Mission Ranch, Joullian Winery & The Village Corner

Part 4 of the Series: Pismo to Carmel: One Taste at a Time Join us as we travel from Pismo Beach to Carmel-by-the-Sea tasting good food, wines and stopping at sights along the scenic California coast! In this leg of our journey, we’re exploring some of the the wineries, shops and restaurants of Carmel, including […]

San Simeon, PCH & Piedras Blancas Rookery

Part 3 of the Series: Pismo to Carmel: One Taste at a Time Join us as we travel from Pismo Beach to Carmel-by-the-Sea tasting good food, wines and stopping at sights along the scenic California coast! In this leg of our journey, we’ll leave Paso Robles behind and head for the coast. We’ll travel north […]

San Luis Obispo & the Vineyards of Paso Robles

Pismo to Carmel: One Taste at a Time – Part 2 Join us as we travel from Pismo Beach to Carmel-by-the-Sea tasting good food, wines and stopping at sights along the scenic coast of California! On this leg of our journey, we’ll continue on from San Luis Obispo to Paso Robles tasting wines as we […]

Pismo Beach, Avila Quiet & Frank Lloyd Wright

Part I of the Series – Pismo to Carmel: One Taste at a Time Much like the “one cannot appreciate the true value of a sunrise until one has waited in darkness” philosophy, there is nothing quite like a brutal winter in the Midwest to make one more appreciative of the warmth of a late […]

A Morning in Sausalito

Heading back to Atherton from Sonoma after some wine tasting there, I decided that we should take advantage of the opportunity to make a stop in another of my very favorite locations along the coast: Sausalito. That’s Spanish for “little willow grove”. It has long been a favorite of mine for a number of reasons, […]

A Wedding in Carmel-by-the-Sea

Since the day we met – when our high school principal (we both taught science) introduced Yvonne to me – and we first shook hands, it was like an electric shock. We both knew that something special was in our future. By now, it was March of 2004. Yvonne and I had been having some […]

The Wines of Carmel Valley

It was a perfect day to embark on a little tasting exploration, so we headed east, along Carmel Valley Road, toward the village of Carmel Valley. Our chosen destinations were three wine tasting rooms there: Bernardus, Heller and Joullian. All of them offered many of the same varietals to sample, which made it a little […]

California Connections

I first learned about Carmel from my mother.  She told me she spent a lot of time on the west coast of California during the WWII years, waiting for my father to return from the Pacific Theater and a stint in the U.S. Navy as a SeaBee. (This page may contain affiliate links. See our […]