Why did the trail go to Oregon?

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Possibly another question that needs answering…

Last night we stayed in the super romantic TravelLodge in Newberg, OR.

Pure luxury

In particular, the view from our room was breathtaking:

Jealous?

But, for $48, it was actually pretty awesome.  We will be doing a complete comparison of Hotel Healdsburg, the Redding, CA Red Lion Inn, the Newberg, OR Travelodge and the East Portland Sheraton Four Points (tonight’s home) in posts to come.  I think the Travelodge may be the front runner…

We did some Oregon wine tasting today and were eager to compare it to Sonoma/Napa.  The verdict… kind of a rip-off.  $15 tasting fees for 3-4 very small tastes seems to be the norm and they don’t refund the fees if you buy wine.  Also, very new, big, fancy wineries–kind of felt like being at disneyland rather than wine country.

Also, can someone please explain this?

You can't make this up

We were just driving by, why is it our responsibility???

Stay tuned, and check out our new FAQ page:  FAQ (AKA what is this?)

Don’t forget to leave your comments!!!

Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn (say what?!)

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Sadly, we’re not staying in a Holiday Inn, but we’ve got the hotel (last night – Red Lion) and motel (Travelodge) covered so far.  Nothing but the best for our honeymoon!

We’re gaining an understanding of just how different San Francisco (and Chicago, and Boston, and Tokyo . . .) is from just about everywhere else in the country, even elsewhere in Northern California.  For example, we got into Redding last night and thought we’d go for pizza – sounds simple enough, right?

The first place we visited had strong ratings on Yelp . . . and a pizza buffet that looked like it had been sitting out since our last day of work (which was now over a week ago).  After some additional Yelp research, we decided to go big by visiting the Upper Crust – reviews that said its prices were too high but we were willing to pay up if that meant good food and a decent atmosphere.  Turns out half of that was right – food was good, as long as we weren’t run over by screaming toddlers (at least a dozen of them) running back and forth to the video game room on our way to our table.  Breakfast at IHOP wasn’t much different.  But one thing Redding has going for it – everybody was extremely friendly, even if they drive ridiculous trucks (see below; more to come in an upcoming post) and eat 2000+ calories at every meal.

The plan for today…

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Off to Oregon wine country. Any recommendations? (leave in comments)


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We also plan to write a thorough review comparing the Redding, CA Red Lion Inn to Hotel Healdsburg.  Should be interesting to see who wins.

Leave us comments if you have other suggestions for topics!

Homeless, unemployed and MARRIED (a trifecta of sorts)

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Well…

Yesterday was a big day.  The Sonoma county clerk’s office is actually pretty busy at 9:30am–who knew?

Sonoma wedding image

Just after the ceremony

We are pretty psyched about being newly married AND newly unemployed AND newly homeless–we highly recommend it.

After a day of celebrating in Healdsburg we are now headed up the coast on our eventual way to Seattle prior to flying out to Buenos Aires on Wednesday.  We’ll see if United upgrades honeymooners–Hotel Healdsburg does NOT it turns out.

Stay tuned…

Homeless and unemployed, at last

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4 days, 43 boxes and several bottles of wine later, we are at last moved out of our apartment and officially homeless – so exciting!!  When we arrived at the storage facility with our movers today and couldn’t fit all of our stuff in the allotted space, we made friends with the facility attendant by helping him furnish his apartment with our leftovers.  Guess we’ll need a new desk and bookshelves when (or if) we come back.  After a surprisingly painless walk-through with our crazy landlord, San Francisco sent us off in style – with a full-on downpour.  We’ll miss you too, SF!!

It’s been a big week – we quit our jobs, had an epic going-away party (followed by a rather debilitating hangover), packed up our apartment and crammed the material goods of our San Francisco life into a 10×11 storage cell, where it will sit patiently waiting for us for the next 6 (9? 12?) months.  And it’s not over yet – tomorrow we get married (justice of the peace style – sweet!) and then start making our way to Seattle.   But at least now that the stressful part is over and every item on the to-do list has been checked, we’re finally starting to absorb the fact that we have no responsibilities, no obligations, no restrictions.  We’re looking forward to getting used to that and wondering how our thinking might change (and how we might change) as a result.  We’ll keep you posted.