Overdue Road Tripping! Part 4

Don't miss Part Three!

In the last blog entry, Chris and I had driven through the Valley of Death (the actual one in Nevada/California, not the allegorical one) and spent the night at a cute little Airbnb in Bakersfield.

Hooray, wine!

Despite some sort of domestic disturbance on the street behind our Airbnb that caused quite a bit of nearby dog barking around 2am, we slept well in our cozy spot in Bako, and after enjoying a relaxing breakfast (more yogurt parfaits!  All the yogurt parfaits!) and getting ready, we packed up the truck and continued our journey west.

The front hallway in our Airbnb,

with our personalized welcome message!

We tried taking our own picture with the on-site camera,

but either it was out of film or

there was some user error involved.

Either way, this was as close as we got

to leaving our image here, like others had.

After driving for so long the prior day, we were glad our trip today would be rather short - it would take us only about two hours to make it to our next destination, Paso Robles, where we had a few wine tasting appointments already lined up.

Our first spot of the day was Field Recordings, inside the Tin City complex on the eastern side of the 101.  Of course we were early for our noon tasting, so we killed some time buying groceries in Etto (pizza flour, pizza sauce, good balsamic vinegar) until Field Recordings opened at 11.  Given that it was a Tuesday and was pretty quiet, Field Recordings had no problem taking us right away, and we enjoyed their wide variety of offerings, picking out a few to bring home with us.

Our tasting setup

Chris was happy to be in charge

of the graduated cylinder

With delicious wine in our bellies, it was high time for lunch, so we moseyed down the stairwell and into McPhee's Canteen.  We've eaten at McPhee's before, a year ago with Dad and Risa, and I remember it being a bit better then; they had table service and some delicious pizzas.  This time, everything was counter service and was a bit more fast-food in style; it wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly what we were expecting.

After adding some high fat lunch offerings to all that wine, we were ready to get back in the truck and continue our winery visits; this time, we were heading across the 101 and down the 46 to Sextant Wines.  This is another location we've visited before (Dad and Risa are members here), and we enjoyed our on-site tasting once more; it was actually free due to Chris' veteran status, and we even scored a military discount on the bottles we took home!

Sextant is also where the picture 

at the top of the blog was taken.

I didn't have a lot of pictures for this entry,

so here's a second Sextant one,

but in portrait mode.  Oooh.

As is our wont, we were running early, and we had a few hours to kill before our final scheduled tasting of the day.  While we could have likely popped into another nearby winery (there are like 300 or so in Paso now), we know we tend to get overwhelmed (over-wined?) after three spots.  Instead of adding another tasting, we called our lodging for the night, the Paso Robles Inn, to see if we could check into our room early - score!  They were ready for us!

In all of our past trips to Paso, we've mostly stayed at Airbnbs and once at the Courtyard Marriott in town, but we've often wandered right past the historic Paso Robles Inn and wondered what it was like.  When I planned the non-RV version of this trip, the rates at the Inn were actually better than our normal Airbnb options, so I figured it was finally time for us to try it out.  We grabbed a fireplace room (the fireplace was part of the central heating system, so it would click on and off on its own) and enjoyed the easy access to downtown while we there (we didn't make much use of the Inn's amenities, like the hot tub, pool, or koi pond, as it was pretty cold and windy during this part of our trip).

Chris out front

Hey, don't be koi!

Since we'd had good luck so far with our appointments, I called our last tasting room of the day, for LXV Wine, to see if we could come on over.  As had been our experience so far (seriously, we're almost never in Paso mid-week, and apparently, no one else is either - it was lovely), they said, sure thing, and we strolled the short distance to their door (their tasting room is in downtown Paso).  LXV offers a standard tasting experience, but they also have a cool option where you can pair their wines with cheese dusted with their own spice blends; we've never met a pairing option we didn't want to explore, so we went with that.

Mmmm, spiced cheese!

The wine at LXV was good, but it was a bit on the pricey side for us; although we didn't take home a bottle of their drink, we did grab a packet of one of their mushroom-forward spice mixes - that was delicious!  Since we had a room at the Inn, we wandered back and took a nap, waking just before it was time to head to dinner at Fish Gaucho, where we've dined several times before (and enjoyed on each opportunity).  Post-dinner, we found ourselves back at the Inn, watching (I cannot use the word "enjoying" here) Bloodshot, not Vin Diesel's finest work (not every evening can involve eight course tasting meals, I suppose).  

We slept well that night and woke up the next morning ready for some great breakfast drinks at Spearhead Coffee, just the next block over from the Inn.  Figuring it was time for a break from parfaits, we wandered town looking for good breakfast options (that were open at 8am on a random Wednesday); we found a spot that looked promising, but both of our choices (chilaquiles for Chris, a breakfast burrito for me) were a little underwhelming.  Ah well, can't win them all!

Back at the Inn, we packed up the truck, checked out, and drove to our final tasting for this Paso trip, at our favorite winery in the area, Adelaida.  We've been members at Adelaida for a few years now, so we settled down in the member's lounge and enjoyed their latest varietal offerings.

Ready to taste!

The detritus left over after wine tasting

Finding all sorts of things we couldn't live without (including a port offering and a new candle), we settled up, found room for yet another box of wine in the truck (always room for that!), and turned south.  We stopped somewhere along the way to gas up the truck and eat some chicken salad wraps, and then we pushed on into the greater LA area, arriving at the start of afternoon rush hour, which was absolutely delightful (I miss lots of things about living out in CA - this was not one of them).  Before too long, we made it to Dad and Risa's, happy to see them and be spending a few nights in a comfortable house, rather than an Airbnb or random hotel room.

Eager to show us a new hot spot in their local area, we enjoyed some beer at Chapman Crafted, near old town Orange.  

We've enjoyed Chapman's beer before,

but this was our first time in their taproom,

and it was great!

Finished with tasting time, it was back to the house, where we had a great at-home pizza dinner, featuring Chef Chris' delicious creations!

In the next blog, we visit a bit more and eventually head home, to be reunited with our fuzzies.

Later!

Amy