Little Van. Big Country: A Much Needed Vacation From Our Vacation--But Am I Really Appreciating It?

So, despite being on what some would deem the vacation of a lifetime, I have desperately been yearning for a vacation from our vacation. Because, if you couldn't glean it from my prior blog entries, this trip is not exactly a "vacation" for me. It's amazing and wonderful and full of once-in-a-lifetime experiences that I wouldn't trade for the world, but it is also exhausting and it has been tough for me. Living in a van is taxing--it's small, cramped, and, this time of year, very, very cold. We shower about once a week and rely on baby wipes every other day. We wear the same outfit usually a week straight (why change when you're just getting dirty and climbing every day). We cook our meals every day, and, keep in mind, it gets dark around 5:00PM and the temperature drops to about 20 or 30 degrees when the sun goes down, so we're cooking and eating in frigid temperatures. We sit around the campfire (Marco cleverly refers to our fires as caveman tv...the only thing to watch when you're camping), but it's even hard to stay warm unless you're so close to the fire that the rubber on your shoes melts. Prior to this entry, we have spent a total of TWO nights in a hotel in the last seven months. The climbing has been fabulous (even more than fabulous!), but, it is tiring and wearing to climb EVERY DAY for seven months straight. So, call me crazy (Marco has, this trip is his idea of the ideal vacation and he would not change one thing about it, except that he would extend it for the rest of his life if he could), but I was in desperate need of a vacation from our so-called "vacation"!

With this in mind, I planned a mini-vacation for us. We were going to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family in San Diego, so I thought it was the perfect excuse to make a few relaxing pit-stops along our drive south. Our vacation agenda consisted of the following: (1) a night in Sacramento to visit Joey, an old friend and former co-worker of Marco's from NYC; (2) a weekend in Sonoma--wine country!!--with my old and dear friend Sarah and her husband Dave; (3) and three nights driving along the Pacific Coast Highway. And, get this, we slept in a real hotel with a KING size bed and a shower both nights that we were in Sonoma (= heaven!). Seeing Joey, Sarah and Dave was by far the highlight of our week. The one consistent lesson this trip has taught me--time with friends is irreplaceable and amazing and rejuvenating.

That said, in terms of being able to appreciate our time away from climbing and van-life as a "true, relaxing vacation," that was a challenge for me. I have come to realize it is very difficult (I'd even say impossible) to really appreciate and value a vacation when you don't have a job and regular life to escape from. In other words, everything is relative and when you don't have a tough work-life that you are escaping, it makes the vacation much less of a true escape. I know, I know...I just got through complaining about all the tough aspects of van life and how stressful it is for me, but, when it really comes down to it, living in a van and traveling across the country is still a huge vacation from "real life." I mean, we're climbing and choosing our own adventures every day. We have no one to answer to and no schedule to stick to. Any stress associated with living in a van does not compare to the stress of living in NYC as a lawyer at a large law firm. It just doesn't. Accordingly, when every day of your life for the last seven months has been job-free and under your own control, you start to lose a certain appreciation for what a vacation truly is. You are literally living a vacation. Therefore, when you try to take a vacation from your vacation, and you expect it to encompass all of the relaxing aspects of the term vacation as you previously understood the term, it just isn't going to happen. Without a proper gauge with which to compare your vacation to, it's impossible to truly appreciate your time as a vacation. This concept has really come to my attention and it has me a little worried that I'm not fully appreciating and embracing the experiences I'm having. When you visit seventeen national parks in a seven month span, can you truly appreciate what you see at every national park? When you see an incredibly breath-taking sunset every single night, can you truly appreciate each sunset? I hope the answer to these question is yes, you can still appreciate it all. But I do worry that without the grind of normal life as a gauge, these fantastic experiences start to become the norm and are, therefore, less special and less capable of being appreciated. I don't know. I still stop and stare in amazement at every sunset we see. And my jaw still drops at every national park we visit. So I think I am appreciating these things to their full extent. But in terms of having that truly relaxing vacation experience, I think that just doesn't happen for me anymore. When I used to take a vacation from work and NYC, I cherished every minute of my week or two away from work and the city. I appreciated every second of not having to check my blackberry. I loved the places we went and the things that we did. That week or two of vacation was truly special and very different than my normal life, so, because of the gauge provided by my normal life, I was able to really relax and take everything in. Compare that to now--these seven months of vacation are no doubt special, but I wonder if I truly appreciate, for example, our drive down the PCH? If I had taken a week off from work to drive down the PCH, I would have relished in every moment of the drive and wanted to stop in every single town along the drive. Now, with the backdrop of seven months of beautiful sights and wondrous new places, it's just another experience on an endless list of great experiences. It doesn't stand out the same way it would have if it had been a one week escape from the grind of normal life. I notice it in Marco as well--we'd stop at a pullout to take in the view, and half the time he wouldn't even get out of the car. I mean, in his defense, he has already seen endless amazing views of the Pacific coast, from the northern tip of Washington down to San Diego. He was tired and didn't feel like getting out of the van. So, what I'm trying to say in this very lengthy and convoluted paragraph is I really, really hope I am appreciating this lengthy vacation in the way that I should! Sometimes I wonder if it would have just been better to have all of these experiences spread out over my lifetime, a couple weeks at a time. Would I appreciate Olympic National Park more if it were a one week escape from real life? Well, we'll see. An important lesson that I have learned--excess is never a good thing. People may disagree (and likely will), but I truly believe that, regardless of whether it's vacation, money, love, or happiness, nothing in excess is good. Excess just causes a person to lose appreciation for some thing. Everything is relative and having a gauge is important. You need sadness to appreciate happiness and heartbreak to appreciate love. To this day, I still get excited and giddy to go out to a restaurant for dinner. Growing up we didn't have an excess of money, so my mother always cooked our meals. Eating out was special and reserved for rare occasions. And that feeling is ingrained in me. I still truly appreciate eating out at restaurants--an appreciation I would not have if my family had been wealthy and had eaten out every single night. Yes, having a lot of money would be nice for obvious reasons, but it would come with a cost. And that cost would be losing an appreciation for certain little things in life, like the excitement I get over eating out at a restaurant. Anyways, people can argue with my feelings about excess, but I'm sticking to them!

