As you could probably guess from Katie’s French Laundry post, the following morning we woke up with one of the worst food-hangovers we’ve ever had. You know that feeling that you don’t want to eat ever again? That was basically us (though I must admit, sometime around 2 PM I broke down and started eating the shortbread cookies and chocolates that TFL had packed up for us — what can I say? Fat kid). After we packed up (which included our extremely disgusting clothes from Yosemite), we headed out to see the sights of The Bay Area and grab a few beautiful pictures along the way.
While still in the Napa Valley, we wanted to duck into a nearby vineyard and grab that classic Northern California wedding shot in front of rows and rows of grapevines. I don’t think I will ever get tired of the sight of vineyards, rolling hills and beautiful mansions – wine country is really an amazing place to be. The rustic feel of farming but with the class of fine wine and cheese – a great balance for us city kids.
As we headed south, I thought it would be really nice to stop by Muir Woods, a beautiful forest reserve named after the first president of the Sierra Club, John Muir. With trees over 250 feet tall, 14 feet wide and 1000 years old, it’s a pretty humbling place.
And last but not least, what would the San Francisco area be without its most famous landmark, the Golden Gate Bridge? Certainly an icon we wanted to capture, Katie and I parked near one of the vista points, grabbed our tripod and set off to get the perfect photo. Now, one important thing to note about these photos is that we are limited in the distance and obstacles that I am able to cover between the time I push the button on the camera and when I am standing next to Katie (I have a 10 second fuse). So far there have been a few long runs (Mono Lake and even Muir Woods), but never one with an obstacle. You can’t see it here, but Katie and I are actually standing on a bench that is behind a railing – which meant that I needed to sprint, jump the railing, land on the bench, turn and pose all in 10 seconds. Now, since I’m much more like Jason Wade than Angelo Taylor, this isn’t exactly the easiest feat. Being that we were in a fairly touristy location, we had an audience of people, watching and laughing as I was tripping, falling and looking like a complete idiot trying to get into position in time. After a few minutes, a very nice couple of German tourists offered to help us out and take the photos for us. Vielen Dank, Fritz! You saved me from what would have been yet another Wedding of Wonders injury!
We drove from the bridge to the airport as the sun was setting, reminiscing on our wonderful 4 days spent in California. We saw everything from the desert to the mountains, ocean to forests, 100-degree heat to snow, and small towns with only 150 people to the diverse city of San Francisco. California is a huge state with something for just about everyone. We’ll miss you California, but we’re off to see the world! Talk to you from Sydney!
Our long-awaited meal at The French Laundry in Yountville, California has come and gone and we (barely) lived to tell about it. That may sound ridiculous since it’s only food, but considering the fact that we decided to go with their extended tasting menu, it was more like a marathon than a meal. We spent the morning sleeping in and recovering from our Yosemite torture trek and woke up in time to blog for a bit and head up to Yountville for our 5:30PM dinner reservation.
Now, I’ll say up front that we had extremely high expectations for our meal at TFL, but I do not think that they were unrealistic expectations at all. While we have had the opportunity to dine at some of the best restaurants all over the world, we are pretty easy to please when it comes to food (from diners to Denny’s to Daniel, we can enjoy meals across the restaurant spectrum). Long story short, it pains me to say this, but we were somewhat disappointed by our experience at The French Laundry.
Considering all of the things that we had read and heard about TFL paired with the extremely difficult reservation process, we expected one of the best meals of our lives. The overall meal fell short, not because of the quality or preparation of the food, but the quality of the experience. Once you get a reservation at TFL (that is, IF you can get a reservation), you have a choice of picking from the 2 daily menus (Chef’s Tasting and Tasting of Vegetables) or living large and going for the extended tasting. Since we are definitely doing our best to make this the trip of a lifetime, we went for the extended tasting. After making this decision, the staff asks if there are any types of ingredients that you really love so that they can tailor the meal to YOU. We told them about our trip around the world and asked if they could try and incorporate international flavors into our dining experience. I’m not sure if they simply failed to deliver the message, but nothing about our meal seemed tailored to us AT ALL. Don’t get me wrong, the food was well-prepared and beautifully presented; however, the overall menu seemed to be cut and pasted from menus past in an almost haphazard fashion. It was wonderful to have the chance to taste some TFL staples that we had always heard about (salmon cornets, “oysters and pearls,” salt tasting, bread and butter, “coffee and donuts,” etc.), but the rest of the dishes (especially the heavier meat courses) lacked the very creativity and passion that we flew across the country to experience. One of the biggest problems of the meal was the portion sizes (too large, too many starches) and rushed service. About half-way through the meal, I had to start eating only half of my courses in order to make it through and even then I started to feel sick to my stomach from the amount of food being placed in front of me in such a short period of time.
