marypcbuk | Entries tagged with beer

I found out that the areas of Arizona we passed through around Phoenix are known as the Golden Corridor and the deep orange sunset we saw is a local specialty; sunsets have been paler and pinker since. Scottsdale was also our last urban area for a while. We went back to Solari Square in the daylight and discovered it's a giant sundial, only inverted; the red girder that extends the red walls of the bell-hung gateway also marks the gnomon's beam of light (a bright finger in the middle of a broad bar of shade cast by the bridge supports) at solar noon, the silt-cast panels echo the designs on the bronze bells (which came from Cosanti, the predecessor of Arcosanti) and the whole space must feel scorched in the summer. At 11am on a January morning, the sun was enough to drive us into the shade. First we played inside the giant kaleidoscope formed by three mirror-backed doors tilted in a sculpture and then we remembered The Breakfast Club (a breakfast/lunch place we'd solemnly promised not to forget when we drove past the night before). Eggs benedict with spinach and thin slices of filet mignon steak smothered in mushroom bordelaise? Tasty if different.

Driving out of Scottsdale involves a lot of urban sprawl before you start to climb the slopes towards Flagstaff. We stopped to enjoy the open country at a viewpoint; not sure if the orange jumpsuited convicts working the road gang were enjoying it as much. We turned off the main road to visit Montezuma's Castle; no south american connection at all, this was a Sinagua native American cliff pueblo - 40-odd rooms built into the side of a creamy limestone cliff, starting with a few natural caves and adding supports and walls and ladders and adobe in darker colours to form a vertical village within earshot of the river, surrounded by walnuts and tall trees with white bark that glow in the sunset light. A second pueblo was burned out centuries ago; only the caves remain, with the occasional masonry to firm up an opening - one has a giant honeycomb in. Looking for the holes for support posts I saw the undersides of the overhangs were studded with rock wren nests - darker round mud nests with circular openings freckling the pale rock.

We stopped a little before sunset to catch the red rocks outside Sedona catch fire in the light and drove through the stunning red slopes and the, um, extravagant new age establishments and up the twisty hairpin road that leads out of Sedona and on to Flagstaff. This was cold and dark and anonymous and it was a shock to see drifts of snow on sidewalks and in parks. We stayed in the cheaper outskirts and drove to the historic downtown for dinner; the Beaver Street Brewery is one of (I've heard) four microbreweries ringing the changes on a range of beers. The IPA was tangy and not too sharp, the Hefeweizen was nice but a bit forgettable, the golden ale was a nice lager by any other name, the red ale was rich and pleasant, the stout was a little nutty but not quite smoky enough for my taste and the raspberry ale was excellent - sweet but not to sweet, fruity but not too fruity, not in the slightest bit lambic. The food was good, although chicken fried chicken is not fried chicken and my excellent chicken pot pie was actually an excellent chicken vegetable stew with a pastry hat.

The place I found on Yelp for breakfast turned out to be literally opposite the brewery although we drove right round the picturesque downtown first (the red stone makes the older buildings look very solid and brick like). Macy's European Cafe got good reviews for biscuits and gravy and coffee. The coffee was excellent and after days of drip coffee it's delightful to get a latte. The biscuits were crisp without and fluffy within, the gravy was tangy and could only have been improved by the addition of sausage - I'd found a vegetarian restaurant for breakfast ;-)

We stopped not far out of Flagstaff to wander around Elden Pueblo, which is a community archaeology site; you can't see much of the digs under the snow and at least half of the buildings are labelled as having been put back together wrong by the previous set of amateur archaeologists but it was interesting to wander around what's basically a 13th century village and wonder how they stood the weather - anywhere you weren't in direct sunlight it was distinctly cold.

The signs at Montezuma's Castle and Elden speculated about why the pueblos were abandoned. No such mystery about the much larger pueblo we saw at Wupakti; when the volcanoes that surround Flagstaff started up again in the 11th century, I'd have moved out sharpish. That resulted in Sunrise, which shows up as you drive past a large meadow, looking exactly like a volcano with the top blown off but there have been millennia of lava flows and eruptions here. Some of the slopes have snow and trees on but you can see the other slope of the same volcano is still red or grey cinders with nothing growing. Some cinder cones have developed a ridge of trees on what looks like a sand dune along the top, like the mane on a horse. There's a sea of volcanoes and cones with lava flows that look like Lanzarote or Hawaii drifting across land you expect to be high prairie - quite disconcerting.

There are several pueblo ruins; the most complete we saw was Wukoki, which reminds me of Hopi House in Grand Canyon village - Mary Colter knew the architecture that fits into these landscapes. It was like a small manor house - set on the high ground in an open plain with views into the Painted Desert and across the plain, with multiple rooms and an open area I'd call a deck or a terrace and the signs called a plaza. The rock is dark and red, the same colour as the humps of rock around it but looking darker up against a bright blue sky. You can squeeze into a couple of the rooms or just soak up the sun and enjoy the view.

The road climbs again and we saw the beginning of sunset painting in the cliffs of the Lower Colorado Canyon, with the Painted Desert scarlet and pink and gold behind it. And then we were into Grand Canyon park and at the Watchtower at Desert View just in time for the sunset light to paint glowing gold over the Desert Palisades and the stubby tower and the scrubby trees on the slope. Navajo Mountain was clearer than I've ever seen it and we spotted Vermillion Cliffs looking tiny. The light had left the river, which is full and green, although once the sun was down below the rim of the canyon more light bounced into the folds of rock and the river was brighter. You get a bright yellow and orange edge as the sun drops to the canyon rim and below and a misty pink glow over the Painted Desert as the sky darkens and the moon brightens, and then as we drove into Grand Canyon village the sky kept the sunset glow, lemon and apricot and peach. Oddly, there were 'rays' of blue cutting through the sunset colours like negative rays of light; we think they're the shadows of mountains, where the peaks block the sunset light out.

It was cold but there was less snow here than any year we've visited; the temperature was in the high 50s and we didn't have to clamber and slither over slopes of packed ice to get our sunset photos. The stars were bright in the village, but we were tired; dinner at Bright Angel Lodge and into our cosy room to juggle the CES calender for the umpteenth time before bed. And then up and down the rim for view after view of grandeur in canyons; I'm far more impressed by the Grand Canyon after having seen it several times than when we first visited. Bright Angel canyon was clear, every temple spire was standing out in the bright air and we could see all the mountains and landmarks in the distance across the North Rim, 50 miles and more away.

