dog friendly | Fitness is Sweet

The “OMG I’m leaving in a week” adventures continue.

For lunch on Friday, I drove up to San Francisco for lunch to catch up with two of my high school friends.

I had an Asian chicken salad.

A Giant GF cookie (It was staring at me the whole meal, so how could I not?)

And some great conversation with fantastic people.

That evening, I had just enough time for Crossfit before picking up a college friend from the train station. She recently moved to Boston, but was here for work and stayed with me for the weekend.

For dinner, we had homemade lasagna with zucchini noodles, salad, and bread with dipping sauce.

Because the occasion warranted it, I broke out some of the home brew chocolate milk stout (yes, I still owe you all a post on the process!)

One of my other friends brought a MASSIVE amount of peaches to us, so while sipping our beer, we made a delicious peach crisp using our favorite blueberry crisp recipe.

We ended the night with peach crisp and a movie.

Saturday, we had a big day of dog-friendly adventure planned. First, we drove to the city and visited my FAVORITE coffeeshop/donutery, Dynamo Donuts. They have an outdoor patio, so Chloe was able to sit with us.

Of course, I’m a sucker for marketing and had to get her a doggy donut.

I got a GF lemon buttermilk donut.

With a cappuccino of course.

My friend requested some outdoorsy activities, and we were originally going to hike around Mt Tam, but traffic wasn’t looking good in the area, and it was unclear how to get to the dog friendly areas, so we decided to head over to Crissy Field instead.

We did the fairly steep climb up to the bridge, and of course Chloe had a blast.

I didn’t really think about how touristy this area was. Chloe is a pretty noticeable dog, and it was interesting to see people, especially kids, exclaim about her in a multitude of languages!

Bridge views:

After our walk/hike, we drove across the city to All Good Pizza for a “Paws for a Cause” event benefiting an organization that helps adopt out animals. There were tons of dogs there, and Chloe was moderately well behaved to start.

The pizza place was basically a permanent food truck with a beer garden-esque outdoor area. I tried a few bites of my friend’s pizza and it was super good! I got a kale salad with turkey.

We didn’t stay too long because as the event got busier, there were more and more dogs and Chloe got a bit overstimulated and barky. My friend suggested we go somewhere with a beer flight, and through some googling, we found Southern Pacific Brewing Company.

This was the perfect place because they had a big flight with all of their house beers, and dog-friendly outdoor seating. I really, really enjoyed the Hefeweizen. It had a really interesting depth of flavor. My second favorite was the farmhouse ale.

Chloe was good until some barmy dogs came, but she was manageable with the presence of her new favorite treats.

Then, it was time to head home. We cleaned up and relaxed for a bit before heading out for Thai food with a college friend we hadn’t seen in over a year who just moved back to the area!

^Garlic chicken with brown rice.

We had so much to catch up on that we couldn’t stop at dinner, and headed to a pub next door for beers.

Eventually it was time to part ways. A couple of people from Crossfit were out, so on the way home we stopped by and hung out with them for a while. Seeing so many people these last couple of weeks is making leaving so hard!

Sunday morning, I sadly had to take my friend to the airport. On the way back, I stopped at the gym for a spin class and got my movement in early for the day.

Lunch was leftover lasagna and some of the amazing fruit we currently have in our fridge.

After lunch, I made my dad’s Father’s Day gift: our family recipe for trifle.

This recipe is actually pretty simple. Line the dish with lady fingers or pound cake, spread with jam, top with 3 tablespoons of cherry and let it sit 5 minutes, then top with custard. The custard is just pudding from a mix with an extra 1/2c of milk added. Then topped with whipped cream and a cherry!

I made my only baby GF version with a leftover blueberry lemon muffin from the freezer as the cake, raspberry jam, a minuscule amount of sherry, and the custard.

We basically spent all afternoon watching baseball.

For dinner, I went out to a pan-Asian place with a high school friend who I have no seen in a while. We both ordered soup to start; sweet corn and chicken for me!

Then we split a paneer based Asian dish that was really different, but good!