I must say that had it not been for the amazing waitstaff, the general manager (Nicholas Fanucci is funny, approachable and awesome) and the executive chef (Timothy Hollingsworth was super friendly, welcoming and, not to mention, pretty easy on the eyes) at TFL, we would have left feeling almost used and abused. While some guests around us chose to follow a more formal approach to their dinner, we always enjoy talking to the staff and getting a glimpse of each person’s personality instead of giving him or her the cold shoulder. The warm and welcoming demeanor of the staff was certainly the highlight of our entire night.
One of the biggest let-downs of our entire TFL experience was our interaction (or lack thereof) with its owner, Thomas Keller. One of the other tables in the dining room asked if Keller was on-site so that they could get him to sign their menus. The head waiter told them “unfortunately, Mr. Keller is not in the house this evening.” This was understandable considering Chef Keller has another successful restaurant in New York City (Per Se); however, we later learned that this was not the case. We were ushered to the back of the restaurant after our meal for a kitchen tour and there was Thomas Keller himself, standing in a little glass booth overlooking the kitchen. The executive chef was kind enough to pause between plating to take a picture with us, but Keller barely gave us a glance or a nod. This seemed slightly rude to us considering 1) we had just spent way too much money at his establishment 2) I had asked the restaurant months earlier for a picture with Keller if he was in town and 3) they were aware that we had gone out of our way to make TFL a stop on our trip (the executive chef said “Hey! I recognize you guys from your website!”) and were huge Keller fans. I totally understand if chef Keller was in no mood to greet an entire dining room of guests; however, to give us the cold shoulder when we are standing no more than 3 feet away left us with a bad aftertaste. When you have guests coming from across the country to eat at your restaurant, I do not think that a “hello” is too much to ask for, do you?
The next morning we drove back to The French Laundry with our wedding ensembles to pose for our official Wedding Of Wonders photo in front of the restaurant (although, to be honest, we talked about skipping this altogether). Once again we saw Thomas Keller there (he was sitting in the garden less than 15 feet away from where we were posing for our pictures) and he looked just as friendly as he had the night before. We considered asking him to take a photo with us, but decided against it.
Overall, our experience at The French Laundry was not the meal of a lifetime that we had hoped for. The staff did a fantastic job of making us feel as if we were being welcomed into their home, but the lack of personalized attention to detail (it would have been nice to leave with a copy of a menu listing the food we had just eaten) and seemingly generic menus selections made for a disappointing night.
I’ll simply start off by saying that yesterday was probably the craziest day of our lives. As you probably read in Katie’s previous post, we woke up yesterday morning at 4:00AM, drove for 5 hours to Yosemite, took a bus up to the top of Glacier Point, hiked approximately 10 miles (6 hours) to the Yosemite Valley, then got back in our car and drove another 4 hours to Sonoma. …needless to say, it was a long day.
Our early morning drive from Mammoth Lake to Yosemite was absolutely incredible as we weaved our way through the Sierras on Sonora Pass. The diversity of desert, mountain, valley and forest truly speaks to the beauty of California’s Eastern landscape and definitely helps you stay awake when driving on only a few hours of sleep. Miraculously, our time budgeting was accurate and we arrived in Yosemite just a few minutes before our shuttle bus to Glacier Point. The bus ride up gave me a new-found respect for bus drivers as we snaked along narrow cliffs hundreds or thousands of feet above the canyon below (fortunately Katie was sleeping a good portion of the ride because as you may know, she gets a little nervous in ‘dangerous’ situations).
Once at the top, we disembarked from the shuttle and the true adventure began. Early on, hiking was easy, downhill and dry. Katie and I laughed at what terrible shape we are both in for 23-year-olds and we snacked every so often on some trail mix we brought along. All in all, it was a nice walk through the woods, enjoying the landscape and wildlife (including this rattlesnake that crossed the trail in front of us).
The hike continued for about 3 hours as we descended about 8,000 feet, ascended 2,000 feet, crossed a powerful rushing river and made our way Westward toward the Yosemite Valley. Demanding, certainly, but breathtaking and an amazing way to see the beauty and grandeur of the park.
