Bodega Bay

Spent a few days in Bodega Bay with some friends. Very relaxing. Had a great time. It's tough coming back to city life after being near the ocean & redwood trees.

Made a stop into Russian River Brewing of course before heading out to the coast.

The place we stayed at was in Bodega Harbor. Right on the 8th hole of the golf course. Awesome view of the Pacific and Bodega Bay.

This is the view from the back patio.

Spent most of our time relaxing, eating, & mostly hanging out. Did find some time for flying kites.

Kenny & Morgan

Kenny was having a tough time with his kite here..

Sampling a Westvleteren 12 & Rochefort 10 while playing dominoes.

Looking forward to heading back here. Good times.

Seattle

Spent a night in Seattle for work last weekend. Quick trip, but made the most of my free time by hitting some of the many brew pubs & local sights.

Had dinner on Friday night at Brouwer's Cafe in the Fremont district. Awesome. 60+ well thought out taps & a HUGE bottle list. I had a big plate of Belgian style fries with chipolte mayo & enjoyed a Rogue anniversary black brutal bitter, Deschutes Hophenge, & a Rochefort # 10. Place has a really cool feel to it & the bar tender was friendly & knew his beer. Wish this place was in Northern California.

Had lunch the next day at The Pike Brewery in the Pike Market. Solid beers, great atmosphere. A good place to people watch as it's in the market & there's views of Puget Sound.

Oh yeah. And they have a BEER MUSEUM filled with old bottles, tap handles, trays & stuff.

Went to EMP, The Experience Music Project. Has a cool Seattle area music museum with a bunch of Soundgarden, Mudhoney. Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains stuff. A Jimi Hendrix exhibit, videos you can watch that are hosted by local artists. A whole interective deal where you can record yourself playing guitar, drums, singing, etc.

Wacky guitar sculpture from inside.

In the same building is also the Science Fiction museum & Hall Of Fame. Basically a bunch of props from various Sci Fi movies. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside. But I got a few anyway.

I gave one of the local yokels a jump start in my rental as well. I'm a good person.

First sample of # 5

First pour of #5 IPA. A Bothen Brewing original. I'm really pleased with the results. Can't wait for people to try it.

Ronda & I went to the Eddie Vedder solo shows last Saturday & Monday in Santa Cruz & Berkeley. They were both fantastic. We had no real expectations going in except that we are not familiar with his solo album, the Into The Wild soundtrack, & well, we may get bored. We were wrong. Great mix of Pearl Jam songs, Into The Wild songs, & cool covers. He sounded great, was talkative, funny, told stories, & appeared to be having a great time. We've been fans since Pearl Jam started. I think we've seen them over 30 times together.

Before the Santa Cruz show we went to Red, which is the upstairs bar in the Santa Cruz Hotel. My favorite new place. They have an AWESOME selection of beers on tap including Alesmith Speedway Stout! & Nut Brown, Bear Republic Racer 5 & Racer X, Moonlight Death/Taxes & Bombay By Boat, Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter, Chimay Triple, and more I can't remember. Great bottle list too with Lost Abbey, Stone, Alesmith, Chimay, Pizza Port, etc. They have Rochefort 10 for 8$, it may be as good as Westvleteren. Don't think yopu can find selection like that south of San Francisco & North of So Cal.

Go there. Now. We'll be back soon for sure.

http://www.redsantacruz.com/index.shtml