So today was a travel day. We made our way out of Yosemite after cleaning up and checking out of Sunset House and traveled via route 140 and 580 through Modesto to Santa Rosa, California. We were running about two hours ahead of when we needed to check in to the next AirBnB spot (the Secluded Wine Country Retreat) so we
Bacon and brown sugar cupcake from Sift
utilized Foursquare to find a fun spot to grab a snack and kill some time. The first stop was Sift, a cupcakery, in downtown Santa Rosa. The four of us each got a different cupcake, carrot cake, lemon, Boston creme and cheesecake, and I got a bacon and brown sugar cupcake to go (bacon! cupcake!). All of the cupcakes were extremely tasty, and rightly so as the bakers there won Food Network’s Cupcake Wars back in early 2010, so that was definitely a fun discovery. We killed a bit of time at a nearby Barnes & Noble and then headed up the mountain to our “Secluded Napa Valley Retreat.” we were met at the house by the owner, a very friendly guy named Matt and we were shown around the cabin, which is fabulously and eclectically decorated with objects ranging from animal skulls (with little labels telling visitors what each animal it belonged to) to billiard and gazing balls, to Roman helmets and awesome star lamps and lanterns. There’s a cute little garden “room” outside (that is a converted shed) with a bed in it, Jeremy and I may sleep in there tomorrow night just for fun, tonight it’s raining though so we will stay in the second bedroom tonight.
A welcome tray from our AirBnB host, Matt
We were left with a welcome basket with wine, cheese, meat and some sparkling water so that was a really nice surprise. During our introductory tour Matt showed us a game of digital 20 questions that we played for a bit before dinner (Jeremy managed to stump the computer with “corkscrew”, it managed to guess “grape”, “billiard ball” and “candelabra”).
Jeremy and I cooked up pasta with a fresh tomato sauce, chicken and prosciutto. The kitchen is fully stocked with just about every size bowl and utensil (including an incredibly large whisk, no idea what you would use it for) so it was fun making dinner. We enjoyed a few bottles of wine through the course of the night as well (only appropriate being in wine country).
Tomorrow we have tastings scheduled at Cakebread Cellars and Elizabeth Spencer, so those should be a lot of fun. Hopefully the rain that’s been going all day will let up and we can get a chance to enjoy the deck here at the cabin. As we are all still kind of functioning on East coast time 9pm is feeling pretty late so I think it’s time to head to bed.