We stopped in the village for lunch in the lounge at El Tovah; I would have said a great chili and navajo tacos, but while it tasted fantastic, it gave both of us mild nausea and stomach pains and I slept all the way back to Vegas and felt a little subdued for the first few exhausting CES days.

We missed the IE In-N-Out Tweetup last night, which is a shame; In-N-Out is a classic burger that's always a great standby. On balance, I'd say Five Guys is a better burger and there's a slightly wider choice (definitely more toppings) and I like it because it reminds me of the Pony Express burger and fried chicken joint of my childhood (in Southport so we'd either been shopping or to the beach (well, expanse of sand) or the fair) (and we rarely stopped so it was a treat)), but in Vegas the Five Guys is in Henderson rather than not far off the strip (it's Vegas, assume 'not far' means car or cab). I'm quite fond of Steak n Shake - maybe not quite up to In-N-Out but the shakes are better - but that's in South Point, which isn't Vegas either.

Further up the scale, there's a new trend of gourmet burger shake bars. Our favourite is BLT (Burger Laurent Tourel) in the mirage; superb burgers, great sweet potato fries, awesome alcoholic shakes, fun toppings. Last night we tried Holstein's Shakes and Buns in the Cosmopolitan which has about 100 beers. I'm still uncertain about the Weiz Guys light heffeweizen Simon had but my Buckbean Orange Blossom ale (Nevada Brewery) was very nice and almost musky. I had the bacon and aged goat cheese arugula sirloin burger - I'd give the burger patty an 8 and the bun a 6. Shoestring and sweet potato fries both excellent. It doesn't have the fun shirts of BLT (tip waiters not cows) but I'm hard pressed to pick one patty over the other...

Roughly in order visited, here are the places - other than London! - where we've spent a night or more this year. This misses places when we stayed nearby; we were in Seattle but stayed in Kirkland, in almost every area of the bay but stayed in SF, San Jose and Campbell... * means we spent more than one night there, + means we visited multiple times and underlined places are those I hadn't stayed in before...

Springdale, UT ^*
Las Vegas, NV ^*+
Mojave, CA
Paso Robles, CA +
Cambria, CA
Campbell, CA ^*+Barcelona, Spain ^{*
(we didn't spend the night as we drove through it, but on the way we stopped in Perpignan and Dijon)}Calais, France
Orlando, FL ^*
Cincinnati, OH ^*
Ashland, KY
Lexington, VA
Sparta, NC
Brevard, NC
Charleston, SC
Saint Augustine, FL
Melbourne, FL
Laguna Beach, CA ^*
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA ^*
Santa Monica, CA ^*+
Atascadero, CA
New Orleans, LA ^*
Dublin, Ireland ^*
Bellevue, WA ^*
Kirkland, WA ^*+
Furnace Springs, CA
Palm Springs, CA ^*+
Palm Desert, CA ^*
San Francisco, CA ^*+
St Clement, Jersey ^*+
San Jose, CA ^*+
Mariposa, CA ^*
Lee Vining, CA ^*
Malvern Wells, Hertfordshire
Hay-on-Wye, Powys
Los Angeles, CA ^*+
Portland, OR ^*
McMinnville, OR
Coos Bay, OR
Eureka, CA

Countries: USA, Spain, France, Ireland, Jersey

US States visited: Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Utah, California, Ohio, Florida, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Washington, Oregon, Louisiana, Missouri (just the runway)

US States visited for the first time this year: West Virginia, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri

Airports: LHR, LGW, LAS, SFO, LAX, SEA, PSP, BCN (one way!), MCO, CVG, FLL, LGB, SJO, STL, MSY, PHX, DUB, JER

Airlines flown this year: Virgin Atlantic, BMI, British Airways, Delta, Jet Blue, Southwest, FlyBe, Virgin America (first time and we loved it)

US National Parks visited: Zion, Death Valley, Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains, Canaveral National Shoreline, Yosemite, Alcatraz Island, Mount Rainier

Highest point: Tioga Pass 9,945 (the highest accessible by car pass in California) (not higher than we've been before, but on a new road to us - the 120)

Places we finally got to after years of going right past: Alcatraz

Adverse weather conditions: stranded in Barcelona (volcanic ash), Tioga Pass closed after we drove over it (early snow), the storm we were a day ahead of all the way down from Seattle, the minor snowpocalypse in London (more iced in than snowed in)

Ferries taken: Condor (Poole-St Helier-Weymouth), P&O (Calais-Dover), Washington State Ferries (Clinton-Mukilteo), the ferry across the Mississippi from New Orleans and back

Craziest road trip taken: a toss up between the week we spent driving back from Ohio to Florida having just flown there - Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale via the Blue Ridge Parkway and down the Florida coast - and the 13-hour drive from Perpignan to Calais to escape Barcelona after the volcano so we could fly to Orlando.
Saner road trips taken: Las Vegas to Palm Springs (via Death Valley), Seattle to San Jose (via the Willamette Valley, Portland and the Oregon coast)

Wine areas tasted in: Paso Robles, Washington, Willamette Valley, Santa Cruz mountains, Lodi, Livermore

New cuisine of the year: New Orleans (beignet! crawfish boil! better shrimp and grits!). - or food carts in Portland. We also had our first full molecular gastronomy menu at Baume in Palo Alto and sous vide at Republica in Seattle.

Previously unexpected food discovery of the year: good chinese food in Ohio

Previously unexpected alcohol discovery of the year: I like American winter ales and some pumpkin ales (Elysium)

Old favourites that are still as good: Original Joes in San Jose, Tamarine in Palo Alto, Enoteca Turi in Putney

Donuts of the year: Top Pot in Bellevue narrowly beats Cafe du Monde in N'Orleans due to the variety - the robot donut maker in Pike Place Market and the cafe on St Catherine's breakwater always get an honourable mention

Best grilled cheese: tillamook sourdough the bakery in McMinneville OH

Friends seen: never enough!

