Charlie works in the specialty-coffee-industry (at least 80% of my rediculous-coffee-snobbishness can be directly attributed to him) and his killer home coffee bar was recently featured in the Chicago Reader.

The trip mainly consisted of large quantities of all of my favorite things: eating, walking, talking, and drinking (of coffee, tea, and booze.) Highlights included: getting majorly overly-spiced (in a good way) at Lao Hunan (pictured directly above), getting to sit in on an espresso QC meeting with Charlie & his coworkers (second photo from top), great meals with two different Chicago-based clients, and an amazing dinner at the home of Cindy & Julia of Crafty Broads, the guest list of which included the really lovely Chicago-based wedding photographers Christy Tyler and Emilia of Emilia Jane Photography (I also had drinks earlier in the week with Emilia and her adorable husband Wil at The Violet Hour, one of my favorite bars in the world.)

Thanks Chicago! Next time let’s maybe work on not being so cold.

(also, a note: I typically shoot film when I travel, and all of the photos in this post are unretouched SLR shots. I did not super love the black & white film I used, and need to remember what it was so that I don’t buy it again.)

Over the holidays, someone in my family commented that I travel a lot, and everyone else immediately chimed in to agree. To which I cried foul, because, well, I really don’t think of myself as someone who travels that much. Last year I made one trip to Chicago, and two to New York. The year before was about the same, plus a trip to Mexico. However, the comment resulted in making me want to be someone who travels a lot (hilariously, because it wasn’t meant as one, I chose to take it as a challenge.)

So – a goal for this year is to spend at least one night a month in another city. Because I’m far from rich, I’m going to allow work trips to other parts of California to count, which my spring and summer are already fairly full of. And when I really started looking at my calendar I’m almost there! Current trips I already have planned for this year include:

• February: Chicago
• April: Las Vegas & New York
• May: Solvang & Sonoma (and possibly New York again)
• June: Sonoma
• July: Napa, and hopefully Longbarn
• August: Half Moon Bay
• September: Sonoma
• October: New York
• November: New York (yes, again!) & Philadelphia

Which means I need to get myself somewhere this month and make sure to plan something for next December. In March I’m hoping to fit in a long weekend in LA, because it’s been far too long (at least two years) since I’ve been down there.

I’d like to note that all of this is domestic travel, and the majority of it is local travel (more than one but less than three hours in a car = local travel.) My poor passport is feeling very neglected these days, but it’s unfortunately looking like it’s going to stay that way for a while…

So, some objective opinions – do I travel a lot? Do you want to travel more? Where are the top destinations on your list of placed to go (one of mine, oddly, is Antarctica, and has been for more than a decade.)

photo: from my last trip to New York, via my iPhone

I’m technically on vacation in the middle of nowhere right now, but had a few work things to wrap up so am spending some time at what might be the world’s cutest cafe, which, at 15 minutes away from where we’re staying is the closest wifi spot. I love coming up here, since the only way I can actually take a real vacation is to go somewhere without readily available wifi or good cell reception, because my name is Elizabeth and I’m a workaholic. Sigh.

an assortment of links and info before I head back into the woods for the weekend and open a book:

• the first of the pro-photos from Eliza & Nathanial’s wedding that I DOCed a few weeks ago are up on Christina Richards’ blog. Christina is as darling as she is talented, and was a joy to work with.
• Luisa of The Wednesday Chef, one of my favorite food blogs, got married, and you need to go read the post she wrote about her wedding, because, yes.
• After seeing the wedding East Side Bride posted yesterday, I think I need to put in an official request (with… the wedding gods?) for both more girl bands and more keg stands at weddings.
• The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults in History – obviously I’m not alone in finding intelligent people bagging on each other totally hilarious. Also – how hot was the young Martin Amis?
• This bracelet is currently at the top of my wishlist.
• I have an announcement to make on Monday that I am crazy excited about. Yay!

image: windmills in Altamont pass, the sight of which officially turn a drive into a road trip.

Does anyone know who invented tissues with lotion? Because I want to kiss them on the mouth.

*which was no doubt helped along by the the fact that some Chicago bars are open until 4am.

and his lovely girlfriend Kim.

Also their new dog Ruca. Who is adorable.

Charlie is the educator (i.e. trainer in fancy-coffee-world-speak) at the Broadway Intelligentsia. Which means that I get to set up my laptop and work from the cafe while he’s on shift. Which is one of the reasons I love coming here – I get to take a working vacation, and I get to completely over-caffeinate myself on excessive amounts of the world’s best coffee. If you have never had Intelligentsia coffee, you need to get yourself to Chicago or LA as soon as possible.

More Chicago adventures to come.

Photos: Elizabeth F. Clayton