And now, onto the pictures! Because, let's be honest, no one actually reads this blog...you're just in it for the pictures...and I don't blame you one bit! Enjoy!

Sacramento with Joey!

Joey! So much fun to catch up! WE MISS YOU!

Wine Country with Sarah and Dave!

We had SUCH a great time exploring wine country with Sarah and Dave. Prior to meeting up with them, Marco and I checked out Castello di Amorosa, a winery in Napa. We didn't take the tour (it was so pricey!), but we explored the grounds, which were beautiful and hosted a mini-farm! Per Sarah's brilliant planning, we had dinner at Della Santina's Trattoria in Sonoma (yum!) and visited the following wineries/breweries in Sonoma: Hook & Ladder, Lynmar Estate, Russian River Brewing Company, Chateau St. Jean, Larson Family Winery, and Keller Estate. We stayed at El Pueblo Inn in Sonoma, which we very, very highly recommend. It was affordable (it was off season, so everything was pretty cheap!), had great service, and was a clean & comfortable hotel.

Castello di Amarosa.

Kitty in the beautiful garden!

The farm at Castello di Amarosa--clearly we spent a lot of time here based on how many pictures we took of the adorable animals!

Little goat in a tree!

They had the most exotic chickens...with feathery feet!

Little goat eating some grass.

Our favorite unlikely pair at the farm--the quail and chicken! This little quail scurried after this chicken and followed him EVERYWHERE he went. At first, we thought the relationship was very one sided and that the quail was just tagging along after the chicken, who didn't seem interested in the quail at all. But, after the pair got separated by a fence, we saw the chicken freak out and fly up and over the fence to reunite with his little buddy. We probably spent an hour watching the two of them. It was just so darn adorable!

Best Buddies 4 Life!

Sarah & Dave at Lynmar Estate. If you go, you MUST get the truffle popcorn!

Lynmar Estate.

Russian River Brewing Company.

So many good beers (minus the sour beers...none of us could really stomach those!).

Done!

Playing corn hole at Larsen Family Estate. This was my favorite winery! It had tons of lawn games and three pups running around the place!

Pacific Coast Highway!

During our drive down the PCH, we stopped at a handful of great places! We started the drive in San Francisco, which we really liked. We checked out the Golden Gate Bridge, walked around the Haight-Ashbury area (where Marco scored some super cheap used t-shirts!), and drove by the Painted Ladies. Next, we made a quick stop in Half Moon Bay to walk around Pillar Point--Mavericks, the famous surfing location, is located just off the coast. We spent the night in Santa Cruz, the hometown of my bestest friend in the whole world, Rebecca Rose Arbit! We caught the Patriots incredible win over the Broncos at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Company, which is a great little brewery that serves a delicious Chocolate Pumpkin Porter, and drove along the beautiful beaches in Santa Cruz. The following day we checked out Monterey Bay, where we drove Seventeen Mile Drive, a gorgeous drive. We spent the night just outside Big Sur, which is a surprising mountain-town located along an otherwise beach-town populated coast. Next we spent a while driving along the coast and stopped at Pismo Beach to walk along the pier. We spent that night in Ventura, which is where Patagonia Headquarters is located. We stopped by Patagonia HQ in the morning and Chip, a longtime employee of Patagonia who was manning the front desk, was incredibly kind enough to give us a tour of the headquarters. It was very inspiring to see such an environmentally and socially responsible company in action. Because we only had a few days in which to drive the whole coast, our time in each place was a bit condensed. But we still managed to catch the MOST stellar sunsets of the trip and visit some great places.