Just as we arrived at Nevada Falls, roughly the half-way point of our hike (and our target destination for our wedding pictures), we noticed some high winds and a large gray cloud above us — not the best thing to see when you’re 5-miles from camp. At first, we thought it was refreshing (as we were both hot and sweaty from hiking) and sat on the rocks enjoying the view of the falls, the valley below and some much-needed wind and drizzle.
Perhaps we were a little naive, or just too tired to make the connection, but gray clouds, high winds and drizzle usually do not come alone and before we knew it, Katie and I found ourselves being pelted by hail. Then the hail accelerated, grew, and the downpour began. Amazed and in awe by the lighting and the echo of thunder throughout the canyon, we ducked between a tree and a rock to take cover and wait it out.
After about 10-15 minutes of very poor cover from the sideways-blowing ice and rain, we realized that waiting was not an option (especially since we had just passed a bobcat taking cover in a cave less than 10 yards away). We sucked it up, grabbed our gear, and started making our way down the steps (this time of year, and during a storm like this, the steps are some steep, slick granite rocks under about 3-4 inches of fast-moving water).
As we were rushing down the treacherous landscape, I fell and landed on my arm. I thought it may have been broken last night and the very nice girl at the pizzeria where we stopped for dinner had her dad take a look since he was a retired EMT who used to work in Yosemite. Fortunately for me, he said that the only potential break was small and if I wake up tomorrow morning and my arm isn’t black and blue, I should be OK (I woke up this morning, and I think all is good).
We kept on pushing and working our way toward the valley. After another 2 hours of hiking (in the rain and hail with somewhat low morale) we found the most impressive sight of our entire journey — Vernal Falls. Vernal Falls is so powerful this time of year that the water gushes over the falls with the force to spray mist everywhere. This makes for an amazing view, but a pretty dangerous climb down mossy, wet rocks.
Eventually, exhausted, battered and relieved, we made it down to the Yosemite Valley and I can honestly say it was the most physically demanding thing I have ever done (running 10 miles is tough, but hiking 10 miles up and down that kind of terrain is an entirely different experience). We got to the car, changed into some dry clothes, and set off for our 4-hour-drive to wine country.
When we finally arrived around midnight we grabbed some medical supplies (including the world’s natural painkiller – alcohol) and went to sleep, completely exhausted. I apologize for the lack of blog last night, but we were a tad bit tired. I must say, that as much as I make fun of Katie for always being a spoiled little princess, she was a real trooper and did not complain at all. Every time we found ourselves in a terrible position, she just laughed, said “Really?! Really Mother Nature?!” I’ve really got to hand it to her — I was extremely impressed.
After some much needed sleep, we woke up this morning (at 11:45! Yeah!), had a very healthy breakfast of chardonnay and brie, and just let our bodies tell us never to do that ever again. Naturally the best side effect of this kind of physical activity is hunger — a lot of hunger. Which conveniently will be fulfilled by our dinner tonight at one of the best restaurants in the world, French Laundry! Katie and I are pretty tired, hungry and overall in the mood to drink 4 bottles of wine, eat 25 courses and be complete gluttons for the rest of the evening. Tonight should be incredible.
So to recap, I offer the following equation:
10 miles + 9,000 ft altitude + 1 bobcat + 1 rattlesnake + 1 bear + 3 deer + relentlessness wrath of mother nature = 1 unbelievable day
So it is with that behind us that Katie and I prepare our appetites for an unparalleled culinary experience (French Laundry has tailored their extended menu to our trip around the world and will be incorporating global flavors into our dinners this evening). Check back for our experience at the restaurant and several wedding pictures tomorrow. Thanks for reading and we’ll talk to you then!
Today was our first full day in California and let’s just say that things did not exactly go as planned. After arriving in Mammoth Lakes late last night, we planned on waking up as early as possible to hike around Yosemite and check out some of the amazing waterfalls that Mike had read about after the Swine Flu insanity altered our plans. We scheduled a tour at 10:00AM that would take us up to Glacier Point and then we would hike to Yosemite Valley. According to Google Maps, we were about 90 minutes away from the Yosemite Lodge where we were supposed to meet our tour bus, so we left the hotel around 8:00AM with (what we thought was) plenty of time to make it to the bus. We stopped at the front desk just to double check our planned route and the exchange with the concierge sounded something like this:
Katie: “Hi, can you tell me the best wayto get to Yosemite Lodge?”