Portland is all b's and c's

That's b for books; we spent (er, really, that much? I mean lots of time in several Powells), bridges (about every other street). And beer (though we didn't make it to Deschutes we had a couple of local brews. C for coffee, obviously, (food)carts and climate; we fitted in Stumptown coffee with raspberry scones and orange fluffy pannettone style things, book browsing and dinner at the foodcarts around our meetings and it actually got quite bright and sunny - I may have the power to manifest sunshine in the whole of the Pacific North Wet, as the downpour started as we were ready to leave. The poutine truck was closed (boo) so we started with sweet potato fries from Burgerville, which was just as well as Etta (the Violetta truck) had decided there weren't enough customers to keep the fries frying. Even without the white truffle fries, the bacon cheese burgers were excellent - meltingly tender and perfectly medium rare, with micuit sunblush style tomatoes and good bun. Local fruit sodas (raspberry, pear and, by alternating mouthfuls, raspberry pear :).

Then off into the driving rain as far as McMinnville where we made inroads into the Fremont abominable and started the next day with grilled tillamook sandwiches as the local bakery; excellent bread and a very good macaroon. We only made it to one winery, Maysara, where we had a good long chat about the winery and the terroir and the neighbourhood (the fields of baby alpaca - alpaca lambs? Alpaca cubs? - the fact that the moss draped over the trees is a symbiote that produces nutrients for the tree, and the wild turkeys in the vines). They're biodynamic and they have a nifty mutilevel system for steeping and draining tinctures to use on the vines. And the wines are excellent: we had their pinot blanc at the Green Goddess in New Orleans in the summer and their pinot noirs go from dark and smoky to fruity and jammy.

From there we raced ahead of the storm to drive down the coast while we could still see it; the waves were dramatic and the rocks in the water were humps and haystacks and the bridges were deco. We found the same ice cream shop as last trip; mountain blackberry from Tillamook for lunch. We couldn't find a reason to stop in Bend but Coos Bay had a Best Western with a huge tiled spa pool that felt like a turkish bath, a fantastic neon deco sign that must keep you awake if you live in the Tioga apartment block, a fascinating but closed yarn shop and an Italian restaurant that made us feel we should order the shared spaghetti meatballs from Lady & The Tramp. The food was excellent and the pasta was perefctly al dente so we didn't mind that they kept running out of the thing we just ordered. Forgot to note down the source of the very tasty winter warmer ale...

The yarn shop was still closed in the morning so we detoured out to a cape with sight and sound of sea lions then picked up coffee and an awesome orange cookie in Brandon (or Braden or something else beginning with B and having a lovely driftwood beach). Down more coast with more views, bridges etc; tuna and crab melt in Gold River where the Porthole Cafe makes the best pie of the trip and quite possibly the year (inches of blackberries with not too much perfectly short crust). We made it across the state line in daylight and watched the colour of the grass change; still headlands and bays and waves and the most stunning red orange sunset over the line of the oncoming storm.

We haven't stopped in Eureka before but we'll go back; the Best Western has a heated outdoor indoor pool and spa and pool table and pool basketball - and a limo to take you into town and back (a motel with a stretch limo!). We took the limo to the Lost Coast brewery and confirmed that we like the raspberry brown and found that we like the tangerine wheat and the apricot wheat and in fact all ten beers on the tasting menu (decent food too). I want to have the local co-op wrapped and shipped to Putney complete with suppply chain; I have never seen so huge a choice of bulk goods.

This morning we did most of the Avenue of the Giants; majestic redwoods dripping in the mist, scary burl carvings and drive through trees. Along the twisty 1 to the coast and lunch at the North Coast Brewing Company (just the four beer tasting and the beer-battered fish and some of Simon's catfish blt, which meant we were too full for the handmade Cowlick ice cream). Stopped at the glass gallery just outside Fort Bragg to covet the $700 rainbow glass necklace again (by the same artist that made my red heart necklace) and then down the coast. A short pink sunset with much calmer waves, and a fairly speedy run down to San Jose where we should arrive - well, in minutes!
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Tasting wines at wineries beginning with the letter A, eating black food (and buying books)

Breakfast wasn't black; it was hash browns and omelette and scones and spice tea at Zells, after which we drove out into the misty Willamette valley in search of wineries like the Barking Frog. The Barking Frog has moved; in its place is August Cellars (which has space for other wineries, but none of them were tasting today). We drove on to admire the sign and cuddle the cats and praise the wine at Arbor Brook where we tasted some excellent pinot gris (stainless and barrel style) and some 2009 pinot noir as well as one of the fruity style pinot noirs they do so well around here and a dessert semillon that would be Sauternes if it wasn't growing up so high it doesn't get enough mist in the morning for botrytis (but if it was any damper they couldn't leave it on the vine until after thanksgiving). And we finished at Aramenta, where the pinot noirs are also fine and the claret is amusing, but they were the only winery that didn't comp the tasting fee when we bought wine - which always feels mean, frankly...

We turned back to Portland this point to go to the mass SF signing at Powells and trawl the shelves (we're going to need another suitcase at this rate) and drive around downtown looking for somewhere to stay. We wanted to actually be in town for a change and we ended up at the so-hip-I-think-I-dislocated-something Ace hotel; a kind of budget W or premium hostel (shared bath with keys, raw planks in the elevator, slide-across plank shutters instead of curtains, battered trunk for a side table, giant clip lights, custom blankets - the designer goes to college on a budget look, with Stumptown Coffee and Voodoo Donuts opening off the lobby and a nice restaurant on the other side, where we had rye beer and winter warmer and black porter, and I had much Black Food; fideos with squid and sausage and squid ink and aioli (baked - so black and viscous and flavourful with a white dollop) then sturgeon with black rice and bacon and clams (and I think frisee buried under it all). Simon had chicken-fried chicken livers and pork belly with fried egg and chicory salad; alphabetically speaking it should have been an n-dive.

Coffee and donuts tomorrow will move us from A&B to C&D; there will also be more looking at books, of course...

Find the new Elliot Bay Books and discover it feels exactly the same, though maybe without the second hand books (we didn't fnd them if they're there; everything else from the stained glass to the shelves to giant-cathedral-of-reading feeling is there)

Go to dinner, decide to finish dinner with Molly Moon's ice cream and drive all around Seattle only to find it's right around the corner from the new Elliot Bay Books.

