The 1st Week of Summer Vacation

 

We took a short trip to Los Angeles to visit our younger son - an extended weekend trip of sorts. We flew out Thursday and came home on the red-eye Monday night. On Saturday, the 3 of us went to the Temecula Valley to visit 3 of the more than 30 wineries located there. As you can see from the photo, we made a few purchases. We visited Ponte Family Winery, the Wiens family winery, and Mount Palomar. DH and I had been to Temecula 3 years ago and couldn't believe how much the area has grown in those few years. The last time we went there were only a handful of wineries on the main road. We sampled wines at all 3 wineries, and made some purchases at all 3 of them. I really enjoyed the Mount Palomar winery the best -- knowledgeable pourers, great ambience, and great wines. I bought an "everyday" wine Shorty's Bisto red and their signature Solera Cream Sherry. I wanted to buy a couple of others but my budget was shot! At least now they ship to NH so if I get so inclined, I can order on line. I really like the Ponte Zinfindal port too. At Wiens, we sampled a really nice orange champagne which my son bought. I loved their white port, but had already bought port.


We also visited the Getty Villa in Malibu. This is a smaller museum than the Getty Center, built as a replica of a Roman villa to house Getty's collection of Roman and Greek sculptures and antiquities. It was beautiful there, and it was really interesting to see sculptures and pots that are pictures in the resources I use with my students.

We had some great meals too --- Brazilian at Fogo de Chao, Mexican at Don Antonio's, omelettes at Santa Monica's Omelette Parlor, and an amazing lobster and goat cheese frittata at Literati II, where my son's housemate is the sous chef.

I love LA, but just to visit -- too much traffic, smog, and threats of wildfire for me to live there.

I also started a new project - The Lace Ribbon scarf from Knitty.com.
Here are a few photos.

 

I'm using Classic Elite Alpaca socks on size 3 needles. It's an easy to remember pattern, but since it's fingering weight it's slow going! I did several inches on the plane ride back from LA.