Concierge: “Sure. Let’s take a look at the map. [Pulls up map on the computer]”
Katie: “Great, we are scheduled to take a tour up to Glacier Point and we have to meet at the Lodge.”
Valet Guy: “What time is your tour?”
Katie: “10:00AM”
Valet Guy: “Um, I hope you mean 10:00 tomorrow. Route 120 is closed so it will take you at least 5 hours to get where you need to be.”
Katie: “Crap.”
So, needless to say, Mike was not a happy camper once I broke the news to him that there was no possible way that we were making it into Yosemite in time for our tour. We decided to start driving and see where we ended up. Mike was slightly stressed at this point so he began to speed down Main Street only to be stopped 2 minutes later by Officer Swartzkopf of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department for going 55mph in a 35mph zone. Oops. Luckily we were able to avoid a speeding ticket, but not before being subjected to the usual police lecture consisting of: “I’m really tempted to give you a ticket right now, you know that, right?” ”Do you usually obey the law, son?” “You can enjoy the scenery much better when you obey the speed limits.” We sat through it like real champs, but it was not the greatest start to our day of adventure.
After our chat with the police officer, we were able to reschedule our Yosemite tour until the following morning at 10:00AM, so we decided to explore the area around our hotel. Our first stop was at the overwhelmingly beautiful Mono Lake where there are these crazy rock forms called “tufa” sticking up out of the water.
After exploring the area and finding ourselves pretty much in the park by ourselves, we decided to grab our wedding ensembles from the car and capture our first official Wedding of Wonders photographs. Although this particular location is not considered to be a “world wonder” per se, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to capture the beauty of the scenery for our wedding album. We set up our tripod about 40 feet away from where we wanted to stand and then changed into our outfits. Since the timer on our camera only lasts 10 seconds I’m sure we looked absolutely ridiculous having to run back and forth from the camera to our photo position, but somehow we managed to get a few great shots. So, without further ado, here is our first official Wedding of Wonders photo:
Obviously you can’t tell from the picture, but it was almost 100 degrees when we were taking our photos [I have the sunburn to prove it], so Mike was ready to pass out wearing his tux.
After completing our photo shoot at Mono Lake, we continued driving along Route 395 and stopped along the way when the scenery warranted the production of parking, setting up the tripod and braving the heat. Here are some of our favorite shots of the day:
Even though things started out a little rocky, we ended up having an amazing day of exploring Mono Lake and the surrounding area. Tomorrow we are heading to Yosemite at 4:30AM so that we can make it in time for our 10:00AM tour (yikes!) and after that, we’ll be heading to Napa Valley to prepare for our meal of a lifetime at The French Laundry. Since we will be on the road for most of the day, our blogging may be delayed depending on how late we make it to Napa, but be sure to stay tuned for the second half of our California adventures!
It was great meeting you this morning in your beautiful town of Mammoth, CA. While our time together was brief, we will certainly remember our impromptu get together. Thank you very much for deciding to let us go with a warning instead of actually writing us a ticket for going 55 mph in a 35 mph zone. Although our wedding reception is more than a month away, we appreciate this thoughtful gesture and shall consider it to be our very first wedding gift. As per your suggestion, we did “slow down and enjoy the scenery,” but please note that the view was equally spectacular at 80mph. Thanks again.
After months of planning and preparing for our wedding around the world, the time has finally come for us to pack up and hit the road! It seems like only yesterday that I turned to Mike and said “screw it, let’s take a trip around the world,” but more than a year has passed since that fateful day and as a result we will be spending the next 5 weeks visiting some of the most amazing places on the planet.
Packing has been quite the challenge for us. Although we wanted to carry on all of our luggage and avoid losing a bag along the way, the amount of things that we just HAD to bring with us made that physically impossible. Long story short, at around 4:00AM (5 hours before our first flight was scheduled to depart), we decided that checking bags was our only option. Between all of our clothes, toiletries, camera equiptment (1 SLR, 1 pocket-sized, 1 digital video) and odds and ends (Mike’s school books, our computers, etc.), we each had one bag too many. Oops.
So, after an all-nighter of packing, cleaning and other random trip preparations, the time had come to hop on the plane to our first stop: San Francisco. My super awesome brother volunteered to drive us to the airport at the crack of dawn (i.e. 7:30am – yes, I know it’s not THAT early, but my idea of a regular wake-up time is between noon and 4:00PM) to catch our 9:30AM flight out of Philly.
