We took the motorcycle down to Temecula for an overnight trip this past weekend. It’s a perfect distance for my fragile ass (which gets quite sore after about two hours non-stop sitting on the back of the motorcycle) – about an hour and a half of easy freeway and/or blue highway driving. We went down via the freeway and came back via the Ortega Highway, a windy mountain road beloved by motorcycle riders everywhere. Traffic was light, which made me very happy as Chuck felt no compulsion to split lanes, which scares the crap out of me. Let’s face it: I am the world’s woosiest motorcycle passenger. Pretty much the entire business scares me a bit. On the way down I tried wearing headphones and listening to my iPod, but the earbuds squished so hard into my ears that I had a headache by the time we reached Temecula. It made me long for one of these helmets.
Once we arrived in Temecula, we dropped our stuff off at a motel just as the limo that we had booked arrived to take us on a wine-tasting tour. I’m viewing all of this wine tasting we’ve been doing as training for Medoc in September. This time we hit four wineries, and a couple involved champagne so by the end of the afternoon, I was very, very glad we were 1) in a limo and 2) not going home that night. My favorite winery remains Stuart Cellars. A new one we visted and liked was Longshadow Ranch. The wine was just okay, but the location was fabulous! Also on the list: Maurice Carrie and La Cereza (this last one was the winner of most outstanding wine tasting glasses). We made it back to the hotel, and proceeded to pass out for about three hours. We woke up hungry three hours later, only to find that all of the restaurants around us had closed, except for a little Japanese place called Banzai that had a serious case of Beni-Hana-itis. The chef was WAY into the cooking, making volcanoes out of onions and putting away three beers while fixing our meals. It was a hoot!
The following morning I woke up with a banging headache, but after a three mile run (again, good marathon training – running through the hangover) felt much, much better.
All in all, a fun holiday weekend trip. Chuck had a great time driving home on the winding, mountainous Ortega Highway, and is all fired up to go more places on his motorcycle. I’m thinking I’ll take the MINI and meet him wherever next time. My butt heartily agrees with me.