We walked around downtown a little bit afterwards, and I got some ice cream from Baskin Robbins. I haven’t been there in forever, and ordered my childhood favorite, Gold Medal Ribbon.

It was such a fun weekend full of amazing people. I cannot wait for more adventures this week!

Hey guys! I hope everyone’s week is going well. Today I want to share my little road trip with you guys!

Immediately after my race, I headed home to shower and pick up my dog for a little family trip.

My family always goes to Napa over Thanksgiving, but this year we decided to do a quick trip before school started since we didn’t have a vacation this spring/summer. We’ve also never taken my dog before!

We arrived in time for a late lunch in St. Helena. Luckily, the area is very dog friendly and we were able to eat outside with my dog.

We went to a place we discovered last year, called the St. Helena Bistro. They had the most amazing brussels sprouts ever, and while those weren’t in season yet, I still ate very well!

To start, we shared bruschetta and a grilled artichoke. Both were fantastic.

For my main course, I went with a salad with avocado, heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella, and olive oil.

It was delicious and so fresh! We also shared a dessert-crispy banana with chocolate gelato.

We walked around St. Helena a bit, and stopped in an olive oil store for olive oil and barbecue sauce tasting. Another must visit place in St. Helena is Woodhouse Chocolates. They have the most amazing candies-the fresh mint tastes just like eating a mint leaf.

After walking around in the heat, we checked into the hotel to relax and watch some football and baseball before dinner. Dinner was a place in downtown Napa I found as one of the top things to do in Napa. They were known for their pizza, so we chose to split a couple of pizzas and some appetizers, starting with a simple salad with lemon vinaigrette and parmesan.

The other app was creamy polenta with grated cheese on top.

The pizzas we chose were margherita and white cream with shaved truffle. Obviously, the truffle pizza stole the show. I’ve never actually seen a truffle before-I’ve only had truffle oil before so this was quite the treat!

On the way home from dinner, we stopped for dessert at another place in downtown Napa, Grace’s Table. We split a vanilla bean cheesecake, devil’s food cake, and chocolate mousse with brandy cherries.

The next morning, after a quick hotel breakfast, we visited the Petrified Forest, which was dog friendly. This is an area where trees have basically been turned to stone as the result of a nearby (now dormant) volcano erupting and spewing ash everywhere, followed by flooding over the area. It was amazing-the trees looked just like a normal log, but they were stone!

We went on about a mile hike through the forest to look at the trees and some ash fall. My feet were not feeling so hot post-race day, and walking was not pretty at all.

The photo below is a Manzanita tree-it looked like someone had dripped red paint all over the bark-it was an amazing looking tree.

The next picture is what the petrified trees look like when they were first discovered and before they have been cleaned and exposed.

When we went on the path to see some ash fall, we had a great view of the former volcano.

And here’s a shot of me with all the pale and sparky ash.

And another picture from the hike. My dog is quite photogenic!

Afterwards, we headed back to downtown Napa to Oxbow Public Market for lunch. It’s an indoor market with places to eat and buy gourmet foods. We went to a place we discovered last year that appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for their arepas. They were so, so delicious. I got the vegetarian on a sweet corn arepa, which was filled with tofu, fried plantain, avocado, and black beans. So, so good.

For the last hurrah before returning home, we went to a highly recommended (by the Internet) bakery called Sweetie Pie where we shared a coconut raspberry bar, salted caramel fudge cake (my choice), and chocolate soufflé cake.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Napa, and we headed home.

We haven’t taken my dog on a trip in years, but luckily this area is very dog friendly. In addition to lots of outside seating and water bowls for dogs placed outside, almost everyone who passed us stopped to comment on how cute he was and to pet him, which he of course loved. One funny thing is that even though he’s 13 now, almost everyone asks if he’s a puppy.

He clearly had a great time, and slept the whole way home.

Overall, it was a really fun couple of days! We did some different things that were more dog friendly, and had a great time!

Do you have a vacation spot your family likes to go?

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Eating and Limping My Way Through Napa Valley