Tag Archives: road trip

Taking it slow in SLO

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Love Birds

Hey everyone! I have just returned from a lovely mini-vacation with my husband at the awesome Madonna Inn, a themed hotel off the 101 freeway in San Luis Obispo. Matt got me a night in the Love Birds room for our first wedding anniversary in August, along with a signature massage at the Madonna Inn Spa. As a christmas present for him, I got him a massage – so we ended up getting a couples massage to end our awesome mini vacation. Ahhhh.

Avila Beach

On our way to the Madonna Inn, we stopped at the lovely Avila Beach to walk the pier and explore. It was about 65 degrees and kids were splashing in the waves while the ocean breeze cleared our minds as we strolled along the pier. After our walk, we stopped into a little candy shop and bought one of my personal favorites, salt water taffy!

Salt water Taffy

After Avila we checked into the delightfully gaudy and tacky, yet somehow charmingly cute Madonna Inn. The Love Birds room had awesome parrot wallpaper, a fainting couch and floral and bird nest vine light fixtures.

Love Birds at Madonna Inn

My personal favorite part of the room was the bathroom – decked out with a heated toilet and bidet and rock shower! Let me tell you – a heated toilet seat has made its way to the list of “things I want in my dream house when I’m rich”. Nothing like toasty buns!

Heated Potty!

In true Matt and Alyssa fashion, we decided to blow off plans for a fancy dinner in favor of an American nostalgic classic – DRIVE IN MOVIES!!!!!! We drove past it on the way to our hotel and I freaked out, because I haven’t been to the drive ins in years, and Matt had never been! We stopped by Trader Joe’s and loaded up on our picnic dinner of sourdough baguette, cheese, salami, olive tapenade, chocolate berries, orangina, popcorn, wine and cupcakes. It was quite a spread and gave me quite a tummy ache, but that’s a story for Wednesday’s blog re: over indulgence. Can you believe it was a total of $17.50 for two people to see two movies with a bag of large popcorn? UNREAL! Movies here are $11.75 a piece!

Goodies

The first movie was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and I know why they’re called Mission Impossible – because watching them all the way through is impossible. I made it about half way before the cheesy action scenes did me in and I caught up on Words with Friends. Best part about a drive in movie? You can text, talk, stretch, snort or harass your movie-mate as much as you want, because you’re in the comfort of your own car! After Ghost Protocol, the awesome vintage snack song came on for a brief intermission and then “We Bought a Zoo” started. We Bought a Zoo isn’t movie of the year or anything, but it was cute and charming and had  a fun storyline.

My lovebird

After the movies we went back to the Madonna, where I climbed into the nest (comfy king bed) and conked out. In the morning, we woke up for our couples massage, had a blissful rub down, and then had an AMAZZZZZZING breakfast the Madonna Inn Copper Cafe. I seriously have not had a biscuit so incredible in… a long time. They were fluffy and sweet, topped with a drizzle of honey butter, and their smoked bacon reminded me of home (Hi Dad!).

Copper Cafe Breakfast

After breakfast, our full bellies and blissed-out bodies piled into the stinky car (smelled like olives, popcorn and salami) and drove back to our smoggy valley home. All in all it was a beautiful, relaxing weekend. It’s so important to shake things up every once in awhile and get a break from things like laundry, grocery shopping, Facebook and Twitter. I feel refreshed and revived and ready for the new week (and ready to start tracking – our first Weight Watchers meeting is FINALLY on Thursday!).

If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo – it was awesome! Did you have a great weekend, too?

Midwestern Magic, Part 1

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Wisconsin Dells in October

Matt and I began our trip by flying into Chicago… and then renting a car and driving four hours away. DOH! Here’s why. My grandmother and lots of other family members live in Minnesota. Airfare was considerably higher to fly into St. Paul, for some reason, than it was to fly into Chicago. So – we rented a sexy Nissan Sentra and hightailed it to the Wisconsin Dells (halfway to my grandmother’s house in MN), where we spent the night in a seedy Super 8 and then woke up to to do some tourist stuff – including nomming on delicious Dunkin’ Donuts!

I touched the rocks as we squeezed by!

First up: An Original Wisconsin Dells Duck tour! Ducks are amphibious vehicles used in World War 2 – they’re half boat, and half truck, so they can journey on land or in water. We started our tour by splashing into the Wisconsin River – marveling at the changing leaves and awesome rock formations. The duck crawled out of the water and into the woods – through narrow rock crevices and trees like these. The tour guide was a sarcastic college student no doubt used to pleasing the more elderly of the group, so he had a good time ribbing me about my “Elton John Sunglasses” and why Matt and I weren’t hard at work unlike all the retired folks on his boat. It was fun!

Moo-ve over Wisconsin, we're comin' thru!

After our duck boat tour, we were on our way to Minnesota – but not without a stop at the “cheese factory”. Proving once again that my career in marketing communications has no effect on whether or not I fall for traditional marketing tactics, I told Matt we HAD to stop at the advertised “cheese factory” off the highway. Cheese Factory? More like tiny cheese store with no aforementioned factory and lots of cheesy (har har) tourist tsotchkes. There was, however, a chance for me to fulfill a life long dream of posing for a photo with three very mild-mannered Holstein cows. And by mild-mannered, I mean fake – because come on – what sane person  would really sit on a cow?

Bringing the bib back in style - one fried cheese curd at a time.

We picked up a bag of cheese curds for the hell of it and we were off again, with one more stop to make at the Norske Nook to pick up a blueberry pie to bring to the family. Norske Nook is a Norwegian bakery and eatery based in Osseo, WI – a tiny smear of a town with wide roads and beautiful old farm houses. As a little girl, my grandfather would take us to the Norske Nook and my sister and I would press our faces against the glass of the pie display case, oohing and ahhing over the many delicacies that lay before us. We got our giant blueberry crumble pie – and with one last stop at Culver’s for a quick lunch of butter burgers and fried cheese curds, we were off to Minnesota!

Check back on Friday to read all about our time in Minnesota – including tales of my unfortunate diet coke-butt-bump and late night adventures with Top the Tater!

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