San Diego, Encinitas, Leucadia and La Jolla

To celebrate our tenth anniversary over the long Memorial Day weekend, my partner Phil and I flew past Monterey to San Diego, California.

I wish we'd been able to transport Monterey's Portola Hotel and Spa to San Diego. So far, it has been one of the nicest hotels we've stayed at south of San Francisco.

San Diego's Hillcrest neighborhood was our home base.

We devoted much of one day to exploring massive Balboa Park. I especially like the Spanish Village Art Center. Phil told me a glass decoration in the front of our house was purchased here some twenty years ago.

The next day, we drove north to the beach towns of Encinitas and Leucadia, where Phil lived in the early 1990's.

At the top of the staircase he used every day to reach the beach where he surfed and swam, I saw this street sign painted on the curb. I wonder if these towns might be the inspiration for Rob Thomas' television series, Veronica Mars. The heroine lives in the fictional beach town of Neptune, California.

There were lots of surfers on the water that cold, foggy day.

Not far from Phil's old house in Encinitas is the Self-Realization Fellowship founded in 1920 by Paramahansa Yogananda. The gardens built right up to the cliff edge are spectacular.

Our favorite place in Encinitas is Pannikin Coffee & Tea, which is located in the historic Santa Fe Railroad Station built in 1888.

Farther north is the long beach of La Jolla. We climbed down cliffs to the beach at Torrey Pines to enjoy the best weather of the trip.

We ended our weekend at the Hillcrest Brewing Company, where we had amazing beer and pizza. Ask for Gavin. You can recognize him by his tattoo. He was excellent.

It was a perfect weekend in San Diego to celebrate our anniversary.

Escape to Portola Hotel & Spa in Monterey

I had lunch in June with Ballantines PR's Sarah Robarts and Dara Toulch at Cafe Flore in the Castro. It was a sunny, gorgeous day (rare in the summer in San Francisco). They introduced me to Janine Chicourrat, the general manager at Portola Hotel & Spa in Monterey, California. It did not take long for Janine to convince me to visit this AAA-rated 4-Diamond hotel, one of but three TAG-approved hotels in Monterey.

I made this video as my partner Phil and I drove south on Highway 1. Calling this drive scenic is like describing Carly Rae Jepsen's song "Call Me Maybe" as catchy. It felt like we'd driven into a movie.




The Portola Hotel & Spa is only steps away from the entrance to Monterey's wharf. Our room had this spectacular view of the wharf and wide bay.

We dined at the hotel's Jacks Restaurant, enjoyed breakfast room service and hung out in Peter B's, the bar on the side of the hotel nearest the wharf. After spending two evenings exploring Monterey's nightlife, Phil and I agreed it was the bar in town to see and be seen.

I shot this video as we walked along the wharf chock-full of restaurants, bars, retail stores, and fishing and whale-watching tour boats.




It is a leisurely stroll through Monterey's historic cannery row to the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium. (You might know John Steinbeck wrote Cannery Row after spending some time with the denizens here in the 1930's.) The Aquarium itself is spectacular and invites you to come and go as much as you like on the day you visit. It was really crowded at times.




Portola Hotel & Spa was the perfect place for Phil and me to relax, be pampered and celebrate our ninth anniversary. Monterey is a lovely town to which to escape the rat race and recharge.

With the recent United States Supreme Court decisions striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Prop. 8, the LGBTQ community can now marry in California – and, it seems, in more and more states every month. Portola Hotel & Spa would be an excellent setting for a wedding or honeymoon.

That's not a hint, Phil – though the idea of marriage did come up for the first time while we dined at Jacks Restaurant.