Hanging in the 805 - Days 4 and 5

For Day 1's coverage, click here, for Day 2, click here, and for Day 3, click here.

On Day 4, we awoke a bit later than usual, apparently finally getting used to this “being in a place without dogs” thing.  We took our time wandering around our room before venturing across the small road again, this time to Starbucks for breakfast and coffee/tea.  We hung out there for awhile, then headed back to the hotel, this time to change into our bathing suits and hit the hot tub (there was a heated pool as well, but it was still too cold for really hopping in the pool.  Once we’d baked (poached, technically, I suppose) our internal organs enough, it was back to the room to shower and get ready for real.

Since we knew we had our Firestone Walker tour coming up later that day, we didn’t want to spend more time wine tasting.  In perusing the map we gained the day before at Zenaida, we noticed a spot on the map that sounded promising – the Estrella Warbirds Museum.  According to their website, they were a museum dedicated to restoring old airplanes (located near the Paso airport, unsurprisingly), but they also had a collection of exhibits dedicated to all things wartime, including old ammunition, uniforms, and vehicles, as well as a collection of classic cars.

Never ones to pass up a collection of military paraphernalia, no matter how old or obscure, we were in!  We headed over and arrived right as they opened around 10am.  We were greeted by the docent on duty, given an overview of the exhibits and halls, and then turned loose to wander to our hearts’ content.  We certainly did!

Look, Toni, more Howard Hughes info!

According to Chris, he had a uniform just like this

when he enlisted in the Navy in 1999.

This one is circa Korean War era.

In addition to the exhibit halls, there was an airstrip full of reworked airplanes and other items, like tanks and people carriers (yes, that’s the official military word for them, thank you).  This little bird obviously makes this tank a frequent perch.

Judging by the massive quantities of bird poo on the underside of the lid.

Just for scale.

A shot from the airstrip.

Although most of the exhibits were for looking only, a few actually let you climb inside them.  I, of course, took full advantage.

Vroom!  Vroom!

Riding in a Huey helicopter

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed the museum, and we’d recommend it for anyone looking to kill a few hours by doing something other than tasting more wine (yes, there really is a burnout point for that, I swear).  After we left the museum, we headed back to downtown Paso for lunch at Bistro Laurent, a great little French restaurant in a cute location.  We each had a bowl of French Onion soup and split a chicken pesto pizza with goat cheese – everything tasted great!  After lunch, we wandered around the City Park in Paso, visiting the fanciest public restrooms I’ve ever seen (multiple Dyson hand dryers, in a public park.  Yes, really), and taking in the sights.

Trees in the park sporting colored ribbons

to celebrate Paso Arts Fest, coming up soon.

We strolled next to the Brown Butter Cookie Company, purveyor of delicious cookies made from – you guessed it – brown butter, and grabbed some to take back with us.  After that, it was back to the hotel and a nap (and also, cookies).  We woke up, threw clothes back on, and headed to the most highly anticipated stop on our trip, our tour at Firestone Walker.

The brewery!

Firestone Walker is currently California’s 4^th largest craft brewer (behind Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas, and Stone), and they’re one of our favorites.  Their standard range of beer is great, but they have a truly excellent barrel aging program, and every year, we try to find bottles of their anniversary and other special ales.  The tour we signed up for the last one of the day (3:30), figuring we’d tour and then eat dinner at their onsite taproom afterward.  We set out early from the hotel, unsure how long it would really take to walk the ¾ mile stretch between the two (we deliberately booked the hotel because of its close proximity to the brewery), so we arrived early for the tour as well.  We cooled our heels in the tasting room until the tour was ready to start.

Ready to go!

Our tour guide took us up into the brewery, to show us the mash tuns and all of the other fun brewery equipment necessary for making delicious beer.  We also had a chance a sample to enjoy FW’s Pale 31, which was delightful.

Nom!

We also had a chance to see a few other areas of the brewery, including the yeast propagation area, the tasting/quality control lab, and the canning facility.

Barrels, getting ready to be filled.

Filling up cans!

Although our tour guide seemed knowledgeable and we enjoyed listening to him, the tour ended pretty rapidly after it began; it was maybe 15-20 minutes long, which we felt was on the short side.  When we went to Colorado a few years back, we took the tour at New Belgium brewery (makers of Fat Tire), and it was at least 45 minutes or so (there were also more free samples – just saying), and that included a trip down the slide at the end (yes, really).  Regardless, we enjoyed taking a peek inside the inner workings of the brewery, and we also appreciated the sample of their 18^th anniversary ale afterward.

In addition to the tasting room, the “campus” also held a brewery store, complete with a walk-in beer cooler where you could purchase rare and limited edition bottles.  While we didn’t go crazy, we did visit the store and came home with a couple of great finds.  We then headed to an early dinner at the taproom, also on campus.

Hooray for beer!  Time for noms!

The food at the taproom was good – we split a few appetizers (calamari and seared ahi) and a cobb salad – but the beer was the main draw.  The taproom had several brews on tap you could only find at the taproom, they offered the FW standard brews you can find most places, and they also offered seasonal, reserve, and sour taps as well (the last from their Barrelworks facility in nearby Buellton).  

We tasted all sorts of delicious brews, including my favorite, barrel aged Velvet Merkin (so good). 

After we finished up at the taproom, we wandered back to the hotel, but then headed back out (across the small street we go!) to the nearby BevMo to grab a few offerings we can’t find in our part of the southwest.  Following that, it was home to La Bellasera and off to bed, after watching an episode of Wayward Pines and reading for a bit. 

The Day 5 wrap-up is pretty short, since it was mostly travel time, but we woke up at a reasonable hour and had a decently sized breakfast at the in-hotel restaurant, Enoteca.  We got on the road around 9am, stopping for lunch in Santa Barbara at a great pizza place, Lucky Penny.

Noms!

Lucky Penny is also within walking distance of Figueroa Mountain Brewing’s Santa Barbara outpost, so we grabbed some bottles to take home for later (we were rather burnt out on beer AND wine at this point).  We then headed into the LA area, forever known as the Capital of Traffic Suck.  Covering the 170 miles from lunch in Santa Barbara to the most eastern side of LA (Beaumont, CA) took around 5 hours, and it was pretty awful.

Even though the traffic was insane, we were happy to be heading back to Phoenix, as the majority of the traffic was going west, for the long Memorial Day weekend.  See all the lights?  Those are cars heading to the coast...

Overall, we had a great time!

Later,

Amy