Point Lobos We are going on a mushroom hunting trip in beautiful Big Sur with our dear friends Derek & Leslie. We decide to follow each other in our two identical Boxsters. After lunch at Carmel-by-the-Sea we head to Point Lobos in search of giant waves. We find them. The weather is fabulous with a perfectly-timed heatwave which has cleared the air of any fog.

Clothing Optional We fill the afternoon with spa treatments and just lazy time by the pool, including the clothing-optional Japanese spa... though Dan is too shy to go naked. Prude! Ventana Inn & Spa is a fantastic resort, but we also want to eat at the famed Post Ranch Inn, just across Highway One. Our concierge makes the reservations but tells us the wrong day (tomorrow night vs. tonight). When we get back to our room from our dinner at Cielo at Ventana, we get yelled at (in voicemail) by the hostess at Post Ranch Inn! Looking forward to tomorrow night's dinner!

Pick What You Recognize The next morning, bright and early, we head out in search of yummy mushrooms. Our driver happens to be the resort's general manager (!!!) so we have a lot of fun picking his brain about where he lives, and the art of running a resort. We get lessons on mushroom gils, pores, shapes, colors, and at the end of the day, the fact is that we are too scared to pick anything other than the chanterelles. The hike into the forest is fun, and by the time we are done we have picked a hundred pounds of chanterelles!

Candy Caps Back to the resort for a multi-course lunch on the patio of all-things-mushroom, including dessert: candy-cap mushroom cooked in maple syrup! Yumm. More spa treatments - Dan gets two back-to-back scrubs by mistake: he is super exfoliated - and we are off to dinner at Post Ranch Inn, where we have a great table by the window and enjoy knowing there is a view out there, albeit dark!