California – Riveted

Whoa. That’s a lot of rain.

Laura Domela — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 22:27:33 +0000

Last night in Calistoga (after we got back from our lovely nighttime bike-to-the-market trip to stock up on some quality groceries) it started raining again pretty heavily. I woke up in the middle of the night because it was INSANELY loud and I opened the Accuweather app on my iPhone to see what it was doing out there, and it looked like this:

Yep, I'd say that matched perfectly what it sounded like on the aluminum. This morning our campsite was basically a lake and we had a bit of a soggy departure. The drive through St. Helena, Yountville, and Napa was pretty, like this:

The storm followed us ("Ruuuunnnn! It's coming!!!")

(Note: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.)

We're in San Jose now for some work and it's been raining pretty much nonstop. Good thing we're here for work and not fun. We'll try to have some of both!

Bodega Bay

Laura Domela — Sat, 22 Mar 2014 01:35:56 +0000

We really really love Bodega Bay. You know when you go somewhere and the place just resonates perfectly with you? For whatever reason…this place did that. The combination of all the hiking trails along the coastal bluffs, the funky Hitchcock history (The Birds!!!), the friends we met the first time we camped here (hi Sissy and Bob!), and the clam chowder at Spud Point Crab Company…it all just came together and we love it here every time we return.

We left…um…where did we camp last night? Oh yeah, a Walmart parking lot in Anderson, CA where we stopped right before midnight…just south of Redding. It sucked. Seriously. At about 2am (maybe that's when the Sonic there at the edge of the parking lot closed?) some douchebag in a big pickup parked one row over and four spots down from the three or four of us RVs there for the night, and then, with all his doors open, BLASTED Alice in Chains for about an hour (maybe it was 5 minutes…but I think it was an hour).

So anyway, we got to Bodega Bay around 2pm, got situated in our site here at Porto Bodega Marina, got our new bikes out and rode up to Bodega Head (testing out the Rohloff's low gears on that hill). The bikes are fantastic!

Here's mine:

Here's Kevin's:

Rockin', aren't they?

We stopped at Spud Point Crab Company on the way back to camp and picked up a couple bowls of clam chowder (second best only to Ox's chowder in Portland…I know, weird, but true) and a cooked crab to have for dinner later. Then, we headed over to say hi to our friends at Gourmet au Bay (a fabulous bayfront wine shop/wine bar, definitely go there if you're in the neighborhood and like wine and awesome people), had a glass of wine (and picked up the Nespresso pods they so nicely let us have delivered to their place, because we forgot to bring enough coffee on this trip, dur). A lovely evening.

Here's the perfect glass-of-wine-sipping view we had (with crazy Hitchcock birds!):

And here's sunset from our campsite:

Tomorrow our plan is to head down to Tomales Bay to pick up some fresh oysters, ride our bikes some more, then go back to Gourmet au Bay tomorrow evening to visit more with Sissy and Bob (and meet up with Airstreamer friends Leslie and Chris of Tin Can Tardis).

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

The Airstream is Clean and We’re Heading to California

Laura Domela — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:34:23 +0000

We washed the Airstream last weekend and in a couple days we'll head south to Eugene to pick up our new Bike Fridays, then continue on to Napa/Calistoga/San Jose for a couple weeks (work trip, mostly) where we'll start to break in our new leather Brooks saddles in our spare time (or more likely, they'll be breaking US in). In May we'll be taking these bikes to Italy and riding from Venice to Florence, along with some exploring in the Tuscan countryside. (I KNOW!!! Italy!! We'll tell you more about that in another post.)

Also, we just replaced all of the overhead cabinet acrylic sliding doors (annoyingly scratched up from stuff sliding around while towing over the past 4 years) for under $200 and they look fantastic. I'll take photos and tell you guys all about that in another post too. (Can you tell, this is gonna be a quick post?)

See you soon!

We Flew Ourselves to Disneyland

Laura Domela — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 00:44:30 +0000

We left Portland this morning and headed south in the Cirrus. Destination: Disneyland. I know, it's August. Whatever. We're taking our daughter and her daughter (who's 5!) for her first trip to Disneyland before she starts kindergarten. I grew up in Seal Beach, so we went ALL THE TIME and it's, well, you know…a very well-known theme park to me. It'll be so much fun to watch a little kid experience it all for the first time.

We landed for gas and leg stretching in Davis at the Yolo County Airport. We saw several rounds of skydivers landing while we were there:

Flight was about 4 hours total into Fullerton. Here we are over downtown Los Angeles:

I tried to find my old loft in these photos but it's a little too dense.

Catalina Island off the wing:

L.A. Harbor:

Belmont Shore. I used to live right there:

It was pretty cool that ATC routed us right over Seal Beach — the town where I grew up:

Look at those deserted freeways!! Must be Sunday:

We found a great little Mexican place near our hotel called Tatiana's Tamales (found on Yelp) and had some tamales, mole, tacos, etc. Fantastic!! Tomorrow morning we're hittin' the park. Wish us luck!