​A couple of weeks before February 28th, one of my closest friends, Angeli, who I consider a sister-by-choice, called and asked if I would think about coming up to visit her in Idaho because Sarah, another friend and sister-by-choice, was flying in for a board meeting that week. The thought was that we could both arrive Wednesday, hang out that evening in Boise, drive up to Sun Valley on Thursday, and then the two of us could spend time together during the day and meet up with Sarah in the evenings after her meetings.
 
It’s so easy to fly from Sacramento to Boise that even though I would have just returned home from our California road trip a few days before, I couldn’t resist seeing two of my favorite people at the same time and so I booked my tickets and we made a plan. Well “plan” might be too strong a word, when you’ve known people for twenty-five years, you don’t really need a plan when you spend time together. And besides, they fully embraced the idea of a “wanderful weekends” (in case you missed my prior post on this, this is a word my sister-in-law inadvertently made up and I’ve now adopted it because I think it’s the best travel-related word ever).
 
Sarah, who flew in from the east coast, didn’t arrive until ten at night, so Angeli and I decided that we needed to partake of the Girl Scout Cookie and wine pairing tasting at her local wine bar. It’s a charming little place called Tastings and they have a fairly big selection of wines and small plates. We tasted sparkling wine with Savannah Smiles lemon cookies, a zinfandel with Trefoil shortbread, a malbec with Tagalongs, and an Amarone with Do-Si-Dos. All in all, it was a very satisfying experience and Angeli and I both volunteered to help the staff next year if they needed additional tasters to help decide their pairings.
 
On Thursday we headed up to Sun Valley and word of advice, if you are ever traveling to Sun Valley in the winter, just fly into Boise and drive up. Don’t try to fly into the Sun Valley airport, the weather there is unpredictable and the airport closes all the time. They’ll re-route you and then you’ll end up on a bus anyway so just save yourself the trouble and fly into Boise which rarely has issues and is probably one of the easiest airports to fly in and out of (and the people are super nice too).
 
We stopped at Sawtooth Brewery for lunch in Hailey and if you are a beer drinker, I’d recommend stopping by and checking out their brews. They have a variety of seasonal and flagship brews and I enjoyed the single hop IPA I ordered.
 
We cooked in on Thursday night in our AirBnB and then Friday, Sarah headed to her meetings while Angeli and I worked from the condo. It was snowing and beautiful and I loved watching the mountains blanketed in white—it made for a nice change of scenery from my own flat (beautiful but flat) farm land. We did take a break though and go for a walk in the late afternoon; I lived on the east coast for eight years and though I don’t like the cold, I’ve always loved how quiet the snow makes everything. Sound just seems softer and dampened in the snow and there’s something kind of magical in that. It didn’t hurt that despite the snow, it wasn’t actually all that cold so it was easy to enjoy the beauty of the fresh snow and the jagged mountains that surrounded us.
 
Later that evening we joined Sarah at the Sun Valley Lodge for drinks before dinner. I had an amazing, spicy cocktail with tequila and habanero chili—okay, I had two. I adore spicy drinks and I don’t find them on menus very often so when I do….well, Saturday morning came earlier than we would have liked.
 
After a nap before noon on Saturday, Angeli and I headed out for breakfast and then to a special place called Wood River Animal Shelter. You see, on Thursday night, I’d mentioned to Angeli and Sarah that we had been looking for an orange cat for a while but as they are in high demand, we hadn’t been able to find one. Then, on Friday, as part of one of her meetings, Sarah ended up touring Wood River and the first thing she saw when she walked in was a seven month old orange kitten (cue: the “aww”).
 
After a brief text consult with my husband that went something like this,
me: how do you feel about me bringing an orange cat home?
him: your call
me: meet Stanley, our new fur-baby!
 
Stanley officially became part of the Schultz-Bhachech family. Okay, it wasn’t quite that fast, Angeli and I did take a lovely walk along a snowy river while I pretended to debate the pros and cons of adopting a cat in Idaho and flying it home to California. Needless to say, he’s now quite content being a California cat and is a total love…he kind of reminds me of my kids when they were little, he likes to climb all over us and when he’s sleeping, he likes to have at least a paw touching us as if to make sure we’re still there.
 
Early Sunday morning had us making our way back to Boise and I flew home Sunday afternoon – it was another amazing wanderful weekend and if you like hiking and being outdoors, Idaho has so much to offer and some really spectacularly beautiful spots. It’s truly impressive the amount of space they have set aside for public use and it’s wonderful to see people actually taking advantage of that…even in two feet of new snow. Had Angeli not lived in Idaho, I think it’s safe to say I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to ever go there, but friends bring many blessings and amongst the thousands of things I am grateful for about Angeli, one of them is definitely introducing me to her favorite spots in the state she’s called home many years now. I know my life is better because I’ve been able to experience hiking in Hailey, white water rafting in Stanley (a small town north of Sun Valley where we’ve been a few times in the summer), and the uniqueness (and fabulous food) of the Basque block of Boise.
 
There’s a companion piece to this blog over on the All the Feels page of Hummingbird Charm. It’s written by Sarah, who is a social worker by profession and a thoughtful, reflective, and beautiful thinker in all she does. While I wrote about the things we did or tried or places we went, she’s written about the power of friendship and the blessings it brings. I hope you’ll pop over there to read her Hummingbird Charm debut blog (and yes, it made me cry).   

