Trip Report Golden State of Mind: Our August 2017 California Adventure

11 Days
10 Nights
9 Miles walked on our busiest day
8 Months of planning
7 Days with a rental car
6 Hotels
5 Boat rides
4 Flight segments
3 Disney park days
2 East coasters
1 Unforgettable vacation​

Hello and welcome to my trip report! For those who don't know, here is the essential information:

Me (Bee): 28, opera singer/voice teacher
DW (M): 28, writer/academic administrator
We: grew up in Florida, have visited WDW many times, have been together 10+ years, have been married almost 3 years, now live in NJ just outside of NYC

Dates: August 4-14, 2017
Flights: Southwest, EWR-MDW-SMF and LAX-MDW-EWR
Transportation: Rental car, Lyft, local public transportation
Major locations: Sacramento, Napa Valley, San Francisco, Muir Woods, Sequoia National Forest, Los Angeles, Anaheim
Lodging: 6 different hotels varying from 1-3 nights in each

And here is a link to my PTR: Not our typical Disney trip

I will add the usual disclaimer about us having only smartphone cameras. I am working on uploading all my photos to a third party site which is free and allows me to easily embed them here; however, they only allow 150 uploads per day so it will take some time. All my photos are uploaded and ready to post!

The first six days (August 4-9) we toured various parts of northern and southern California. From August 10-13 we visited Disneyland, including both parks and Downtown Disney. On August 14 we flew home to New Jersey. If you'd like to skip ahead to the Disneyland part of this trip, click here. Otherwise, continue reading for the entire trip report!

 

[bee]

I'm here, I'm here! Can't wait to hear about the entire trip!!

Welcome, @TheMouseFan!

Well, you two are off to a crazy start. I'm going to say your luggage was not on your plane.

Welcome, @coachwnh! See the post above!

 

[bee]

Now is a good time to share a little something about us that may amuse fellow Disney nerds but would probably seem weird to...everyone else.

A few times on Mission: Space in Epcot we have been the only ones in our ride vehicle, so in order to keep the mission going we each have to fulfill two duties. On our vacations together, when driving is involved, M is always the driver because driving makes me super anxious and I avoid it whenever possible (we don't have a car at home). I am in charge of directions, music, air conditioning, etc. So that makes her the Commander and Pilot, and me the Navigator and Engineer. Thank goodness I found someone as quirky as I am to share my life with!

 

[littleroo]

Following!!! So excited to read about your whole trip! I can't believe your suitcase was there. At least you had some luck after your crazy start!

 

[amjt660]

No
It's where sherrifs go if they forgot to do their homework

Max

 

[Go.Nijntje]

A bit late but following along. I am happy your luggage made it on the same plane as you! Can't wait to read the rest of your report, I won't be skipping ahead to the Disney part.

 

[bee]

Following!!! So excited to read about your whole trip! I can't believe your suitcase was there. At least you had some luck after your crazy start!

Welcome, @littleroo! We couldn't believe it either!

No
It's where sherrifs go if they forgot to do their homework

Max

A bit late but following along. I am happy your luggage made it on the same plane as you! Can't wait to read the rest of your report, I won't be skipping ahead to the Disney part.

Welcome, @RedNoseMickey! You're not late, I'm just getting started!

 

[bee]

Day 1, cont.

We made it to our hotel, the Fairfield Inn & Suites Sacramento Airport Woodland, just after noon. We didn't expect a room to be ready but we asked just in case.

Here we are!

The outside of the building looked like all the other Fairfields that have been built recently. We stayed at one in Delaware in April for an out-of-town audition I sang and it literally looked exactly like this. A new Fairfield just opened in our town in NJ and the only difference is it's built on the side of a hill and it's a few stories taller; other than that, same color scheme, same design, same, same, same.

The outside of the hotel was nicely landscaped.

The rock garden reminded me of my early childhood. I was born in the DFW Metroplex in Texas. Obviously Texas is quite a bit drier than the East Coast; in our backyard we had a rock garden similar to the one above but with bigger rocks. It's a cheaper and visually appealing alternative to watering expensive grass lawns.