Drive down to see Mount Rainier and be amazed by how blue the oxygen trapped in the glaciers is; the tannin washing down the grey moraines is also very colourful for somewhere you'd swear was in monochrome by looking at the snow-covered trees. Don't forget fried chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and blackberry pie at the Copper Creek Inn. Must remember to try making the blackberry syrup butter at home...

Drive up and across to Anacortes to look out over the straights and look down Deception Pass at how amazingly green the water is and how fast the tides is (8+ knots according to a local diver) and how lazily the seals and sea lions swim in it; carry on to Whidbey to gaze at the distant haze of Canada and take the ferry to Mulikteo for seafood at Ivar's.

Start with lunch at Elysian Brewing Company with daveon and his friend Dan, where the Pumpkin ale is fantastic and the Still 3 and 5 sour beers are pretty great; drink through the afternoon, sober up with latte at the Cafe Vivace on - I think - Broadway, get some excellent Belgian beer at a tiny bar I can't even remember the name of (Duchesse du Bourgougne!) and drive over to Wallingford in the pouring rain to introduce one friend to another at RAIN sushi.

Visit both Half Price Books - Redmond Town Center and Crossroads Mall. And the second-hand bookshop inside Pike Place Market. Extra points for saying 'I want to see if they have the Tamora Pierce I want; I need books 2, 3 and 4 of the Alanna quartet' and then turning around to see them on the shelves. sbisson warns I must not overuse this power, so I have vowed to to use it only for good (good books that is).

Have lunch at Pike Place Market; it's a ritual for us. Coffee at Local Colour where I bought the most awesome earrings with feathers and hearts and a key on a chain; cheese curds and The World's Best Mac & Cheese from Beechers, fried chicken wings from the Korean stall, donuts from the robot donut maker - usually with the best chowder in Seattle at the halibut sandwich grill in the market and candy cherries from Chukar and market spice tea and then a stroll around the market to work it off. I could not resist a red velvet shirt from Yezda, and a turqoise/sea green silk coat with embroidery and a beaded seahorse on the front...

Drink Abominable Snowman winter beer at the Red Door in Fremont; extra points if you're pulled over *right next to it* when you get the message but drive around the block because your phone thinks you're in the middle of Lake Union... the greek restaurant around the corner is nice, especially for flaming cheese and geeking out.

Have coffee and donuts at Top Pot Donuts in Bellevue; choose carefully because I'm not sure if the chocolate glazed and the blueberry glazed and the raspberry iced are the only good ones, I have to taste the others to find out.

Eat at at least two of the Essential Baking cafes; both have equally good coffee and bread and cakes and raisin pecan toast, the one near Fremont has better parking than the one on Madison.

Eat comfort food at Malay Satay Hut; yam pot for me (it's more like a giant yam donut full of veggies and shrimp), mango chicken for Simon, spinach with garlic to keep away the vampires.

Try just about everything on the menu at re:public. The tuna rillettes needs to be tasted before you go onto the confit pheasant and on balance the crispy pig tail is a little more awsome than the pig cheek and after the belly of beef with horseradish creme fraiche the sous vide chicken was too simple a flavour but the pumpkin torelloni with hazelnut and sausage was amazing and the spaghettini was amazing. Good bread, superb butter and nice pot au chocolat but the cinnamon apple fritters with honey and cream for dipping are worth licking your fingers for.

It may not sound like it but we've been enjoying staying in

spiritmoving and

elimloth's condo and being able to cook and heat leftovers and take a bath and read and work quietly; the only thing that would be nicer would be if they were here!

Current Location: Kirkland, WA

The high point of a rather fraught dash through San Jose airport last Saturday morning was explaining my view of the Southwest queue as out-of order pipeline execution to Don Bitzer of Plato fame and having him agree with me. Even the unexpected change at LA to another plane wasn't too painful as the gate was nearby and we had a seat free between us for two of the three legs. We hit N'awlins after dusk and the humidity misted our glasses up the moment we stepped out, but at first it wasn't the wall of mugg I’d been expecting, perhaps because we'd been in the conference centre from 8am to 7pm for half the week.

Eventually we started exploring; we ate twice at the John Bresh restaurant across the road (Luke with an umlaut - rich and good, a mix of Alsatian and local, so the shrimp and grits had andouillette in and the pressed pork was suckling pig, and my clams and pork was both suckling pig and belly pork). The Redfish Grille was perfectly acceptable, especially for a dinner where we were chatting as much as paying attention to the food - the Nola beer and later the Magnolia Pecan beer were both good. We went to a crawfish broil; I declined to even find out what sucking heads is about and picked them apart bit by bit. We nearly killed ourselves slogging from the convention centre to a boat that we could have got a shuttle too. We found the tiny swimming pool on the roof, that shudders gently in time to your swimming. We trekked across the French Quarter to collapse at Café du Monde and prove that although Simon can inhale much of the vast quantities of icing sugar plastered over the beignets, he cannot breathe it… if NASA were considering icing sugar instead of oxygen for astronauts, we feel we have saved them the cost of formal experimentation. We had brunch at Mothers, and the biscuit was almost as good as the wonderful chewy crispy ham crust (order it as black ham, it's the gooey bits from the edges).

And we took an afternoon to explore, riding the Charles St tram from outside our hotel all the way down the Mardi Gras route out to the garden district - you know it's the route because beads festoon the trees, the power lines, the balconies, the light poles and everything else that stays still long enough. I particularly enjoyed the combo legal office and tattoo parlour and the gates of the zoo were beautiful columns (had we gone in, it would have been the orang-utan's first birthday. Instead we headed back and took the air-conditioned Canal St tram to the ferry and the ferry across the river and back - can't miss a chance to cruise the Mississippi! - but we had to go down to the car deck to get enough air. Once we got out and about the weather was like a hammer beating down; in the 90s but with a heat index nearer 110 because the humidity means you can't cool down. I flapped my folding fan until it folded up like a bird's wing and I enjoyed the open windows on the trams, including the one that took us along the river front. We were too hot to moon walk on the Moon Walk and the French Market was disappointingly modern and full of the same stuff you see everywhere, but we walked along the back of Café du Monde and saw the pastry cook pressing the beignet dough through a cutting roller and grabbing the cut squares in both hands and flinging them over his shoulder into the boiling hot fat behind him without ever looking back at it…

From there we meant to go on the walking tour but we kept forgetting to look at the map because we were looking at the houses and balconies; the back streets are much nicer than the booze and bodies of Bourbon Street (though I was amused by the sign waved by a girl outside a nude bar promising No Cover). We never did made it into the cathedral, just a nice little jewellery shop, and after a few hours of strolling we caught sight of the sunset and went for dinner at The Green Goddess, which is as cramped and as delicious as the tales promise. Excellent, excellent food. And the biodynamic McMinneville Oregon pinot blanc was amazingly rich and tropical (yes, mangosteen).

