We just finished a lovely Easter lunch - very simple this year: honey ham, arugula salad, roasted asparagus with sea salt & parmesan, and peach blueberry panna cotta (thank you Trader Joe's!) for dessert. Out here it truly feels as if spring is here - blue skies, warm breeze, and flowers blooming everywhere. The Easter bunny left a trail of jelly beans throughout the house leading to an Easter basket brimming with books, crafts supplies, games, and the requisite chocolate bunny. Outside, there was an Easter egg hunt for plastic eggs filled with assorted goodies... Hello Kitty socks, hairbands, and selections from the Re-Ment Fairy Tale Sweets collection (specifically requested of the Easter bunny!). I've been a big fan of Re-ment miniatures for a few years - the detail is so great, and the themes so fun - but now that superbuzzy is carrying the full line, it makes it a little too easy to get my hands on! I asked the Easter bunny for the Merry Strawberry set, so we'll see if he comes through.
I was completely unprepared for Easter this year, which is perhaps why we kept it so simple. We took a mini vacation last week, which left me little time to get my act together. The timing of the trip was driven by a gift from my mom - a gift certificate to stay at the Vision Quest Ranch Bed & Breakfast located between Salinas and Monterey. Jerry and I both decided that the adventure could either be extremely cheesy or very cool. Luckily, the cheese factor was extremely limited (save a few of the furniture items in the cabin), and the experience was quite nice. The Ranch is set up as a rescue for exotic animals and many of them end up working as television and movie actors. The place houses a bunch of cats (lions, tigers, lynxes, etc.) as well as wallabies, kangaroos, baboons, elephants, ostriches, and more. Included in the B&B is a 1 hour tour of the facility, an evening visit by 2 animals on a walk (we met a baboon and a wallaby), and breakfast delivered by an elephant. The elephants have been rescued from circuses, and they have a wonderful, large enclosure with 2 ostriches and a zebra - they seem to be enjoying their retirement! We stayed the night in a tent cabin, not unlike the yurts we've stayed in:
It was a cold night, but the space heater and the electric mattress pad kept us cozy while we slept. We woke up the next morning and watched the elephants get washed before breakfast. Then, we saw the Butch make his round of the 4 tent cabins as he delivered breakfast to the guests:
We got to feed him a bit of breakfast - apples, oranges and bananas - before he left and we munched on ours:
The B&B doesn't allow children, so we left that morning to pick up Brynne after a night at grandma's house, and we headed north, across the Golden Gate, on one of those perfect San Francisco days.
Our first stop had been on my list for a long time: a visit to the Heath Factory Store in Sausalito. I had some money from my birthday and Christmas that I'd been saving to splurge on some new, everyday dishes from Heath. Seeing the shop and studio was fantastic, with evidence of Edith Heath's extraordinary vision throughout:
I finally settled on a mix-and-match set in the Coupe style in Mist and French Grey - lovely, lovely stuff...
Our journey north continued as we headed to Fort Bragg, our ultimate destination. We had a reservation to stay at the Grey Whale Inn, a historic building that was once the town hospital. It being the off season, the town was quiet, and we had the Inn almost to ourselves. We spent the next days beachcombing at Glass Beach, tidepooling at MacKerricher State Park, poking around Mendocino (where I discovered the Mendocino Yarn Shop - lovely!), wandering through magestic redwoods, and eating more delicious food than we should have (big thumbs-up on the breakfasts at the Inn and the spectacular pumpkin cream waffles at Egghead's!). Jerry was surprised to be getting really good coffee on the trip!
The weather was cold and windy, but clear and beautiful - just what I had hoped for. I could have stayed longer, but I think we all had a great time.
Returning to superbuzzy was fun... 16 double-sized boxes arrived on Thursday full of even more fabric and goodies. So, I've got a lot of work ahead of me, but I can't really complain since opening each box is like my own personal egg hunt - full of surprises and good things! Happy Easter to all celebrating today!