After the usual airport headaches (checking in, checking bags, strip search at security, etc.), we made it onto our US Airways flight and got situated with our brand new Bose noise-cancelling headphones (thank you to Nick, Bobby Lux, Doug, Brad, Tami, Joe, Gurpreet and Trent for the awesome gift!) for the long flight ahead of us.
After our 6 hour flight (with the best landing I have ever experienced on any flight), we made it to SanFranciso! We quickly made it to Fox Rentals and picked up our Jeep Liberty in order to make the quasi-longish drive to Yosemite. The drive was absolutely beautiful and we made a few stops along the way.
At around 11:00PM (PST) last night we finally made it to the Westin in Mammoth Lakes where we will be spending the next 2 nights after our adventures. We will be hiking up to Glacier Point today and will post more about our adventures when we return this evening (that is assuming that we make it back in one piece and do not have any encounters with large, dangerous wildlife). Stay tuned…
Keep your eyes open for a post tomorrow on the many challenges of obtaining wedding clothing and Chinese outsourcing (sorry if outsourcing offends those of you staunch republicans, but you have to admit, sometimes you are just dumb)!
In about 2 months we leave for our wedding around the world. Two. Months. Can you believe it?! With preparations well underway for both our trip and the celebration at home once we return, we have been working our way down our wedding “to do” list. (Okay, okay! I’ll admit it. I am the compulsive list-maker, so it’s really MY “to do” list that I have thrust upon Mike.) To give you an idea of items on our my list:
1) Find and Book Wedding Venue. Check.
2) Book Around-the-World Tickets. Check.
3) Book Awesome Musicians to Play at Celebration. Check.
4) Annoy Mike With Menial Tasks As Often As Humanly Possible. Check.
Seems simple enough, right? So, after checking a ton of stuff off of the list over the past few months, the time finally came to sit down and discuss the most difficult task at hand. I know you’re asking yourself, “What could it possibly be?” Applying for a marriage license? Nope. Finding a place to stay at multiple locations all around the world? Nope. Making the decision to spend the rest of your life with one person? Nope. Securing a reservation at THE FRENCH LAUNDRY? Ding ding ding!!!
Now, for those of you who are not familiar with The French Laundry, let me tell you a little bit about this fine dining establishment. Located in Yountville, CA (in beautiful wine country), The French Laundry serves contemporary American food with French influences dreamt up by chef/owner, Thomas Keller. Each and every day, The French Laundry presents two nine-course tasting menus where “no single ingredient is ever repeated throughout the meal.” It is one of the few restaurants in the United States to receive 3 Michelin Stars for its “exceptional cuisine” (Thomas Keller’s New York City restaurant, Per Se has also received 3 Stars) and it is consistently found in the top-5 of Restaurant Magazine’s list of the “Top 50 Restaurants in the World.” And oh, did I mention that it is nearly impossible to get a reservation?!
So, with that in mind we embarked on the most difficult task we have yet to encounter: Get a Reservation at The French Laundry. A few Google searches made it clear that getting a reservation would not be a simple task. Reservations can only be made “two months in advance to the calendar day” via telephone beginning at 10:00am Pacific Time or via OpenTable.com where they release only two reservations for each desired day. If that doesn’t sound challenging enough, I read numerous blogs where people tried to call at 10:00am on the correct day only to find themselves getting a busy tone for an hour and then finding out that all reservations were taken once they got through. I was beginning to get a little nervous.
We decided to enlist as many people as possible in order to get the job done. My brother and his lovely girlfriend were given the task of attempting to secure an OpenTable reservation once the reservations became available at 12:00am PST (3:00am our time) two months before our desired reservation day of May 19th. At 12:00am on the dot, the reservations were already gone. Reservation FAIL. Luckily, there was still hope. Mike enlisted a few of his friends from work to man the phones the following morning and press redial as much as they possibly could until someone got through on The French Laundry reservation line once it opened at 10:00am PST. So, there we were. Six of us calling as quickly as our fingers could hit the buttons. Five simultaneous busy signals. What? What’s that?! A ring?! Did someone get through?! Yes, ladies and gentlemen. My future husband, the show-off, got through ON THE FIRST TRY. We got ourselves a reservation at The French Laundry. So, on May 19th at 5:30pm, exactly 3 years to the day since we got engaged, Mike and I will sit down to enjoy what I am sure will be one of the most memorable meals of our lives.