We slept in the next morning which meant we missed the breakfast menu at Luke and had to have lunch instead; how terrible! The BLT is crab rather than bacon, on brioche toast… And then it was all day on a plane back to San Jose where we have a last few days enjoying the hospitality of saffronrose and mrkurt before we go, er, home!

The coffee shop next to the motel promised to be gourmet coffee - and it was! I never knew there were so many magazines for baristas and coffee roasters and general coffee nuts (beans?), plus great coffee and welcome air conditioning. We headed back to downtown but although the cloverleaf fort looks impressive the whole place was rather touristy for us. We overshot the turn for the bridge out onto the islands (there's something about St Augustine) and that took us down a quiet street past the military graveyard. Ironically, this has a sign on the gate noting that you may not take weapons into the graveyard. It also has three funerary pyramids of stone; both times we drove past, there was a squirrel perched on the point of one pyramid (if it sharpens razors, maybe it fluffs tails).

The islands were rather built up - the state park was about the size of a boat ramp, it looked a long way up the lighthouse and the castle was a ferry ride away so we headed along from island to island. We stopped at Flegler Beach to paddle and pick up shells and enjoy the coast; we stopped at Daytona Beach for ice cream at a small ice cream place with a logo of a cow that looked much more like a dog (moof!) and pootling along about the point that we thought we'd missed the last turning back to the mainland we found ourselves in the Canaveral national park. This is split across two spits of land; we drove down the first then around and out onto the second, which is on Merritt Island. The north section of the park has a great view of Cape Canaveral - we could see the squat block of the VAB and they close the final parking area for shuttle launches so they can put in NASA's enormous Webcam - but it's also a lovely stretch of beach. Once again we managed to find the naturist beach (or so the ranger warned us) and it was a lovely warm afternoon to splash around and stretch our legs. We turned back, headed inland and drove one of those long, long, Florida roads back to the island where we stopped to watch manatees in the canal under the drawbridge.

They're enormous; often all you can see is the interference pattern in the water where they're paddling near the surface but they roll over from time to time to get a breath when it's quiet and no idiot parents are letting their idiot children climb over the fence marked 'no entry' to go down and bother them. Fume…

Over the bridge the road runs across Merrit Island and while we didn't spot any alligators we did see an armadillo bimbling along. I've lost track of the wildlife we saw on the trip: jays and red-tailed hawks and maybe a frigate bird and vast numbers of butterflies and dragonflies and deer…

We followed the dusk down the coast past Titusville and Cocoa Beach and eventually turned inland to stop at the Super 8 in Melbourne. There was a Japanese restaurant around the corner but it was so hot and sticky we drove there! It was very traditional, with separate greeters and servers and authentic fish/vegetable/noodle/broth hotpots. As we failed dismally to finish the hotpots we watched possibly the strangest movie we've ever seen (and thanks to Certain Friends we have seen some very strange movies). We didn't see the beginning but I don’t think that would have helped (it was in Japanese but I don’t think dialog would have helped either); first it was a horror movie (mother and child in rain, kidnapped), then it was a hero movie (will our wimpy hero sacrifice himself to save them in the deserted fairground in the rain), then it was whatever kind of movie it is where the bad guy flips a coin and then lets the kid go, then it was a caper movie with buddies in a strange bar talking over the heist they’re planning that we see first as a set of models and then as a fantasy sequence in the bank where they pull a robbery only to be robbed in turn by another gang who are captured on the steps of the bank with the marked money because the robbery was a setup (and of course when they pull the heist it doesn't work like that and three gangs rob each other in turn and it turns into a weepy as our wimpy hero gets shot to save the girl except it turns back into a caper movie because the shooting is fake and the ambulance is the getaway vehicle); then it's a funny adventure movie where the getaway truck drives into the giant parade and then gets the giant parade banner over the windscreen; and then for some reason they’re dressed up as the Three Amigos robbing a Mexican bank on donkeys and then driving away in an open-top Cadillac. At which point a giraffe appears.

The next day was really mostly driving through condo blocks down the coast and trying to find somewhere for brunch that was A open and B not slammed for mother's day. We found a little place with a beach view in the end and then hit to freeway to get to Fort Lauderdale, check in and stretch out on the JetBlue flight to Long Beach where I actually had enough room to work on the plane.

Long Beach airport is a very fancy portakabin; there's actually a fixed ramp to walk off the plane rather than a jetway or stairs and you walk in one door, through the gate, out another door and the luggage carousels are out in the balmy evening. We were in and out of the rental place in record time, and actually it could only have been quicker if they'd let us walk out the back door to find the odd little Kia Soul (although we did get rather fond of it in the end).

Florida had accustomed us to toll roads and it was dark so we took the fast road to Laguna Beach, checked into the Best Western, liked it so much (double jacuzzi in the room, breakfast on the roof, checkin staff that listened when I asked for a quiet room) that we immediately booked another night before we even went out to dinner and liked The House of Big Fish and Ice Cold Beer so much that we went back the next night too! We managed to fit in a little time looking out at the sea in between meetings and writing and then drove over the heights to Palos Verdes and disappeared into another conference - definitely end of road trip.

Brevard turned out to be a great place to stop because (after the usual burst of work over coffee and donuts to start the day) the road back to the parkway took us past several waterfalls and cascades - including the most photographed waterfall in the US (of which I forget the name) and Sliding Rock - which is a cascade of fast, cold water over smooth rock you can slide down. The road runs twisty through the woods, and the waterfalls hurl themselves down from the slopes into deep dark water.

