Califortunatly

I know I've been a slacker on putting stuff up. I've been busy at work so now that I've got this day off (labor day) I'll put up some long overdue photos from my trip with T to Cali. It was a ton of fun. We got to go to the Ventura County Fair. We went to Las Olivas and Solvang. We did a mini Sideways Tour of Santa Barbara wineries. Went body boarding at Dead Seal Beach. Yes, there were some dead seals there. You usually have to find a spot downwind. But the waves are killer and it's close.
Anyway, we spent a whole day hitting wineries in SB county. We left early and drove to Las Olivas Grocery to pick up a tri-tip sandwich before heading out to taste. This lowkey grocery store is just off a hilly road in the middle of vine land. Mountains loom in a circle around it. There was a 42000 acre fire that was blackening the sky to the south. At the back of the store there's a deli counter, like anyother grocery. The best thing off the menu, you can't find at any other grocery store though. It's a fresh off the BBQ hot tritip sandwich. It comes with a blackened salsa that's out of this world. Of course no one would tell us really what was in it. Trade secret. We spent the rest of the day popping from vineyard to vineyard. Trying around 6 different wines at each. T's mom was amazing and was the DD so we didn't have to worry about ending up in jail. For driving drunk anyway. You all know that a drunken night could go anywhichway. We hit about 4 vineyards that were in Sideways. Kalyra was my fave I think. They had an amazing Syrah port that we bought a bottle of. The view was spectacular from there too. It looked across vast emerald fields of vines, heavy with grapes of all types. On the jagged horizon, a mushroom cloud of black and white smoke rose off the mountain side. The hills surrounding glowed a crazy color of gold. tbc...