got home from the big road trip about an hour ago and it was a success! trip outline below:

friday

• drive to sf via the 5. road trip mcdonald’s!
• got to sf early, so headed straight to the union st. rugby store. i got a really cute sweater – fits like it was made for me, which is rare indeed – elaine got a hoodie and a great hoodie-dress, and clayton got new jeans and shirts and a hat.
• eric met us at the store, then we drove to dan’s office to park by way of super-windy lombard street.
• we picked up dan and emma, then all walked to north beach for italian. we ended up at è tutto qua, where we had an adorable waitress, delicious food and wine, and saw a fender bender happen in front of the bar across the street.
• we dropped emma and dan off at dan’s place, then went back to eric’s and played some wii.

saturday

• morning scones and coffee/tea.
• we all piled into eric’s car and drove to los cantaros for breakfast burritos. mmm chorizo burrito and horchata!
• drive to the mission – pick up dynamo donuts for the next day’s breakfast, and of course hit humphry slocombe for ice cream. this time i got secret breakfast (bourbon and corn flakes) and guiness irish soda bread. mmmmmmmmmmmmm!
• winchester mystery house! the drive to san jose was really pretty – very wooded and a few lakes/reservoirs. turns out the mystery house is right next door to the big century theatre dome complex where eric and i saw wallace & gromit way back when.
• the winchester mystery house was neat, but the tour guides were a bit lacking. the tours were very scripted and our first tour guide talked to fast and was so dryly un-funny that it sort of killed it. not even any real mention of how the house is supposedly haunted! oh well. it was still pretty cool, just not as creepy as we’d all hoped.
• elaine had the FANTASTIC idea to get barbecue for dinner, so we went to everett and jones in jack london square. the wait for our food was long, but when that big platter of ribs showed up and those corn muffins and greens and potato salad – it was worth the wait.
• back at eric’s, emma and dan were waiting for us. aaron came by a little later. we played pit (clayton destroyed us) and some wii, talked a lot – a pretty fantastic night. stayed up a bit too late though which was a bummer because…

sunday

• to make our hearst castle tour and have time to sightsee along big sur, we had to get up around 7am to hit the road at 8.
• we left behind the rainy bay area via the 880 and the 1, and eat our dynamo donuts while watching the landscape get more and more unbelievably gorgeous.
• after some hijinks involving a very slow-moving truck with a camper top, we pulled over at an overlook over a private beach to take photos. beautiful. the water was that light jewel turquoise that you usually see in the caribbean. we immediately started planning a beach camping trip for this summer.
• the slow truck delayed us a bit, so opted to eat after our tours and just go straight to hearst castle. it worked out great – instead of our scheduled 2pm tour we got on the 1:10 tour. hearst castle is…AMAZING. it’s like a dream. the grounds, the rooms, the grandness of it all. we all want to go back and do the other tours. perhaps camping + hearst castle tours this summer? hmmm…
• lunch/dinner/lupper/dunch/whatever at el chorlito, the restaurant where eric and i had dinner when we drove up the coast and stayed in cambria in 2005 (photos). it was as cute as i’d remembered and the food hit the spot.
• we headed back down the 1 and my job was to stay awake to keep clayton awake and i failed miserably. poor clayton had to keep himself awake when the rest of us fell asleep. the drive was uneventful and we got home safely a bit after 9pm.

i’ve pretty much unpacked (i always unpack right away. i know.) now i’m catching up on the internets and rachel maddow and trying not to break down and eat the rest of those donuts. nothing big planned for the week, and i’m actually in LA this weekend – insane, right? perhaps i’ll actually have the energy to run this week or look for a bike my size. we’ll see.