Back on the parkway the road went up and up and up and up. We paused at Graveyard Fields which once looked like a graveyard of stumps until a fire swept through and now they look like a patchwork of foliage as the trees spread across the valley; we climbed down to a cascade where the curved rock stands out like a shoulder blade in the river, making pools and whirlpools and eddies, and the path is a mix of wooden steps and the stone of the cascade. Slogging back up the slope, I realised we'd gone from 'look! A trillium!' at the millpond and below the viaduct to 'oh, look, more trillium' but they're still oddly perfect and not quite real.

The road went up and up and up again and we stopped at the high point of the parkway and gazed out - other places felt higher and more exposed, but this had the Official Boulder and classic parkway views. The road dips and swoops up and down and round the descending radial curves all along and you'd never know that was the highest crest, although the trees are thicker on the lower crests. The trees were so thick coming around one corner that although I caught a glimpse of a waterfall across the valley, when we pulled in to the cascade overlook it was only a cascade overhear - we could hear the rush of water but we couldn't see anything through the trees.

It's more exposed when you come to the section marked as 'no parking in the watershed' - the streams and rivulets of water we'd seen from time to time ran over almost every surface of the rock. The gutters of the parkway all along are lined with square cobbles but here the water can sheet on down and head into the reservoirs.

The road goes on and up, right to the very top of the ranges and we looked down and down - and it was too cool, which is something in these temperatures! The overlook is being improved so the sign is gone but the posts remain like a gate into the sky - I leaned forward between the posts to feel the wind until I felt the cold and off we went round more slopes.
The parkway just kind of stops rather than ending; you slide on out onto a main road very suddenly. We were tempted by the Great Smokey Mountains park with the observation tower you climb by a huge circular trail (Look Point, which is probably a description of the visitors as much as the landscape) and I was tempted to buy the vacuum-packed country ham and post ii home but the south was calling and stopping only in Cherokee for ice cream and cringing at the tourist tat and Live Indian Displays, we hit the freeway and I went to sleep in the car as we headed south on the Palmetto Prideway.
I woke up some time before we pulled into Charleston. Coming in from the freeway you run through some rundown areas on the outskirts but historic Charleston is cutesy and historic, with narrow streets crammed with beautiful houses that are as close together as they'd be in London, rather than having the arms-wide elbow room of many American cities. Carriage rides rattle through the streets, street vendors sell woven hats and baskets spread out over the pavement and names like King Street, Queen Street and Broad Street make it feel like a town back home.

We drove down the main drag to check things out then onto a quieter side street to find a motel (there were prettier places but the Days Inn was nice anyway, and I suspect rather cheaper than the more upscale places). The warm muggy evening hit us when we got out of the car, and again when we headed out to find dinner, but it wasn't too hot or sticky to enjoy walking along and looking in the windows and looking at the way the big stone market is set up. We were hoping to find a Five Guys that we'd passed driving but it was just too far and we found a great barbecue joint that had some excellent local beer too; the menu was set up so you could pick one, two or three barbecue meats and a couple of side, and get a side order or ribs as well which meant we could try a bite of pretty much everything before heading back and falling asleep.
The carriage rides, we discovered when the horses woke us in the morning, went down the alley outside our room!

The only motel in Sparta had a great selection of teas, including Constant Comment - very welcome as there was no real milk and like Fake Steve, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of non-dairy creamer. We had comedy moments of finding nearly every gas station was either closed or out of gas or didn't have a working card reader, but we gassed up eventually and I picked up the guidebook to discover that we were passing the view of the aforesaid knob arising from the aforesaid bottom. I must admit that we sniggered.

The first overlook we stopped at had Québécois bikers and a much better view on the other side of the road - of a curved, half-bald mountain (maybe it was Peachy Bottom, but from this angle the Knob was not aligned).

The log cabin was both cosy and exposed; I was thinking how far away from everyone, the widow moved out after she left it to the park because too many people came through! The flax patch looks as if they grow it every year for demonstrations and the grass was starred with tiny flowers.

Lunch at a lodge right on the parkway - country ham biscuits and pulled pork with cheese between two corn pancakes which is way better than it sounds (although it was my day for foreign objects; I got the fish-hook in the carpet (point down, luckily and the hotel manager literally blenched when I showed it to him) and the hair in the pancake).

The colours of the foliage on the parkway are amazing; not just the variety of greens and the mix of trees but white blossom, flame azaleas, something that might be pink azaleas and all the leaves coming out pink and copper - I may have as many shots of unfurling leaves as I do of vistas.

The denim magnate's fancy house is fancy; white painted wedding cake with 11 miles of carraige drives and it's now a craft shop with views.

The stunning Linn viaduct; we saw it, slowed down for a photo, drive back to the waterfall before it and couldn't get a photo, drove over it and then hiked under it past rivulets and trillium.

Shortly after that the parkway was closed so we drove away and then back; as we were going to be right behind a honking big truck, we pulled over to buy local jam and honey and let the truck get away from us. Back on the parkway at the Linn River turnoff and along the twisty bits before we hit another diversion - into Transylvania!

We made it as far as Brevard on the diversion and stopped for the night, finding a really rather good strip-mall sushi joint for dinner, by the name of Sora. The local beer came in two styles, amber and dark, both of which go nicely with sushi!

We decided not to drive on as far as planned the first night to avoid the driving rain and the rain-hampered drivers; we stopped in Ashland and woke up to see that the flood was up to the edge of the highway on the other side of the road! The rain had stopped, the sun was out - and we sat in the car and did a phone briefing and then stopped at Rajah's for amazing biscuits, sausage gravy and country ham. After that we drove out of Kentucky, into West Virginia and on into Virginia itself past endless vistas of green slopes and mountains, over rivers, past gleaming cold capitol cupolas, past coal seams showing where passes have just been blasted through hills and mountains, up hill and down dale. We stopped at Tamarack, which is a triangle-topped craft centre, conference theatre and service station that's very Logan's Run Carousel (carousel! lastday! shopping!) - despite temptation we only bought two Fiestaware plates, but I was tempted by knitted top hats and a shrug done in modular knitting and crochet so I shall pull out my needles and knit something or other tomorrow...

