I cannot imagine a better way to have spent my 41st birthday then to start off on a cross country adventure with Scott. My dad drove us to Charlotte and took us out to a birthday brunch- we found a cute restaurant in McAdenville called the Spruced Goose. We had uneventful flying and arrived into LAX, found our rental car, grabbed some dinner once traffic thinned out when we were out of LA, and then headed north up past Santa Barbara to Alex and Allyson Hartenburg’s in Buellton.

Flying from the east coast to the west coast meant that I gained 3 extra hours of birthday which also meant that we were able to pack more fun into the day. We got to the Hartenburg’s about 10 pm, dropped luggage, changed clothes (putting on rain gear since strangely enough, it was raining in southern CA!) and then headed to Santa Ynez for the final adventure of the evening… harvesting grapes at Newcastle Vineyard & Winery, a winery owned by Danny Masterson (“Hyde” from That 70’s Show) and his wife Bijou Phillips (Hollywood actress and singer and daughter of John Phillips of The Mommas & The Poppas), clients of Allyson’s.

I had to give myself a little pep talk on the drive over to act cool and not act weird… the pep talk turned out to be unnecessary since Danny was quite down to earth and was a fantastic host. He fixed a plate of jerk chicken and shrimp stew made by Bijou for Scott and I that we ate while having a quick sampling of various wines and meeting the other (quite colorful) folks helping out with the harvest that evening. He spoke fondly of Greenville and told me how much he enjoyed the area when he had visited for the BMW Pro-Am golf tournament, and like most everyone that has visited Greenville, complimented the downtown. I’ll admit to feeling proud of my hometown!

Scott, Allyson, and I all have a newfound appreciation for the harvesting of grapes and what goes into wine production. I don’t think any of us will be quitting our day jobs to pursue a career as field hands at a winery or vineyard. We each picked about 30 lbs of grapes and called it a night at about 1 AM, Allyson and I both trying not to think about how little sleep we were about to get since we had another adventure planned for Saturday that of course required an ungodly wake up time.