On Friday Sam and I took the day off and headed southeast to Temecula.  What I don’t think either of us realized is that the rolling hills of vineyards would not be actually filled with grapes at this time of year, but slowly growing green vines.   Regardless, the scenery was mostly green and vastly different than the busy city.   The point of the trip was not to really see wine, but just to relax a little bit on our break between terms as this past one was the hardest of our program so far.

We stayed at one of the more “awarded” resorts in the area, which gives you something more like a little house than a room to stay in.  It was sort of like staying in a really upscale fully furnished studio apartment.  The pool, spa, gym and waterfall (in photo above) were all within walking distance of our room.

On Friday night we tried to take some night photography on the hotel grounds and some aliens tried to abduct us.  They had already gone to the wine tasting though and were too drunk to keep their tractor beam on us.  There were a few tense moments, one captured in the photo above.

The next day we decided to check out the restaurant and the wine tasting deal for ourselves.  I’m discovering the fact that drinks being “sparkling” probably means more to me than the actual flavor.  I almost exclusively drink carbonated water now at home (and out, if possible), so it is no surprise that my favorite wine was the sparkling “ruby curet” (or something like that).

Here we are at the fountain infront of the resort on Saturday.  Saturday was much busier than Friday with many weddings andother celebrations (including some kind of college prom or something, which was very confusing to me as I kept wondering how high schoolers could drink wine).  At certain points we would actually get trapped on the “campus” because exit points (outside stairways) were being used for wedding photography. 

Sunday we walked up the valley side of Griffith Park.  I hadn’t been on that trail since the “dark days” of 2006, and somehow, instinctively we ended up talking about all of that depressing stuff.  Not necessarily what ails me then, but both of us now.  To make ourselves feel even worse we watched Michael Moore’s latest movie.   With every film he seems to get more and more self-centered.  I really wish someone would take the ball from him and make some serious films about the same subject matter.  Bringing in your childhood priest to say capitalism is evil doesn’t make a great point, Michael.   However, the full 2nd bill of rights video speech from FDR was very interesting.   The full video of Jimmy Carter’s “Warning” presidential address was interesting as well.  It is mind blowing how all our long term problems are never new, just continually covered up by politicians for short term gains.   I won’t say which side does more covering/short term profiteering; but we all know what side Carter and FDR were on.  In a nutshell:  the only interesting parts of the film were the parts like these unedited presidential addresses in which Moore didn’t add any lame “jokes” or “narration.”