When we stepped inside we noted that the lobby and breakfast areas were literally identical to the Fairfield we'd stayed at in Delaware.

At the desk, a very friendly employee named Esmeralda greeted us. We told her we were checking in but understood we were early and could come back later if necessary. She called housekeeping via walkie talkie to ask if a king room was ready...and it was!!

She noted my New Jersey driver's license (yes I hate driving as noted above but I do have a DL and I can drive if necessary) and asked if we'd just arrived and how our flight was. M and I looked at each other and laughed and told her a condensed version of the story. She asked if it was our first time in California and asked all about our trip. So far the Fairfield Inn was winning for facilities, cleanliness, and service! Would the room meet our expectations as well?

Yes, it would!

It's hard to tell from this photo (I tried!) but the room had unusually high ceilings for a hotel room. I'm not sure if it was just the first floor or if all the floors were this tall but it made the room feel a little more luxurious.

The room was spacious and clean and, as we learned later, the bed was EXTREMELY comfortable.

After we settled in we realized we were both quite hungry. According to our body clocks it was after 3:00pm and we hadn't had lunch yet. There was nothing really within walking distance...but we had a car! We decided to try Iguana's Mexican Grill, which was a short drive away.

Pretty tree outside Iguana's

Next up: The moment you've all been waiting for...FOOD!

 

[bee]

Day 1, cont.

The first thing we noticed at Iguana's was the fresh salsa bar in the front. The second thing we noticed was that there were fresh tortilla chips next to the salsa for anyone to take. I love fresh salsa and was excited to try all of them!

Inside the basket is a pico de gallo; the green one is salsa verde (obviously); and the three red salsas were all different. I think the one on the left was made with fresh tomatoes and was medium-spicy, the next one clockwise was made with roasted tomatoes and therefore had a smoky spice to it, and the top one was made with fresh tomatoes and was the spiciest of all. I'm picky about salsas and especially about pico de gallo. If a restaurant has really fresh, flavorful pico it's a good sign the rest of the food will be fresh and tasty, and this pico was one of the best I've ever had! I actually liked all of the salsas; my favorites were the pico, salsa verde, and the red on the left.

We ordered our meals at the counter: vegetarian nachos for M and vegetarian salad for me. Within a few minutes an employee brought out our food...on real plates, and with real utensils!

Nachos

Salad

This meal was just what we needed after the stress of the morning and the junky snacks we'd eaten on the plane. The restaurant was casual but not chaotic. We appreciated the ceramic plates, metal utensils and, of course, the fresh and flavorful food.

Up next: Mostly just me gawking at pretty buildings

 

[Zipadeelady]

I LOVE BALLZ! My son has been playing it for quite awhile and I couldn't understand why he liked it so much until I finally downloaded the game and now I get it!

I'm in and can't wait to hear about your experiences.

 

[P_Radden]

Nachos

Those nachos look amazing! Looking forward to the rest of your trip!

 

[amjt660]

Now is a good time to share a little something about us that may amuse fellow Disney nerds but would probably seem weird to...everyone else.

A few times on Mission: Space in Epcot we have been the only ones in our ride vehicle, so in order to keep the mission going we each have to fulfill two duties. On our vacations together, when driving is involved, M is always the driver because driving makes me super anxious and I avoid it whenever possible (we don't have a car at home). I am in charge of directions, music, air conditioning, etc. So that makes her the Commander and Pilot, and me the Navigator and Engineer. Thank goodness I found someone as quirky as I am to share my life with!

Lets compare to my road trips
I do all the driving, adjust the AC, use a smart phone to navigate.
My wife and I share the music duties but usually I have to remind her that we need to change the CD because we have heard this song already.

I think for the sake of the marriage I will not assign title for our roles, if you get my drift.

Max

 

[bee]

I LOVE BALLZ! My son has been playing it for quite awhile and I couldn't understand why he liked it so much until I finally downloaded the game and now I get it!

I'm in and can't wait to hear about your experiences.

