Since we didn't take any trip over the summer, I suggested to the Geek to spend a weekend further up north at the coast. A friend of mine had told me about a cabin where she had stayed 15 years ago and a short Google research revealed that it was still there. St. Orres in Gualala (pronounced wa-LA-la) is a hotel with a very good (and prohibitively expensive) restaurant - and they also rent a few cabins further away from the hotel for an affordable price. I called them and was delighted how friendly they were. I booked one of the cabins in the woods (they also have a couple "ocean view" cabins, but the ocean is behind the trees by now) and a week later the Geek and I were on our way to Gualala, which is only a two hours drive from here on Highway 1.
We got the same cabin my friend had 15 years ago and it seems that nothing much has changed since then apart from a few updates. We had a nice big room with a sitting area, a private bath and the deck in the redwoods.
It was a charming little place.
The bottle of good red wine wasn't a service from the hotel. We had stopped at Annapolis Winery on our way to Gualala and bought this bottle after a nice wine tasting.
The view out of the windows into the redwoods.
The deck certainly was my favorite place...
Everything was thought through so well. All kinds of utensils on top of the refrigerator like coffee maker, plates, silverware, napkins, wine glasses; they even provided a corkscrew! An emergency light in case there was a power outage or some other more serious emergency (we are more familiar with those now).
Talking about emergencies: since the coast has ratty cell phone reception at best, there was an old fashioned pay phone in the center of the premises. There even was a phone book!
The premises were pretty, too. The hotel is built in what I call "Russian" style, and so were some of the buildings here as well.
But the best part was the breakfast. It was brought to our door every morning in a box and had fresh fruit, homemade bread, an egg dish, orange juice, homemade granola and milk. We ate it out on the deck and felt very pampered.
I don't think this was the last time I spent a weekend here.
