Sensorio

Following the excess of the Madonna Inn, we headed inland a little to Paso Robles — and fell in love with it.

Paso Robles is, apparently, a fairly new wine region. Up until the 1990s, it was primarily a cattle area, but shine then it has developed quickly, with a ton of cute shops and restaurants and such. We loved it!

Our hotel, the Adelaide Inn, was a small, quiet place that was generous in the details: a spacious room, fresh baked cookies as we checked in, a nice pool. It had a great, homey sense. We ten headed out to surprise Beatrix with a visit to Sensorio, which was a big highlight of the trip.

As we walked in, there was a cool festival sense, with some food trucks, and live music, and fire pits. But we were eager to get to the installation, so skipped past it.

Based on some online advice, we started in the "Towers area," where we just sat and waited for sunset. It was a quiet, meditative exercise. We also learned that the land was private land, and the owner had seen Bruce Munro's work in Australia, and decided to bring it there. (Note: though I have done things like the Immersive Van Gogh, this is why I love organic experiences like this more than the "Fever" experiences inserted into a community. They reflect the real sense of an area, not just a cool event imposed upon it).

So we waited. And the Towers quietly became more and more magical.

Then, after it had gotten dark, we returned to the main part of the installation. It had looked like this when we arrived:

Aren then, when we turned the corner back, it looked like this:

We ended up spending a couple of hours there, just wandering around and exploring (and could have spent longer, as you can see. We ended up skipping any of the festival kinds of things on our way out, as we were still entranced by the magic.

(Finally, we headed back to Paso Robles and had sushi for dinner, so it really was Beatrix's Best Night).