A Bordello Barolo, Chapter Two

Continued from September 25th: A milestone birthday bash in the making…

With plans all set between us for a party weekend in Port Costa, California, Andy sent his invitations.

Hiking, Eating, Drinking, Birthday Festival, and Haunted Hotel Overnight Getaway in Port Costa
Saturday, September 22, 2007 - 10:00 AM
Warehouse Cafe
5 Canyon Lake Drive
Port Costa, CA

Wow, that event title is a mouthful!

Yes, the thrill-packed weekend adventure you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. (Actually it’s arriving on Sept. 22nd). We’ll hike, eat, drink, celebrate, play archaic video games, duck bikers and ghosts, and listen to Sunday afternoon blues as the Amtrak Capitol Express screams past along the Carquinez Strait. (Train mooning optional.)

It’s all taking place in lovely and scenic (not!) Port Costa. Of course the centerpiece, as most of you know, is the Russ Beebe 50th Birthday Festival. Yes, he looks like a million, but he’s only 50.

Here’s the lineup:

Saturday Sept. 22, 10:00 am: Meet at the Warehouse Cafe parking lot and do a Carquinez Strait hike.

Sometime Saturday Afternoon: Check in to the Burlington Hotel. This place looks like the Dodge House in Gunsmoke. Had a reputation for being funky, but the new manager assured me they’ve “cleaned up their act”. Its supposed to be haunted, too. We’ll probably have time to lift a few with the bikers at the Warehouse before dinner. Or for whoever’s interested, we could take a side trip to Crockett and pay tribute at the Aldo Ray Memorial Shrine in the Crockett Town Museum.

Saturday, 7 pm: Dinner at the Bull Valley Inn. No kidding, this place is great. Country inn atmosphere, big stone fireplace, great food and great martinis served at the rustic bar. I gave Russ a choice of this or the Warehouse Cafe for his birthday dinner and for some reason he chose the Bull Valley.

Saturday Evening: After a memorable meal, we’ll adjourn to the Warehouse to sample a few of their 400 beers, do shots, (or both), and check out the colorful clientele. We’ll also have a PacMan competition, since they have a machine that still works. This place is amazing. Its a huge former warehouse with all sorts of odd memorabilia scattered about including a big round table that - they claim - is the one used to sign the World War I Armistice in Versailles. We’ll then retire to our frontier suites in the Burlington for an exciting night of ghosts, nightmares and general terror. The latter perhaps supplied by me if Russ doesn’t cut me off soon enough at the Warehouse.

Sunday morning: Have breakfast at a location TBD. Perhaps Pegg’s Western Grill and Bakery in Martinez.

Sunday afternoon: Attend the weekly blues gig on the Warehouse deck, complete with complementary BBQ. Check out the bikers and their babes.

(Mind your eye contact, boys. :-o)

Accommodations
The Burlington Hotel has two rates: $49 for a room with a bath, and $39 for a room with a bath down the hall. I plan to book rooms for Saturday night for whoever has their secretary call my secretary.

Next Steps
For now, I just need to know three things:

1. Are you down for this once in a lifetime event?
2. Are you bringing a guest?
3. Do you plan to stay at the Burlington Saturday night and if so, in a $49 or $39 room? (But be advised that chickens who are hereby invited but may consider themselves too delicate to stay in a musty 19th-century bordello will be ragged on mercilessly.)
4. Do you have flea powder? (Just kidding.)

I’ll need a headcount for the Burlington by August 21 so I can make the reservations. I’ll follow up with deposit details, if necessary. We’ll also work out the room logistics. Two to a room will work out best. Well, maybe. There’s only one bed per room.

Sound like fun? I think it’s going to be a blast and a half times two, which they say equals 50.
Yours,
Andy

P.S.: Russ said he’s bringing lots of wine.

I consider myself a reasonable, calm, and centered so-n’-so. And yet I suspected trouble to pounce from behind the Port Costa tree. Trouble! Not because I would be staying in a hallowed (and presumably haunted) old bordello - for the first time, mind you. (Honest!)

Nossirree. It’s because I’d be staying in that old haunted bordello with Andy. Therefore, anything could happen. Including amorous biker babes. Which always spells trouble. Oh dear!

And then again, I thought: Hmm… hiking? Along the Carquinez Straits?? Who in their right mind would hike there, much less find an honest-to-goodness trail to hike on?

Well, I couldn’t escape the fact that John Muir, 19th century naturalist, writer, and patron neosaint of the enviroliterati, had lived for a number of years in Martinez (pre-industrial nightmare, of course), so perhaps there would be a trail. Perhaps.

I decided to pre-select a few choice wines for the weekend. And yet I found myself wondering how those wines would pair with those bikers. As fete would have it, I wouldn’t need to concern myself. Not too much, anyway.

Read A Bordello Barolo, Chapter Three.

~winehiker

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 5:04 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, winehiker's trails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.