Paso Robles

Warning: This post contains a number of selfies and posed group photos that only select family members and I will enjoy viewing.

Recently my brother Matt asked me if I had plans to visit Heather this spring because he was arranging a trip to Paso Robles, and he wanted to know if we would like to join in.

I happen to be conflicted about travel. I strongly dislike:

1. Altering from my routine.
2. Booking flights.
3. Packing.
4. Dealing with the stress of getting to the airport and getting on the flight with my bags. (Remind me to tell you about an awful experience with Frontier one of these days.)

However, I enjoy:

1. Seeing new places. (There are so many beautiful places in the world. I’ve seen an infinitesimal fraction of them.)
2. Building memories with family.

Paso Robles was new to me. In fact I had never heard of it. And Matt, Megan, Heather, and Lexi were going to be there. So the second list outweighed the first, and I told Matt yes, we would join.

Item #3 on my dislike list caused me the biggest problems. The weather in Paso Robles was predicted to be cold and rainy. The clothes I have in Florida are for warm and sunny. More specifically, they are for tennis and pickleball. When I got to Paso Robles, it became evident that everyone had paid close attention to their out”fits”, especially my brother (who looked very nice the entire trip). It turns out shoes and jackets are critically important to “fits”. For shoes, I had a pair of white sandals that never came out of my bag and a pair of ASICS. For jackets, I had one emblazoned with the logo of Nicole’s former employer and one that Heather received as a Christmas gift in high school.

The trip actually started off in Solvang (a cute Danish town with all kinds of interesting shops and bakeries) on the drive up from Hermosa. While there, we each had an incredible (artisanal) sandwich, but I knew ordering three was a mistake. We should have shared. We each took our leftover halves on the road up to Paso Robles, my tuna and egg salad smelling up the car.

We also shared one Kringle. That was a mistake. We should have ordered three.

From Solvang, we raced up to Paso Robles, dumped our bags in the cute and Rex-friendly Airbnb (we left the pickleball channel on for him), and headed out to our first tasting. Paso Robles is home to a number of vineyards, and we were there to taste wine. I did not know that going into the trip, but I was perfectly okay with it once we started. With the wine and our first night energy, our conversation at the kick-off tasting got a bit loud. But the place was empty (weather?) and the staff didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they seemed to like us. The server brought out a special treat for Megan’s birthday (which was the next day, but we tried to milk it the entire weekend). The server also gave me extra olives when I asked her to pack up the leftover olives to take back with us.

When Matt was putting together the itinerary, Megan suggested he keep the winery visits to two per day. Matt took that suggestion, but he also included visits to two speakeasies and a distillery.

I don’t know how many wines we tasted at the four wineries (and one tasting room) we went to. I lost count, and I thought they were all great. And lest you think I have no standards, I thought the wine that was served at the middle school art show that we popped into to kill time before heading to one of the speakeasies was awful. (Though the art show, which was not on Matt’s original itinerary, was fun.) Matt bought several bottles at each location to get free tastings. I didn’t want to pay shipping fees, a decision I regret now.

The wineries were beautiful. Our biggest pit of the trip was that the weather wasn’t nice enough for us to sit outside during our tastings. We would take breaks from our sittings inside or under heat lamps to run outside to view the grounds and take photos. I think our favorite across the board was Daou Vineyards – the wine, the food, the setting, and the server who engaged with us at a perfect level.

The speakeasies and distillery were also fun (though not entirely necessary). We gained admission to the first speakeasy only after being questioned (“Are you a member of law enforcement?” “Are you part of a sting operation?”) and entering through a secret door. At the distillery, we had 20 minutes to enjoy the porch, the view, and the drinks. The second speakeasy was like watching a scientist conduct a lab experiment as the bartender created our cocktails.

Sunday was a pack up and leave day. Just in case you were wondering, we ate all the olives. However, I had not touched my tuna and egg salad sandwich, and Lexi refused to let me in the car with it on the way back to Hermosa. I also had to leave some excellent ceviche behind at dinner the night before when Megan shut down any thoughts I had of bringing it back to the Airbnb.

In past posts about family vacations, I usually bring up some bit of tension that occurred. That bit of tension happened at dinner the last night in Hermosa. I made both Lexi and Heather very uncomfortable as I strongly encouraged Dave to order from the happy hour menu. Several times over the trip Heather had said she loved hanging out with us. This was not one of those times.

When I got back home to Jupiter, I started a new book and came across this paragraph:

Counterintuitive Case Study #3: Things or Experiences?: You have $1000. You can buy something to keep, or use it for an experience (trip, concert). Most assume the object will provide happiness for longer than a fleeting experience. Again, wrong. A study found that the happiness levels are equal at first, but as time goes by, people’s satisfaction with their material purchases decreased, whereas it increased for their experiences. In other words, people’s memories of experiences made them happier longer than owning objects.

Angie Kim, Happiness Falls

Let’s hope that’s true, because I already told Matt that Dave and I would go to Portugal with him and Megan in the fall. I’ll be packing my ASICS.