- Friday I picked up Lisa at the airport and we walked Harbor Island. The cool thing was that it was the first day of the 44 footer sailboat races. Pretty cool near misses as they tacked up the wind. Had a late lunch at Tom Hams and tried a bottle of Ballast Points Yellowtail Pale Ale. We then headed up to Poway. For dinner, we headed over to Stone Brewery for beer and dinner. I had some Stone Old Guardian Belgo-Barley Wine 2011 which was actually easy to drink even though it had 11% or more alcohol. Enjoyed the orange ginger hummus, a nice salad, and the noodles.
- Saturday Lisa and I headed to Oceanside Pier. We had a quick Thai lunch and then headed over the Oceanside Art Museum. Cool photographs by Emogene Cunningham of closeups of flowers and plants. There was also a cool juried exihibit on quilting. The flowers below is really a 20 x 10 quilt!!! We then headed down to Carlsbad and took a walk on the beach. My favorite place to eat in Carlsbad is the Pizza Port. The store was jammed packed with bicycle riders after a hard days ride. The restaurant was jammed pack with little league players after their first game of the season. The Pirate coaches had a tough time understanding my comment that their team was probably better than mine!!! The plan was to make it to the beach for sunset but because of the crowd we just made it to the very end of the sunset.
- Sunday was a car trip on Dan's motorcycle roads to the Temecula Valley. We stopped off as he suggested at Julian. It really is a tourist destination with Apple Pies as the main draw. Lisa and I had a turkey sandwich and apple/boysenberry pie at Apple Alley Bakery. We also bought some pumpkin butter at Julian Cider Mill. Turns out that they have a few orchards but most of the apples come from Washington State. After a pit stop at the Stagecoach Inn, we found the wineries.
- Robert Renzoni was our first one. Being the first winery, it sure tasted good and at the end of the day we sure would go back but it wasn't our favorite. We did get to say hi to the owner as he and his family walked in as we were tasting our last wine. We got their spaghetti sauce and a bottle of Zinfandel for Dan. We also liked the Temparnillo grape from Spain.
- Leonesse was our favorite. The wine was great and the building, the blues band featuring guitarist Jim King, and the wine trail through the vineyards was fun. The wine was about the same price as Renzoni but noticably more enjoyable. We got a brochure for Dan and suggest that he joins the wine club for us as they won't let Pennsylvanians join. We liked all of it, the Meritage, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon.
- Weins was a place that Dan suggested. We got there and it wasn't too crowed. Our pourer was from McMurray but she wouldn't leave CA for anything now. Since we liked the big reds, she passed us on to someone to taste in their brand new private tasting room. It was fun, as they gave us tastes of the Cab and Franc which they are selling for $100 a bottle. The Wein brothers walked through as we were tasting and said hi to us. We went back out and found another pourer that was very generous with the champagne and Dulca Maria. She also let us taste Crowded which we really liked and bought a bottle for us to take home.
- Calloway was our next one as I was trying to find Faulkner but couldn't. The wine was OK but after the first 3, it just wasn't holding up.
- Hart was a place that the pourer at Calloway suggested. I wanted to stop there but Lisa was plain old tuckered out. I left her in the car and started tasting. The wine seemed almost as good as the first 3 but 30% less in price. It might have been the alchohol but I ended up buying their Driveway which was a meritage of grapes grown along the driveway up to the tasting room. There was also a guy selling furniture all made out of barrels.
