before heading back south through the artichoke fields in Castroville, the picturesque dunes of Sand City and on to our destination.

(You may also fly in to Monterey Airport, which is how I used to get there on business oh, so many years ago. It's possible that it's expanded since 1998 -- but back then, all direct flights from LAX were on small commuter prop-planes. My first visit was memorable for the beauty of the approach - we came in low over the bay and I could see the foam on the white-capped waves. It was smooth and pleasant. My second visit -- in the winter -- was memorable for the wind, rain, turbulence and my fear that the flight would be my last ever. From that point on, I booked flights that stopped in San Francisco first - for some reason, those were nice, big 737's.)

By the time we located and checked into our hotel, it was 4:00 p.m. With the summer sun setting around 8:00, there was still plenty of time to explore. We headed to the bay and parked near Monterey State Historic Park, which sits on a wide plaza adjacent to the downtown business district. The city was California's capital under the flags of three different countries (Spain, Mexico and the United States) and here you can view 10 historic buildings that have survived earthquakes and economics to give us a window of what California life was like.

You can walk from the plaza all the way down to Cannery Row, the same area made famous in the comic novel by John Steinbeck. (In fact, the creators of the world famous Aquarium were greatly influenced by the work of real-life marine biologist Edward Ricketts, a friend of Steinbeck and said to be the basis for the character of "Doc." Ricketts' lab was located right next door to the defunct Hovden cannery that the Aquarium replaced.) There are also wide bicycle paths and plenty of bikes to rent for people like me who never think to bring one.

Instead, we decided to visit Old Fisherman's Wharf, once the headquarters for Chinese traders and Italian fishermen -- now, a fun magnet for tourists with its kitschy souvenir shops, purveyors of fresh salt-water taffy, and pretty good restaurants (featuring all kinds of seafood). The Wharf is also home to several fishing and whale watching tours. We were too late to take one of these (they typically go on for three hours) -- but we did purchase tickets for a 20-minute bay cruise in a glass-bottomed boat. This is actually a better bet for families with young children - the ride is mild (less chance of sea sickness) and ideal for little people with short attention spans. Cost: $10 for adults, $8 for children

While we didn't see too much under the ship (some kelp beds, an occasional sea star), getting out into the bay gives you a great view of sea lions, sea birds, and my favorite: the cute, furry sea otters, who wrap themselves in sea weed and float on their backs. We got to see a couple of these in the distance and it's always a thrill.

Tomorrow: Our visit to the Aquarium.

William Shatner was Right

I made my BlogHer reservations back in January, before I had a clue what my actual plans would be -- so I put myself down for a long stay at the Hyatt: from Wednesday through Monday, knowing that when it got closer to the event, I would be able to fine tune the reservation without penalty.

So a couple of weeks ago, that's exactly what I did. At the time, there were no plans for a pre-conference meeting (besides, if that occurred, it would be on Thursday afternoon, so why pay for an extra night?). I also started focusing this blog on travel -- so why not come in a day later so I could make a pit stop in San Francisco?

I love San Francisco. The hills, the buildings, the food, the shopping -- what's there not to like? It is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen, and it kills me to come up to Northern California and not pay it a visit.

The problem is, I'm not alone. EVERYBODY loves San Francisco, including the folks who book meetings and conferences for corporate America. It is one of the most popular convention destinations in the country. Hotel room prices are set by supply and demand, and when the economy is good, business travel keeps demand (and costs) high. So, as I went snooping around for a hotel room, I discovered that it could cost me $250 t0 $350 a night to stay in my favorite places.

So I decided to do something I've always wondered about but never had the guts to try: Priceline.com, the site that promises you can set your own price for all kinds of travel. It sounds simple enough: hotels have rooms they can't sell and rather than let the inventory sit there and go to waste, you can bid on those rooms, and if they accept your offer, you pay -- in full, sight unseen. That's the part that has always scared me -- how do I know I'm going to get a hotel I'd WANT to stay in? One that's clean, safe, and preferably, is a touch luxurious?

When I logged into Priceline, I discovered that you do get to specify approximate areas in the city you're staying in, as well as its star rating. So I put in a really low-ball offer of $75 for a four-star hotel room in  the Union Square area of San Francisco. Priceline came up with bupkis. This was good, as you're not on the line to pay for something that doesn't exist.

So I widened my search to include Fisherman's Wharf and the Embarcadero. Nada. I lowered my expectations to three-stars. Priceline still came up with nothing. OK, $75 is kind of ridiculous. I raised my bid to $100 -- I definitely didn't want to pay more than $100. But Priceline still couldn't come up with a room that low.

