Weekend Escapes

Michael Krikorian's "Food Quest" in Berkeley (Weekend Escape, Jan. 21) missed one of the best, if not the best place to buy a grilled sausage in all of California. Top Dog. Located on Durant Avenue near the Pacific FIlm Archive, the Top Dog offers a wide range of dogs to choose from. When I think of a weekend escape to Berkeley, I'm thinking of a couple of Top Dogs and an interesting film at the Pacific Film Archive. CHRISTOPHER SCHAEFER Long Beach We recently visited Ripplewood Resort, Big Sur Library and Glen Oaks Restaurant after reading Judy Dugan's "Low-Cost Coast" (Weekend Escape, Sept.

Many Napa Valley wineries are beginning to welcome visits from families, and they're making a serious effort to keep the kids engaged. Lest we forget, wineries are farms, and in many cases they have farm animals, game birds, fish ponds, picnic grounds and other kid magnets. Not all of wine country is kid-friendly, mind you, but you can find ample attractions to make this a satisfying destination for serious wine lovers … and grape juice lovers too. The tab: We spent about $647 for a family of four, including $315 for one night at the Villagio Inn, $260 on meals and $72 on a castle tour and wine tasting.

Intro: Let wine snobs snicker when they hear you spent a weekend at a vineyard in Temecula. I took a friend for an overnight stay at the South Coast Winery Resort & Spa (34843 Rancho California Road; [951] 587-9463, http://www. wineresort.com ), a 39-acre slice of nirvana where relaxation is inescapable. Twenty-four hours wasn't nearly enough time to enjoy the premises. The bed. I could tell you all about the 76 villas (rooms start at $209) at South Coast and how most come with a fireplace, private patio and a wet bar with a mini-fridge.

Way back in the 20th century when life was simple, my wife, Mary Frances, and I lived in Carpinteria, swooping in and out of Santa Barbara without a second thought. Nowadays, returning as Angelenos with a 9-year-old, we have second and third thoughts, as we consider cost, balance kid stuff and adult stuff, and consult the school calendar. But we managed a great visit a few months ago, thanks to a hotel that gave us creature comforts and walking access to great food, historic atmosphere and the beach.

An especially murky week was winding down as I drove over the horizon and entered Ventura County. As if on command, the sun broke through the darkened sky, welcoming me not only into the county but into a weekend of relaxation and rejuvenation. * With that midday embrace of sunshine, the freeway aggravation of a holiday weekend was quickly forgotten. Exiting the 101 about two hours north of my home in Orange County, I found the winding California 33 to be all charm.

A lake is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Baja California. If you think of water at all, the odds are it's the sea or a long cool drink down by the pool. Or maybe dying out in the desert due to a lack of it. Yet only 40 miles south of the border, tucked away high up in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains, lies Laguna Hanson--Baja California's only substantial freshwater lake. I'd heard about it, but I must admit I had my doubts.

The first view of the Anza-Borrego Desert is dramatic in a way that seems almost impossibly stark to the city-dweller's eye. Sixty-two miles from the freeway, after the twists and hills of California 79 and San Diego County highways 2 and 22, you climb to a mountain pass and then, as the road drops beneath you at an 8% grade, there is the desert, all exposed granite boulders and iron-reddened cliffs, deep-blue sky and surprising green scrub--huge and silent and empty. Well, nearly empty.

One of the biggest achievements in my life was getting my wife to admit that there is an alternative to camping in the Sierra. Not that sleeping under a canopy of royal sequoias isn't a near-religious experience. And I sure wouldn't want to ruffle John Muir's feathers. But after her first trip to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Leslie confided that her Northern California-bred instinct to turn up her nose at the sandy, arid environs of the state's southern half was shortsighted.

It's fairly safe to say that most humans have never seen a live polo match for one of the following reasons: 1) They don't know anyone personally who answers to "Your Royal Highness"; 2) They don't own jodhpurs and riding boots and don't carry a crop to breakfast; 3) They have nicknames like "Butch" instead of "Bitsy" or "Trip"; 4) They know how to hang out but have no idea how to hobnob; 5) They don't have a clue as to where the nearest polo field is.

If you don't need what Tassajara has to offer when first you think of going, by the time you reach its simple wooden gates and "Zen Mountain Center" sign, you certainly will. For this Zen Buddhist monastery sits at the dead-end bottom of a twisty hairpin dirt road, rutted and rocky, that winds for 14 unnerving miles through the Los Padres National Forest and the Ventana Wilderness, first pointing up to nearly 5,000 feet and then heading what feels perilously like straight down.