Haha, glad to find another Ballz fan! It's the perfect game to pass time, because you don't need to concentrate too hard once you get into the big numbers, and it can be relaxing to watch the ballz move all around the screen.

Those nachos look amazing! Looking forward to the rest of your trip!

Oh, they were!! Welcome aboard!

Lets compare to my road trips
I do all the driving, adjust the AC, use a smart phone to navigate.
My wife and I share the music duties but usually I have to remind her that we need to change the CD because we have heard this song already.

I think for the sake of the marriage I will not assign title for our roles, if you get my drift.

Max

I think you're right and you'd better not assign titles!! Every relationship must find its own balance!

 

[bee]

Day 1, cont.

After lunch we needed to find a bank and withdraw some cash for tips. There was a Bank of America not far from the shopping center with Iguana's so we headed in that direction. We ended up passing through part of downtown Woodland which was totally cute!

COFFEE

It's hard to read the sign, but this is the Woodland Opera House. I had no idea this existed but it has a pretty interesting history!

We loved seeing the variety of architecture in Woodland.

An old cinema

Wait, does that really say YOLO County Fair??

You can't make this up! I'm sure the county was THRILLED when that term became popular.

The bank was also in a unique building. I guess I didn't take any photos of the outside but here's the inside:

This photo doesn't really show how big the bank was inside.

Cool light fixture... imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, @Doc Disney

A couple of stories from my time waiting in here (M dropped me off to find a parking space):

1. I entered the building right behind an older white male client who was carrying a large cloth deposit bag, presumably from his place of work. As we were entering, two employees were exiting: a white woman and an Asian man. The female employee recognized the client and told him to go wait at her window and she'd return in a few minutes. They obviously all knew each other because the male employee joked, "she'll be back in two hours!" The client laughed with them, then he looked at me and said, "Ha ha. The Chinese."

2. A young mother and her two boys were sitting at the desk of one of the loan officers. The boys were a little noisy but didn't seem to be fighting or behaving particularly badly; they seemed to be playing a game together on a iPad. As the bank employee and the mom finished, the employee asked the boys if they were going to do anything fun later in the day, and before they could answer the mom said, "No, we're NOT doing anything fun because YOU TWO could not behave while mommy was doing business!" I guess they didn't meet her standards even though they seemed fine to me! I felt bad for laughing internally at this, but mom headed out the door and the two boys followed her and they all marched out with identical pouty faces.

3. As the two aforementioned employees had just stepped out, there was only one teller working and about eight people in line in front of me. I wasn't worried about time as I was on vacation and didn't have anywhere important to go, but two dudes got in line behind me who were apparently VERY important and couldn't stop complaining about the long line. Then when incident number 2 occurred they couldn't stop complaining about today's parents. Y'know, the whole, "If I'd misbehaved like that in public when I was a kid I would've been *insert extreme punishment here*" deal. First, it's not the bank employees' fault that they are understaffed, so BE NICE or take your accounts to a different bank. Second, you never know if the behavior you're witnessing is a bad day or a good day and you don't know what kind of parent someone is based on seeing their kids for five whole minutes. I only hope the young mom didn't hear these [rude word redacted] complaining about her kids when she was obviously already having a difficult day.

Anyway, I did eventually get my cash and we continued our drive through downtown Woodland.

Hotel Woodland

This is...wait for it...the YOLO County Courthouse. Again, can't make this stuff up! Makes you wonder how many YOLO incidents ended up with time spent here!

Up next: Fighting jet lag (or embracing it?)...

 

[bee]

Day 1, cont.

Before beginning the trip we decided to try and "stay jet lagged." By that I mean we wanted to go to bed early and get up early in PST, but it would feel like normal bedtimes and sleeping in in EST. We had lots of morning plans and wanted to make sure we could arrive early enough to beat the crowds and get the most out of our trip. This meant no napping on the first day, and no going to bed TOO early lest our bodies get TOTALLY confused and our sleep schedules get completely out of whack.

