L.A. Venice Beach weekend

 

The Erwin Hotel, Venice Beach

happy anniversary honey

10 years ago I walked down that green lawn, amongst friends to join Art for life. ah, what a day it was and what a 10 years it's been. we celebrated A+J style. On the eve of the big day we got a treat from Ed + Ro, babysitting from Ed and their reservation at Mission Street Food. Nicole was the guest chef.  we too a brisk walk to the mission to sit down to a fun, community spirited dinner. our menu included nachos with brussel sprouts, bacon, figs, blue and brie cheese, black cod with greens and pumpkin, moracan lamb shoulder, pumpkin soup with creme fresh, almond cake with corriander whipping cream. we forgot our special bottle of wine so we drank a bit too much of the Lillet we purchased, ouch the head followed the next day. It'd been while since we'd had an evening date, so glad we did.

the celebration continued the weekend during our get-away to Inverness Valley Inn with hiking at Abbots Cove with beautiful views, carcasses of seals, a wooden see saw.  we had an evening at the Inn at Inverness with dinner and a gas fireplace, so happy to gaze at Art + Eva + Eli.

marmalade at Sea Ranch

The children and I went with and met 4 mamas + children at Sea Ranch the final week before beginning school for last hooray. The first morning I baked ginger walnut scones and was taking them to the beach for a mid-morning snack. I'm glad I took this photos because moments later I missed my step on to a stone and did a face-plant in to the sand, with my body being broken by the basket of goodies. The scones were squished and full of sand. This did not keep us all from picking through the remains and pouring the marmalade on to every bite.

Sea Ranch heaven

My friend Susan and her daughter Stella invited us to join them at their house in Sea Ranch. I was in heaven from the moment I sat behind the wheel. I miss road-tripping, it was part of my East Coast life but I seemed to shed the habit when moving to SF. The 3 + hour drive went quickly, wending through the spring hills of west Sonoma county and heading to route 1. I'd definitely been in the city too long, everything looked magical to me, it helped that the end-of-winter light was still low in the sky. Susan is a fount of knowledge and she regaled me with stories of the beginnings of Sea Ranch (http://www.mcn.org/searanch/history.html) the entire way. The children were so tolerant of how much we drove around once we were there scoping the architecture of the development and spotting the signage designed by Bobbie Stauffacher Solomon, including the famous rams head sign and the wave road graphics.

The children did not want for nature. We spent a morning along a fern-lined fairy trail and a hot spot for my children was the magestic madrone tree out front, E + E spent a good part of the last day in it. I even climbed up a few levels and devoured some of the new biography of Zelda Fitzgerald that Susan loaned me. I loved how protected I felt in the tree, with the low-lying branches, and the tuft of greenery that seemed to only be on the ends of the branches, leaving smooth branches to scramble on. Before heading home we went to glass beach and went tide-pooling, spying periwinkles, starfish, and collecting treasures for future art projects, which made the ride home all the more memorable with smells of the seaweed wafting through the car.