day one

Worst time with tsa in Dayton. The lines are now divided, and we ended up in the “family and medical liquids” line because there wasn’t a sign explaining the differences between the 3 lines until you’d stood in line for 10 minutes. Our line was by far the slowest but we had no idea because it seemed to be moving okay until we started watching people we’d gotten in line before going through. We were lucky that boarding was delayed a few minutes.
the flight to minneapolis was uneventful. a little bit down the concourse from the gate we landed, there was a giant snoopy that we decided to get our first honeymoon picture with. We asked a man who appeared to be taking a picture of his daughter’s my little pony with the snoopy, and he obliged (although he didn’t hold long enough, so we never got a picture)
He then asked if we were on our honeymoon, and when we said yes, he took us to the delta sky club. These places are absolutely ridiculous! The changing table in the bathroom was stainless steel. The floors are marble. There are free fancy coffee machines as well as danishes, bagels, and alcohol to make your own drinks. There are free newspapers and magazines, wifi, computer stations, printers, and copiers. The chairs are large and comfy.
We left the club after about an hour and a half in order to eat a larger breakfast. We found ourselves at ike’s, a hometown kind of place. it was good, although probably not worth writing much more about. We ate enough to hold us over until much much later, then left for our gate.
Upon landing in San Francisco, we headed to baggage claim where our three bags were among the first 20 out (our plane had 174 people). We got onto a train to get to hertz. We managed to get a dog-loving agent, so she saw pictures of Henry and Milo, and then when she found out that we were on our honeymoon, she upgraded us to a 2010 Ford Mustang convertible.
The trunk space only holds two of our bags, but it was by far the best way to go over the golden gate bridge, which we did as we headed out to Sonoma.
We had a bit of trouble finding the hotel, but managed to find the yarn shop less than a block away. No time to check it out yet, as we had places to be, but we plan to tomorrow.
We checked into the Sonoma Mission Inn, where we were informed that they had managed to upgrade us to a Mission Suite (which contains a king size bed, non-smoking, romantic Jacuzzi, patio, fireplace, complimentary wine and wine tasting), which we later determined usually costs $449 a night!


We walked in; the place was gorgeous, and a bottle of champagne was waiting for us. We didn’t have time to enjoy it yet though, because we had treatments in half an hour. We changed and walked over to the spa. We were too late to enjoy the bathing ritual, but plan to arrive with plenty of time tomorrow morning. For now, we enjoyed the fresh strawberries and oranges along with the mint and lime flavored water.
Emily got the vanilla floatation. They dry-exfoliated her with these gloves, then slathered her with body butter. She was wrapped in towels and sheets and then the table lowered into hot water, where she stayed for 45 minutes as the therapist massaged her head, neck, and feet. At the conclusion, they provided a vanilla float smoothie. during the session Emily asked the therapist about good local Mexican food and she recommended two places: the taco cart across the street and Maya (a sit down restaurant) which is located in the plaza. we plan on having the taco cart for lunch tomorrow and going over to Maya later in the week while we are staying at El Dorado which is on the plaza.
Ryan enjoyed the watsu massage, which involved his therapist to move and stretch him in may different ways under water. his legs were supported at the knee by floats, and while it did not deeply massage his back, he called it the “most relaxing thing he has ever done”.
We came back to the room and drank a little champagne on the patio. We hadn’t made dinner plans, so we decided to head to the four diamond rated hotel restaurant, Santé. After ordering they served us a course of chilled leek and onion soup topped with a little basil oil and served with some dehydrated carrot to sprinkle on top next to a little brioche topped with black truffle mousse. I wish we’d remembered to get a picture, but we didn’t. Then the bread and butter came. There were two types of butter—a French, and a Californian. neither were salted, and there was French sea salt in between the two that you sprinkle on top.
It was all fantastic, and interesting to see how the different breads took the butters differently. Then, because it was our honeymoon, the chef prepared an extra dish for us. It was presented on three plates of concentric sizes, with napkins in between the layers. It was a cauliflower custard with black truffle shavings and black truffle oil. This we were both pleased to discover was fantastic. Our dinners soon came... Emily had an artichoke ravioli with pickled pearl onions and a lemon beurre sauce. Ryan’s dish was a Bodega Bay duck breast with huckleberry reduction, wilted spinach underneath, caramelized pearl onions, and a side of duck confit hash browns with a quail egg on top.
For dessert we split a blueberry and almond financier that reminded us of a muffin/cupcake mix. It was topped with lemon thyme sorbet which was much creamier than expected, and a candied lemon along with a blueberry reduction sauce. They had written happy honeymoon in chocolate sauce along the edge.
We walked back to our room, where we crashed finally.

Wines for 26 May 2009:
Buena Vista, Syrah, Carneros, 2005, $15 by the glass – All the wines at Sante were expensive but Ryan decided that a glass of wine with the duck breast would be great,. This glass of wine was the cheapest on the menu but it was very good, especially with the duck.