To assist us in staying up until our goal time of 8:00pm (yes it sounds early but remember that's 11:00pm on the East Coast and we'd been up since 3:30am!) we decided a Starbucks trip was in order! They were even having a BOGO deal on macchiatos starting at 2:00pm, so we each had a Grande Caramel Macchiato.

We took the drinks back to the Fairfield and enjoyed them in our room. For the next few hours we just chilled and watched TV. We'd had enough adventures for the day and didn't want anything time-consuming or elaborate for dinner. There weren't a lot of delivery options so we made our way to the incredibly fancy and classy establishment of...

Panda Express.

On our way back we also stopped by a liquor store for a bottle of wine to pair with the delicate flavors of Panda. We ended up buying a red blend from Nevada City Winery. It was fine but nothing too exciting. It worked just fine with...

The eggplant and tofu from Panda Express. I must admit, Panda has come a long way since my high school mall food court days. Both the tofu and eggplant were cooked well and the sauce was flavorful. For a quick, cheap meal this was pretty darn good!

We showered and attempted to wash away all the plane germs, then watched a little TV as we got ready for bed. Now I will admit a very secret guilty pleasure in my life that no one knows about except for M. I am not into reality TV. In fact I'm not into much TV at all, because we don't have TV at home and we're too cheap to pay for most subscription services (Netflix, Hulu, etc.). We both watch Game of Thrones so we subscribe to HBO through Amazon Prime, but only while the new season is airing (like now!). So the guilty pleasure is something I discovered on a hotel TV on some recent trip to somewhere, and it's something I pretty much only watch on hotel TVs on vacation. The show is...

Chrisley Knows Best.

I don't know if it's because I grew up in the South (North Florida is basically South Georgia, y'all) and actually know people like this, or what, but this show makes me laugh so hard. I always manage to find it on TV at least once per trip.

(It makes me laugh so hard, in fact, that when I recently had endodontic surgery, M found it somewhere online so I could watch and be distracted from my pain. It worked!)

I am proud to say we met our goal and managed not to fall asleep until 8:00pm! We set the alarm for 7:00am with a goal of leaving by 9:00 to make our first Napa Valley winery tour!

Up next: Day 2 brings more DRAMMA...and this time, the police are involved!

 

[fractal]

Don't fret too much about your guilty pleasure. Just remember, YOLO!

 

[DisneyGigi]

We showered and attempted to wash away all the plane germs, then watched a little TV as we got ready for bed. Now I will admit a very secret guilty pleasure in my life that no one knows about except for M. I am not into reality TV. In fact I'm not into much TV at all, because we don't have TV at home and we're too cheap to pay for most subscription services (Netflix, Hulu, etc.). We both watch Game of Thrones so we subscribe to HBO through Amazon Prime, but only while the new season is airing (like now!). So the guilty pleasure is something I discovered on a hotel TV on some recent trip to somewhere, and it's something I pretty much only watch on hotel TVs on vacation. The show is...

Chrisley Knows Best.

I don't know if it's because I grew up in the South (North Florida is basically South Georgia, y'all) and actually know people like this, or what, but this show makes me laugh so hard. I always manage to find it on TV at least once per trip.

(It makes me laugh so hard, in fact, that when I recently had endodontic surgery, M found it somewhere online so I could watch and be distracted from my pain. It worked!)

I am proud to say we met our goal and managed not to fall asleep until 8:00pm! We set the alarm for 7:00am with a goal of leaving by 9:00 to make our first Napa Valley winery tour!

Up next: Day 2 brings more DRAMMA...and this time, the police are involved!

I love that show! He cracks me up.

 

[bee]

Don't fret too much about your guilt pleasure. Just remember, YOLO!

Excellent point!

I love that show! He cracks me up.

Glad I'm not the only one!

 

[bee]

Day 2: Saturday, August 5
Driving, wineries, driving, and Oakland

Though we'd set the alarm for 7:00, we both woke up on our own shortly after 6:00. We got dressed and were some of the first guests at breakfast, which began at 6:30.

My breakfast: mixed fruit, and cheese "omelettes" with salsa

Breakfast TV!

