Girls getaway!

I went to the Tomales Bay/Inverness area for a bachelorette overnight for Kimberley, with Kimberley and Ann.

We settled into the Golden Hinde Inn, which is the only place along Tomales Bay that takes one-night stays. The interior is equivalent to a Motel 6, with plastic cups, bad décor, and lumpy beds. But we were armed with lots of snacks and trashy magazines.

We set out in the afternoon for a quick little walk. We found the original Blair Witch house. It was kind of cool-looking from far-away, but very spooky on the inside.

We had dinner Saturday night at Manka’s (www.mankas.com). It was a seven-course meal, and took 4 ½ hours. It was amazing. The portions were small, but the food was very rich. In keeping with the history of Manka's as an old hunting lodge, there was a lot of meat, no salad and barely even any veggies to speak of. The highlights of the meal for me were the 2-inch thick bacon that was very tender (not at all like the conventional bacon that's crispy) and the mussel soup with a big dollop of cream. The menu was a piece of work too: “California Quail perched alongside housemade bacon atop a toast fashioned from foccacia” or “The ribs of Bill’s pig with the potatoes of Peter’s field.”

I was still in a semi food coma this morning, till about noon when we were starting our hike along the Dipsea trail at Stinson. We hiked for three hours, which probably meant that I worked off only the first course of Saturday night's meal.