We were enjoying the road but decided to stop reasonably early so we could do some more work; we fancied staying in town rather than on the outskirts and we got the visitor centre discount at the McCampbell Inn in Lexington. This is right in the centre of the historic downtown - between the realtors, the dress shops, the restaurants, the chic homeware shops and the other historic buildings - and dates back to 1809. The host dated back rather further, telling us about his descent from Jefferson, his ancestor the tobacco assessor who was imprisoned by King James and his distant Norman ancestors... We sat in rocking chairs in the dusk and worked until dinner, up the street at the Southern Inn. I recommend the beer section of their menu for perusal (although http://www.southerninn.com/specialdrinks.html still has the winter seasonal beers on); we had the delightly refreshing and not too ginger Left Hand JuJu Ginger, the nutty malty and altogether wonderful Full Sail Limited #1, the refreshing and not as sweet as you'd expect Abita Purple Haze (with fresh raspberry juice added after brewing) and, um, something else good ;-) The wine list is also impressive - and the food was fantastic. Simon's meatloaf was wrapped in bacon, with a dark mushroom gravy and really more like a steak hache than meatloaf; and my fried chicken was moist with a hint of brine and a lovely crisp spicy coating. The red mashed potatoes were full of tasty red skin and the steamed vegetables were just so perfectly cooked. Eventually we got around to sharing a caramel pineapple bread pudding with coconut ice cream and went back to sit in the rocking chairs and read till we fell asleep.

We weren't really planning on wine tasting, but after coffee we fancied lunch at Farmstand 46, the deli/sandwich bar in the same building as Four Vines and you can never have too many Four Vines-etched Riedel O tasting glasses, so we dropped in for a taste and ended up chatting about wine (you can taste the soil in tempranillo - it's like a mouthful of clean dirt) and music and tech and whatever with the nice Australian who upsold us to the Phoenix, which you have to buy in threes (because of the bottle design - two wings and a head between the trilogy). He suggested trying Adelaida Cellars, so after we'd petted the cat and checked that yes, Norman was still selling Monster Zin 03 at $96 the case and yes, we could fit one in the car, we turned right instead of left and tasted there; interesting mix of wines, including a Zin I can only describe as 'juicy' (their notes said 'supple' but I say juicy) and another cat to pet while we were chatting to the tasting room manager... So we decided to stop in Cambria instead of pushing north. Black Cat Bistro was closed and the restaurant we were heading for after seeing a picture of the blackberry pie interprets 'open till 9' as 'close the kitchen at 8.05' so we went back to Robyns, which is an odd mix of slightly asian comfort food made a bit more healthily than usual; mushroom and spinach lasagna and firestone double barrelled ale, which would very much like to be a bitter. And hey, the new Leverage on TV!

Apart from proofing an issue of IT Expert and writing my editor's letter we took Monday easy to recover from CES; lunch at Olives in the Bellagio (where our friendly waiter from Shibuya will soon be working) - truffled steak frites with a dippy egg and pink bellini - then across the desert to Mojave. It's a pretty sky over the desert, I think (I was still proofing pages). Leaving Mojave this morning we were tossing up which route to take and wondering what we could see that would be new; King Canyon appeals, but also involves lots of flat and boring central valley. I found a leaflet in the hotel for a feline research and breeding centre in Rosamond so we went and photographed lynxes and cougars and jaguars and jaguamundi and fishing cats and leopards and snow leopards and cervals and caracals and panthers and ocelots; typically, the Geoffroys cats were asleep. It's mostly a research facility and I always think the enclosures could be smaller but the lynx came out of his hideyhole and blinked at me and the cougar purred when one of the researchers stopped to chat with him. Also, they have many peacocks, which make more noise than any of the cats, and more mess. We wiped the gift of the peacocks off our shoes and headed on.

From Rosamond we drove an utterly straight road with occasional plantations of joshua trees over to the 14 and a distant view of the mountains of LA plus the smog of LA streaming into the desert; we did a few miles of freeway through big curving hills and paused for gas then came out of the pass into the central valley - and realised we'd missed our turn at the gas station and ran away from the central valley. From Travis up into the hills, where there is a little snow and many warnings for bears and much twisting of road, where we saw a red-tailed hawk flapping into the trees and a condor circling above us - I saw the white underwing and the black trim and then the sign for the condor programme at the wildlife preserve. Also numerous forest roads that the GPS tried to send us down. We resisted man-and-womanfully and were rewards with a twisting turning road and the most amazing views. To the left and south, tissue-paper layers of misty mountains; to the right a landscape of dimpled hills and slopes slowly falling to the central valley and more smog and beyond that the sierras, some edged with snow. The road went up and round and round and up and the view peeked at us between trees and spread out from the heights and we saw another condor - beneath us. Down, down, down the twists on the 166 and through canyons and gorges with only scummy green hints of the torrents of water that must have carved the landscape. We reached the 1 with the last of the light and saw the sea just past Pismo Beach then made impressive time into Paso Robles for the night. We hadn't planned ahead and Simon had done a lot of driving so rather than our usual trip out to Justin by the backroads we had dinner at the always-excellent Artisan downtown.

The bread at Artisan comes from Fresh Hills in Atascadero and if we ever remember to stop there I will buy half the bakery. Simon had Green Flash - very hoppy; I had Groth sauvignon blanc - which is as close as wine comes to hoppy, with a nice hint of peach - and Lascivious, a blend from a winery beginning with A that I enjoyed but might not seek out again. As usual Simon had the fondue with garlic toast, a sausage I think is kielbasa and broccoli; I had my first abalone, breaded in cornmeal and sweet and tender; the avocado and salad worked well with it, the pancetta was a little too thin and crispy and the fried green tomato was, I think, too hard. Simon's 48 hour short rib stew with market vegetables was tasty but my 'rack' of lamb (more a split chop and melting slice of shank with marrow to suck out of the bone) was so good I wanted to get down on my knees and thank the sheep. The inside was pink and juicy, the outside was crisp and dark and umami and the split bone was chewy and crunchy (and I picked up the bone and stripped it clean); white beans and cavolo nero to cut the fat, shoestring onion rings to make me aim to avoid fried foods for the rest of the week. Fried blueberry pies with lemon ice cream, of which we both said, with a feeling of shame at the comparison, like Macdonalds but done right, and the ice cream of the day - whisky raisin, cinnamon creme fraiche and guiness.