The breakfast was pretty good for a free breakfast. The hot things were hot, the cold things were cold, and the coffee (not pictured) was strong. Since we were up early we got to enjoy our breakfast in relative peace with only a few other families around us.

Back in the room we repacked everything and left a tip for the housekeeper. When I approached the front desk to check out and return our keys I was pleased to see Esmeralda again. She asked us about our stay and wished us safe travels on the rest of our trip. Later the hotel sent me a survey about our stay and of course I mentioned Esmeralda's wonderful service.

The view outside

I couldn't help but notice that it was darn pleasant outside! It was only 68 degrees, and warm in the sun but cool in the shade.

We began our drive toward Napa Valley around 8:30. We knew we'd be quite early for our first tour and tasting (scheduled for 11:00), but we figured we could stop at any interesting sights along the way.

The first album we listened to was:

As a child and teenager I hardly listened to any secular music as my parents were very strict and only played Christian and classical music. Even "Christian Rock" was not allowed as it was one step away from ACTUAL rock music (aka THE DEVIL!). In the late nineties and early 2000s my little brother and I would sneakily, quietly listen to Britney Spears et al. on my clock radio that was supposed to be tuned only to classical stations and right-wing talk radio. Such rebels!

The point of all that is that I had heard of the Beatles but didn't really know they were important and couldn't have named one song by them until late in high school. In college M and I got into them and bought CDs of most of their albums. Though I have various favorite Beatles songs, I think Sgt. Pepper is my overall favorite album as a cohesive musical experience.

A few photos from the drive:

I know I teased more dramma and police involvement, but it will have to wait one more post! Sorry!

Up next: The police dramma. Really.

 

[coachwnh]

I know I teased more dramma and police involvement, but it will have to wait one more post! Sorry!

 

[bee]

Day 2, cont.

There was very little traffic as we continued our drive. I guess this shouldn't have been surprising early on a Saturday morning, but we were prepared for more.

We decided to stop in Yountville, as we had plenty of time before our next destination and we had seen signs for Napa Valley tourist information on the freeway.

Yountville, named for George C. Yount, who established what may have been the first vineyard in Napa Valley, is a very cute town. We were enjoying seeing all the different buildings and the mountains in the distance, when we saw something less enjoyable behind us: a police car with flashing lights!

"Is he pulling US over?" said I.
"I don't think I did anything wrong," said M, "except maybe I didn't stop all the way at that last stop sign..."

We pulled into a parking lot nearby and the officer followed us. M got her license ready as he approached the driver's seat window. He said good morning and asked if she knew why he had pulled her over. She said no and he confirmed her suspicion that it was for not making a complete stop at a stop sign. He gave her a stern speech that began with the risk of hitting a pedestrian after running a stop sign and continued through more serious offenses, eventually building up to the dangers of drunk driving. He said it would be a shame for us to come all the way from New Jersey only to have our vacation ruined by a DUI.

He didn't give her an official warning or even input her license into the system, but he said if he caught her again he would give her a ticket. We thanked him and he left to go pull over someone else. Seriously, in the next fifteen minutes we saw him pull over two other cars, probably for the same thing. We're pretty sure that's literally his job, to scare tourists. I will say M was very careful to make FULL stops the rest of the time we had the car!

Since we were already parked we decided to walk around a bit. We happened to be parked near a little winery-turned mall.

Bathroom pic for @MinnieM123 and others who like seeing nice bathrooms!

Another cool lamp!

I would like to note that, lest ye think we don't respect the law or the very real dangers of drunk driving, that's not the case. We did laugh at the fact that this man's job was literally to scare tourists, but neither of us think drunk driving is a laughing matter. We would never, ever, EVER. We both agreed it was good that this happened early in the trip because, as I noted, M was extra careful to obey all driving laws the rest of the trip. Spoiler alert, there were no more police incidents the rest of the trip!

The mall wasn't even open for the day yet so we walked around the town a bit more.

Playing around my iPhone's portrait setting

We continued our journey; since we still had time before our first tour we drove up and down St. Helena Highway just observing the beauty of the area.

We happened upon downtown St. Helena.

Up next: A winery tour, finally!