Finally, I widened my search again to include the area around San Francisco airport, which is a good 30 minute drive out of the downtown area. NOW, Priceline came up with something -- the Sheraton. I knew the Sheraton chain would ensure a modicum of standards, so I was semi-happy with this choice. I decided I could always go to the city, park the car somewhere and then settle into the hotel. Or I could explore the Peninsula, the area south of the city that includes tony little towns like San Mateo, and Palo Alto.

I also wouldn't have to pay to park my car overnight in the city: $50 when we stayed last year.

I decided I was happy with my choice.

I was even happier when I checked in this afternoon and discovered that (a) the hotel was fully booked and (b) the going rate for a room was $210. So I definitely saved money.

The one problem is, Priceline doesn't guarantee you the TYPE of room you will be getting, and all the hotel had left for their customers was smoking rooms (and I don't smoke). The front desk clerk gave me a non-smoking room anyway.

If you are using Priceline, you will also discover that hotel stays you book through them will not give you points in your frequent traveler programs, so the $100 I paid at the Sheraton will not show up on my Starwood Preferred Guest account. However, any incidentals I purchase at the hotel will -- so if you book a hotel at one of your favorite chains through Priceline, DO give them your account number at checkin.

More on Napa

While fact checking yesterday's post, I came across the following contest sponsored by the Napa Valley Chamber of Commerce:

NAPA CONTEST TO WIN TWO NIGHT STAY IN NAPA

http://www.napachamber.com/survey.html

• Experience the rustic charm and beauty of California's Napa Wine Country from the luxurious comfort of the Napa Valley Marriott Hotel & Spa…exceptionally accommodating for business and meetings, and perfectly located for leisurely exploring. Enjoy a 2-night stay.
• Pampering spa treatment at the Napa Valley Marriott’s Amadeus Spa.
• Dinner for two at a Napa Downtown restaurant
• Twosome of golf w/cart at the challenging Napa Golf Course at Kennedy Park.
• Taste Napa Downtown card that is presented to any of the ten downtown Napa tasting rooms and is good for a ten cent wine tasting, plus additional discounts, ranging from free admission to COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, 10% off on all wine and wine related products, free cookbooks, discounted membership into wine clubs and more.

Entry deadline is July 31. Go for it!

Taking a Napa*

* With apologies to Michael Patrick King for stealing his pun.

We spent Independence Day up in Sacramento -- as we do every year.

With the 4th falling on a Tuesday, our stay up there was longer than usual. With all that extra time, I was wondering if there was something we could do to make this year's visit a little more interesting.

"Do you think my sister would want to take a day to go wine tasting while we're up there?" I asked my husband.

That was a silly question.

If you like wine -- even a little -- there's no better way to spend an afternoon than sampling the wares of local wineries. I know a lot of people who are shy about doing this, because they don't feel they are knowledgeable enough -- and the wine snobs and foodies they know make it worse. But there's no better way to learn about wine than to go directly to the source. And here's a little secret: There's no right or wrong here. The best wine to buy is the one YOU like. You won't know what that is until you try a few varieties and can pick out the qualities you enjoy the most. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it :)

However, this is not a pasttime that your kids will enjoy, and as our daughter has gotten older, we've found it more difficult to indulge ourselves this way. We used to dress it up as an excuse to have a picnic (many wineries include picnic table setups where you can enjoy a basket lunch with a bottle you purchase there -- and the scenery is always gorgeous), but even then she gets bored with the actual tasting (and you cannot blame her). Fortunately, my oldest niece was perfectly happy to spend the day at home watching old movies on TV with her younger sister and cousin -- so we were in business.

Californians are blessed with eight different wine producing regions, stretching from San Diego County all the way up to Mendocino. There is even now a winery in Los Angeles County. No matter where you live in the state, it's possible to engage in this most intoxicating activity -- perhaps even as a day trip. This is what we had in mind up in Sacramento, which is about 90 minutes away from three different wine producing regions: Amador County, Sonoma County and the Napa Valley.

It had been several years since we visited Napa. This is partly because of the time factor -- it's rare that we can get away, even for a day, without our daughter. But a lot of it is the expense. Napa Valley is probably the best known of California's wine regions -- and it is also one of the most expensive. My sister swears that she finds wine that tastes just as good -- for half the price -- in less popular areas like the Lake Counties, and I believe her. But for sheer abundance, variety (and proximity to Sacramento), our choice was clear. After stopping off at the ATM for some much needed cash, we headed east on I-80 and turned onto CA 29 until we headed into the city of Napa, where we picked up a map at the Visitors Center, grabbed a quick lunch and plotted our day.