Back to the hotel and the warm day - 60 with the cats, 70 coming over the hills but spots of rain coming onto the last freeway and into Paso - turned into floods of rain pounding on the hotel roof like kettle drums. I'm expecting the car to have washed out to sea somewhere by Cambria...

A lovely drive through Zion. today: we went up and through the tunnels and enjoyed the mountains and the snow and the quiet. We also drove to the other end of the park, to the road past the finger canyons, which we didn't do either time we visited before: lovely and dramatic and an excellent chance to use the walking poles to check how deep the snow at the viewpoints is. Then up to Cedar City for cheaper gas and back to Springdale to catch the last of the light on the peaks. The mountains mean there's not much sunset here but the stars make up for that. we dragged the covers off the hot tub and had a soak before walking around the corner to Oscars which does rather healthier versions of the standard mexican and burgers (wholemeal buns, chopped in garlic and sweet potato fries, although the scale model mesa of whipped cream on the brownie we shared made up for that). Had the Zion amber ale again, and the IPA rather than the jamaican lager.

On the way to and from dinner we had a lovely visit with the hotel kitten (9 months or so I'd say, black and white and quite adorable - purring, playing, curling up, patting the straps of my bag and making it quite clear when she wants pettings). Also met a delightful greyhound rescue at one of the viewpoints, who came asking to be petted then leant on me and buried her head: friendly rather than neurotic and a beautiful brindled lady.

Mary Jo suggested the Rattle n Hum (14 E 33rd St) and after a nice afternoon hanging out with old friend and NY transplant Simon P and his dog Oscar (Old John is a nice place for brunch near West End) we tried it out for a drink. With the warning that the small nachos does 2 people for dinner, on to the beers.

We tried three different Captain Lawrence Ales: the Freshchester is maybe over-bitter, the old gold is nice, the trippel Xtra is very nice. The Thomas Hooker Noreaster is like Ibarra made into beer: cinnamon, cacao, even a touch of cornflour hardness. The Smuttynose Big A IPA is big, rich for an IPA, like a trippel. The Middle Ages Duke of Worship is a spicy dark ale and the Stone Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout has that dusty oatmeal hardness in a rich dark brew.

I kind of like LA, so I won't call it an urban desert. We have a couple of favourite restaurants and we visited both of them to recover from the endless (fascinating) hours of interviews and sessions and conference food; you know it's bad when convention center fried chicken is the highlight of your culinary week. (PDC was a busy week for us and it hit all our interests, from end user to business IT to admin to development: we've been following identity and the modelling initiative formerly known as Oslo for a few years now and they're starting to come to fruition). So Thursday night we settled down for some more writing and a late night snack at Bottega Louie. The portion sizes vary wildly and the menu is organised by price, but the pizza is superb, the ravioli is small but perfectly formed, the eggplant parmigiana is tasty, the caponata is succulent and rich and the fried calamari is tentaculous.

We missed the brunch menu at Figaro on North Vermont thanks to late nights, missed phone calls and Avis running out of cars (more of which later) but lunch there is just as good. And when you add a croissant and a side of bacon to the mushroom spinach goats cheese omelette, you have brunch after all. The chocolate-bowl sized latte is fantastic there and it was fun to hear the (American) waiter discussing learning French at college by immersion with the American at the next table who'd lived in Paris; next table over was a couple practising French and at the far end was someone who was a) actually French and b) nowhere near as rude as the French woman who was there last time acting surprised when I asked her not to blow smoke over my food. The bookshop nearby will be worth a return visit too.

Having booked a compact, I was ~~howling with laughter~~ surprised when Simon came back with a great big powder-blue barge of a thing, with leather seats the full width of the car - like sofas with fold-down arms. It's a Crown Vic under all that frouffiness and you can feel the engine kick back in when you turn off the AC... It's nice for crusing around, so we promptly drove to Mission Viejo to look at the Microsoft Store and, er, buy a Zune HD, then down to Palm Springs for a nice weekend in the hot desert. This was slightly spoiled by finding I must have left my watch in the hotel room in LA (along with the charger for the electric toothbrush); the hotel can't find it but as it's not on my wrist, in my pocket or in any of my bags, either it fell down the back of something in the room or broke and fell off my wrist while we were out and about. Wah...

The Travelodge at Palm Springs looks almost as hip as ever, though you can tell more what was painted over rather than replaced. But it still has the wonderful huge hot pool that's nearly 5 foot deep, the corned beef hash at Sherwin's is still excellent (and goes very well with probably the best latke I've ever had) and the carnitas and margaritas at the Blue Coyote are yumita. Also, sun, good coffee at Koffi and a scenic drive in the Santa Rosa mountains enlivened by dozens of Porsches, many of them vintage, and a reflecting lake at sunset. Must take photos off the big camera.

We left Palm Springs and drove past Joshua Tree and into Arizona. Where shall we go, we asked ourselves? Well, the other Microsoft store is in Scottsdale... so we drove past lots of cacti and mountains, stopped for a pretty sunset, bypassed the sprawl of Phoenix and picked a motel on the outskirts of Scottsdale. It turned out to be next to a large mall where we had dinner at Modern Steak; where the food is good (especially the cramel ginger on my tuna poke) and the décor is straight out of Crate and Barrel. Also the kilt theme continues; after the Crooked Kilt in Paso and the Twisted Kilt in Palm Springs, the Kilt Lifter scottish ale from Four Peaks was excellent - very like the Traquair House ale. And that large mall - yes, it was the one with the Microsoft store... how did you guess?

Current Location: Flagstaff, AZ

Last city of the trip: New York, achieved with only a few confusions. the train ride down from Boston was splendid and filled with views and our arrival at the W (my spiritual home) was marred only by discovering that I'd booked the second night at a *different* New York W (we're in Union Square, I booked the Lexington one through Virgin). The checkin staff have been awesomely helpful and friendly: it makes me want to twitter to say how good they are. We found a Maoz on Union Square for dinner last night and tonight, after a looong and fascinating day learning things about Office 2010 we can't tell you until the middle of November we wandered out to find dinner. Around Union Square and down University and amid the sprinkle of neighbourhood restaurants we settled on Jacks - and it serves a delicious local brew: Coney Island Albino Python. white beer with spices: maybe coriander or orange peel? Very fragrant!