Okay, just to clarify, this really isn’t a teenage blog, but is about traveling with teenagers which is its own unique experience. Sometimes I miss the days when the kids were little and they’d pretty much just go along with everything, but then we find ourselves at Disneyland at 11:45 at night and the rides have no waits and the lights are sparkly and perfect and I’m kind of glad to be there with kids who are all taller than me and can stay out way later than me.
 
So about this road trip…we started on a Saturday and drove from Sacramento to Los Angeles down Interstate 5. The good news is that it was only about 6 hours. The bad news is Interstate 5 has got to be one of the most boring roads in California. Regardless, we made it to our destination and despite a snafu with our AirBnB (property manager’s fault, not AirBnB’s), we were happy to be staying in West Hollywood. When you live somewhere where walking to anything other than orchards is impossible, it’s kind of fun to stay where you can walk to coffee and dinner and bars and sightseeing.
 
On our first full day, we didn’t dip our toes in but rather jumped into the fun that is Universal Studios. I’m a born and raised California-girl but I had never been to Universal before and I loved it! Harry Potter world is SO MUCH FUN (yes, I’m a fan) and I can’t recommend it enough for other fans. The ride is amazing, the streets and buildings are charming to the extreme, and the shops are adorable (but expensive). We were given the advice to head to HP World first thing when we arrived (which was 30 mins after opening) because waits get long in the afternoon. It was decent advice, but when we found ourselves still in the park at 8:15 that evening (it closes at 9), we practically walked onto the ride for our second turn.
 
The two crazy things I learned at Universal Studios is the 1) it’s not actually that big, there are only about twelve rides, and 2) you do get to tour the actual studios. The studio tour was way more interesting than I thought it would be and they do a great job of giving you insight into the industry while also making it (quasi) educational. Note though, if you go, the tours are about 90 minutes, so plan accordingly.
 
On our third day, we headed to Disneyland which is, well, it’s Disneyland. It’s such an iconic California spot that we couldn’t not go. And truth be told, I think I could ride the Pirates of the Caribbean all day long if they let me; actually, I’d jump off and hang out in Port Royale for a while if it wouldn’t get me arrested. But alas, that’s not possible, so we hit all the usual haunts, including the haunted house, Space Mountain, the Star Wars ride, and all the others you associate with Disney. A word of advice, if you are going with teenagers, I’d recommend showing up about noon and staying until closing at midnight; like Universal Studios, most rides had no waits by the time we finished dinner (which was an uninspiring feast at the Bayou restaurant in (where else?) the Pirates of the Caribbean ride). Although there is an exception to that general statement and that’s the Peter Pan ride which, weirdly enough, had a thirty-five minute wait at 11:30 at night.
 
After four days in LA, we headed up to Santa Barbara to see my niece who is a junior at the university. She’s a fun, smart young woman and it was great to see where she spends most of her time. And I tell you, that campus ain’t ugly. Perched on a promontory in Goleta, CA (a few miles from downtown Santa Barbara), it’s more or less surrounded by beaches and ocean. One of my sons is interested in animal science and they don’t have a big program for that, but my younger son wants to be a marine biologist and they have a few beautiful, new buildings for that program and they get to study at the Channel Islands, a national marine sanctuary right off the coast of Goleta. If you have any budding marine biologists, I’d definitely put this university on your list to check out.
 
We stayed in an adorable hotel in Santa Barbara right on the water and the staff were SO LOVELY. Seriously, the staff at Hotel Milo were great, they made the place…they also had wine for us when we walked in the door. We didn’t get to spend much time walking around the town, but the hotel is right at the water’s edge of the main street so walkable to pretty much everywhere you might want to poke around.
 
After leaving Santa Barbara, we headed north again, this time to Cayucos, a small little beach town about fifteen miles north of San Louis Obispo. We stayed at a charming AirBnB that was in a seaside trailer park (which sounds weird, but isn’t) and which had million dollar views of the beach. There are a smattering of these charming beach towns along this part of the California coast including Cayucos, Morro Bay, and Cambria and you probably couldn’t go wrong staying at any of them but I do have an affinity for Cayucos and its blend of casual beachy-ness, good food, and the Brown Butter Cookie Bakery
 
We visited the Cal Poly (this trip was in part a college-tour trip too) and then headed up to Hearst Castle (link: http://hearstcastle.org/) for a tour. I think the pictures can speak to it better than I so I will just leave you with a few of those and the comment that 1) it was awesome to hear our guide talk so much about Julia Morgan (link: http://hearstcastle.org/history-behind-hearst-castle/historic-people/profiles/julia-morgan/), the architect who designed the castle and who was also the first woman architect licensed in the state of California, and 2) the views from the hilltop alone are worth the tour price—it’s truly breathtaking.
 
On our last day we more or less just drove straight home, up Highway 101. It’s a much prettier drive than Interstate 5 and I will say that making the West/East connection from Highway 1 (which runs along the coast) to Highway 101 which runs a little more inland (at that point) opened my eyes to something entirely new—the Paso Robles wine country. Driving along Highway 46, we passed so many gorgeous wineries and vineyards that even for this Sonoma County native were stunning. I definitely plan to revisit and go winetasting—it would make a great “Wanderful Weekend.”