I would not suggest doing a wine tasting day trip like this unless you either (a) hire a limousine service to take you around (fun, but expensive!) or (b) have a designated driver. Fortunately, my brother-in-law Mark prefers that role, so we were set. Also -- most of the tasting rooms close by 4:00 p.m. each day, and by the time we were ready to start it was already 1:00. So we estimated we'd be able to hit three -- perhaps four -- wineries before it was time to head back home.

Fortunately, with over 200 different wineries in the Napa Valley, there isn't a lot of travel time between them all. We decided to explore the vineyards along the Silverado Trail, and pulled into the driveway of the first one we found: Andretti Winery.

"I wonder if it belongs to Mario," Mark joked.

It turns out that wasn't such a joke. A newspaper article posted on the wall tells the story of how Mario Andretti turned to winemaking -- as have several successful, very wealthy people -- and he has come up a winner. Out of all the wines we tasted that afternoon, there was only one we liked enough to buy: a bottle of Andretti Reserve Montona chardonnay. (Cost: $39)

There are two flights of wine to choose from, with different fees. The basic flight of four wines costs $8 per person. We opted to taste the more expensive reserve wines: three tastes for $12 per person. Regrettably, that does not include the price of a souvenir wine glass (the wineries we have visited in Southern California used to let you keep your glass -- don't know if that's changed). We paid an additional $4 each for the wine glasses.

We had a great time chatting with the friendly, knowledgeable woman behind the bar, who was enthusiastic about a couple of wines that weren't on the menu, and poured them for us anyway. Thanks to her, we felt we got our money's worth. Note to other wineries: she's probably the reason we actually bought something there. Talking with the winemakers is one of the reasons tasting is so much fun -- and we find we learn something new every time. This time, we learned that the vineyard doesn't get harvested all at once -- the grapes on one side of the hill ripen at a different rate than the ones farther down... so all the vines must be monitored and scheduled accordingly. I had no idea that part of the process was so complex!

One of the winery folks told us that the 4th of July weekend is their busiest of the year, which wasn't surprising after viewing all the traffic on the road that day. It was obvious a lot of other people had the same idea as us. It was standing room only at our next stop: Stags' Leap Wine Cellars. At least, I thought that's where I thought we went. I just went back onto this winery's website and discovered that their tasting room isn't open to the public without an appointment. I just went up and down the websites of all the wineries in the Stags' Leap appellation and cannot find one that looked like the one we visited then. So I'm stumped.

All I can tell you is that it was expensive, not friendly, and no availability of souvenir glassware. I'm wondering if they opened up because it was a busy weekend... or if we stumbled in and piggybacked on a group that was already there.  The wine was good, though, as you can tell from the looks on our faces in this photo taken outside the tasting room (wherever it was!)

Linda and Mark suggested the third winery on our tour: ZD, which they said stood for "Zero Defects." We learned later that although ZD has adopted that as their motto, it's actually the initials of the winery's founders, Gino Zepponi and Norman de Leuze. Today, de Leuze's children own and operate the company, and its wines have made their way to the table at state dinners at the White House.

The tasting room employees were friendly and interesting (like the lady we met at Andretti). As with the other wineries, we had a choice of two flights: the "Traditional" tasting menu cost $10 per person and the "Premiere" tasting is $15. And like Andretti, the folks behind the bar poured us a couple of extra tastes with our Premiere menu.

By now, we had been poured something like 12 1-oz glasses of wine. I try to pace myself by pouring out most of them after I've had my taste -- but I'd probably consumed the equivalent of two 4-oz glasses. We decided to conclude our visit with a little champagne -- er, I mean sparkling wine -- at the Mumm vineyard (which was on our way back).

Champagne has a particular cache for most of us, who associate it with festive occasions. As such, a lot of the wineries who produce methode champenoise products put a little more oomph into their tasting experience. At Mumm, you don't have to stand behind a boring old wine bar. Here, you are led to a proper table and given a bowl of nibbly bits and a menu offering your choice of different tasting flights -- or to order your wine by the glass. My husband, sister and I each asked for a different champagne to sample -- and all were excellent. (All were from Mumm's EXP line of sparkling wines -- which are NOT readily available in stores.) It was a fitting way to end a day in Napa.

See the rest of the photos we took that day here.