New Years Eve: one of the most celebratory nights of the year. Instead of going the traditional nightclub route this year, we instead opted for a road trip to a horse ranch to California wine country. To drink. And ride horses. While drinking.
We got off to a late start and didn’t get to leave LA until around 3:00 – which inconveniently for us, was when everyone else and their mother decided to book it out of town as well. Needless to say there were traffic selfies:
And then we became hungry and decided to stop at this hidden gem in Chino Hills, called “Lobster Grill”. I know what you’re thinking – a fast food lobster joint? In the middle of the desert? Gotta be delicious, right? Well, it was no lobster roll from the East End, but it was actually pretty delicious. And by the clientele shown in the above photo you can imagine how lively the joint was.
We finally arrived at Hunterbrook Farm, an expansive ranch in Temecula that houses stallions of all sizes and shapes, founded by master equestrian, Nic Haness.
In the true Hamptons to Hollywood revelry you’ve all come to expect, we imbibed. ; ) We watched the ball drop in NYC, then sprinted out into the stables (which were covered in SNOW by the way – like, what? This is Southern California??) to see the animals. And then this happened:
Who knew I was such a jockey!? I commanded the respect of this kindly horse and we did laps around the ranch, bonding and having fun, as new friends do. It was basically the Hamptons Classic all over again.
Nic also has a golf cart, which comes in handy when jaunting around Hunterbrook, which we also decided to hop on. Steven drove, Nic rode shotty, and Jon and I rode on the back seat. When zooming around the ranch bored us, we apparently thought it was a great idea to take the golf cart across the road into a field that could have passed for a BMX course. I mean, the size of the dirt mounds we went over….
One mound, which we’ll call a hill because it seemed THAT ginormous at the time, had it in for us. Steven floored the cart, propelled into the hill, and rolled backward, sending Jon & I flying off the back of the cart, laughing.
Thankfully we landed gracefully and it wasn’t a repeat of THIS ADVENTURE.
We headed back inside, high on life, and celebrated as the clock struck 12 on the West Coast. It was the perfect evening with friends, new and old, BEADS (remember that one, guys?), champagne, and fun.
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