Wild and lonely, on the Central Coast about 45 minutes southwest of Lompoc, Jalama Beach County Park is one of those places that puts the golden in the Golden State. Getting here over mounded hills and through moss-bearded oak thickets is glorious enough, and then you see the beach stretching for miles from Point Arguello to Point Conception. The 23.5-acre park, donated to Santa Barbara County in 1943 by the Atlantic Richfield Co., has a small restaurant and store, a handful of cabins and camping sites, but nothing more to break the spell of clashing coast and ocean.

They say something in our salty blood draws us to the sea. As such, Ventura will always be one of our easiest, breeziest, saltiest options. You know you've left L.A. proper when the boot shops start popping up along the 101. You know you've arrived in Ventura when the wind begins to whip and the gulls begin to circle. The tab: $289 for two nights right on the beach, $120 for meals and $98 for three tickets to the whale-watching experience of a lifetime. The bed We set up at the Inn on the Beach (1175 S. Seaward Ave.; [805]

Fifty miles north of San Francisco, straddling U.S. Highway 101, sits Santa Rosa, former home of Charles M. Schulz and the gang from "Peanuts. " From the highway, as you boom past at 70 mph, Santa Rosa appears to be just another somewhere on the way to somewhere else. But a short detour east into downtown or west into the wine country quickly proves otherwise. The tab: We spent $163 for a night at the Hotel La Rose, dinner for two at Willi's Wine Bar was $84, including wine, and a lavish picnic from Whole Foods Market came to $43. Gas and incidentals added $100 to the tab. Wine at Bella and Iron Horse vineyards, of course, was extra.

One look at omnipresent Camelback Mountain and you might think the northeast Phoenix neighborhood known as Arcadia is on the outskirts of town where tumbleweeds blow effortlessly. But you'd be wrong - very, very wrong. Arcadia is where you'll find twentysomethings hanging out at recently opened gastropubs, young families walking to nearby parks, mini-malls with pizzerias and dive bars featuring Skee ball and foosball. This might sound like Los Angeles, but one glimpse of a helmet-less biker cruising down Campbell Avenue and you'll know you aren't in California.

The gilt-trimmed high-rises of Waikiki offer a seductive escape from L.A. But those who rent a car - a convertible, please - - can find a simpler side of Oahu on the North Shore, an hour or so away, where locals and tourists carry surfboards instead of Louis Vuitton purses (real or fake) and debates about where to eat focus on which food trucks serve the best garlic shrimp. Residents call it "the country," and they want to keep it that way. Haleiwa is the only real town on the North Shore, and it's mainly a line of one-story beach shops, cafes, bars and shave-ice outlets along the highway.

Pleasanton, Calif., is - no surprise here - a pleasant small city east of San Francisco Bay that was off the beaten track for much of the 20th century and avoided the redevelopment that destroyed the cores of many older cities. Its downtown - filled with tree-lined streets, vintage architecture, restaurants and boutiques - evokes a small town in New England. My good friend Laura, who used to live there, was my guide on our trip. The tab: We spent about $450, including $220 for two nights at the Sheraton and $230 for food and drinks.

Eureka! You have responded to pleas for affordable "Weekend Escapes." I applaud and thank you for making Anza-Borrego Desert State Park ("High Style, Low Desert," March 5) a weekend escape that I would definitely endorse. People who need a weekend escape don't need to spend a fortune to satisfy their need for relief from the drudgery of the office. Some of the trips have been so exorbitant they should have been billed as "weeklong escapes." Please continue to keep "Weekend Escapes" within a reasonable low budget--which doesn't always mean camping either.

I would like to take this opportunity to forward my compliments regarding the Travel Section. Every Sunday brings a new and exciting destination. However, there is one aspect of your endeavors that consistently frustrates myself and my friends: the Weekend Escapes. They are more than competently written, but I am dismayed by the choices of destination, primarily based on budget. I am in my late 20s, as are most of the people I know. Because of financial constraints, the few extra dollars that I do put aside for a weekend adventure are limited.

Westlake Village, 38 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, seems farther. It straddles the Ventura County line, its golf courses, man-made lakes and gated estates sprinkled among gentle hills. Some weekend visitors golf. Some loll in the spa at the Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village or chase immortality at the California Health & Longevity Institute. (David Murdock, the soon-to-be-90 founder of Dole Foods, owns the hotel and institute.) It's a good place to lie low. My wife, daughter and I spent $142 on lodging (one night, including tax)

Cowboys are my weakness. That's not just the title of my favorite Pam Houston book, but the truth about my undying fascination with those icons of the Wild West. These days, when most of the horses are under the hood instead of a barn roof, it's a challenge to find an authentic outpost where rootin,' tootin' cowboys still have a foothold. That's why there's Prescott. Though the mile-high city about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix is becoming a desirable retirement haven, it's more notable for its long-running rodeo, historic downtown and saloons that are the next-best thing to time travel.