OUTSIDE THE CITY LIMITS

Without a car, it makes it more difficult for me to get outside the city very often, or for that matter to get outside the 3m radius around my home. So, I'm thankful to have friends with cars who will let me tag along from time to time. A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get outside the city for most of the weekend.

Friday:

Left work and hopped on the ferry to Tiburon. Every Friday night in the summer they close down Main Street & host a block party. All the restaurants set up tables in the quaint little street, there are multiple bands playing, face painting, kids buzzing around you on their razors, and even sailing races going on in the background. It felt like another world-almost like a scene from Pleastantville, but in a good way. It seemed hard to believe that the city was just a short 20 minute boat ride away.

Saturday:

Took a little road trip up the coast to Point Reyes- yet another must see item on the list of most tourists, that I still had yet to visit. We stopped in the tiny little town of Pt. Reyes station. It seems to be best known for its cheese. We couldn't resist stopping into Cowgirl Creamery for a little taste testing and of course couldn't walk out the door without a few purchases. We took our new treasures & headed for the lighthouse. The road was much longer than we anticipated, but the views along the way were breathtaking. Once we finally arrived at the lighthouse and made our way down the 308 steps, we were disappointed to discover that the park closes at 4:30 on the dot and we were quickly being herded right back up the stairs. Oh well, c'est la vie. We made the best of it and found a spot for a nice picnic back up at the top. We broke out the Point Reyes blue cheese and the thyme infused honey that we had bought back at the creamery and quickly scarfed down the entire thing. I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite that good. Those two ingredients create something magical when paired together. I'm not kidding- something aligns in the stars and all is right with the world. We even had a baby deer frolicking around us while we ate.

Sunday:

Headed over to Brentwood (a town I'd never even heard of prior to this little excursion) for some fruitpicking. That's right, we paid people to let us do their manual labor for them and it was great! We chose the Farmer's Daughter to bestow our kind efforts on and paid about $1.50/lb for as many peaches & plums as we cared to pick. They use all organic farming techniques and you can eat as much as you want while in the orchard. We gathered a large bucketful and then savored our bountiful harvest over a nice picnic in the summer heat.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend! I love the city, but every so often it's quite nice to make an escape...