A Haunting Place...

As if the little town of Port Costa wasn't mysterious enough, the town's sole hotel adds an even greater enigmatic air to the whole picture.  Tucked above the café, up a spindly railed staircase, and down halls with red carpeted walls are a number of guest rooms.  These are not your standard rooms, as per your typical hotels.  There are no little soap bottles on the sink, so far as I can see, no uniform sheets and window drapings, and no phone down to the concierge.  Instead some rooms have bare light bulbs, or little porcelain figurines of cats that sit on the nightstands.  

I know little of the history of The Burlington Hotel.  Like the rest of the town, the hotel seems bent on creating ambiguities, struggling back and forth between an air of hospitality and a desire to be left alone.    It's like a place that seems to have found a crease in chronology and now functions outside of time.

Secret Spots...

Welcome to my new favorite place to spend weekend mornings.

I promised not to divulge where this place is...

Some things, you see, are better left a secret.

(Finders keepers, but you are welcome to search for it.  It's worth it.)

Theatre Of Dreams...

Directly across the straight from Benicia lies a teeny tiny one-street town.  Port Costa is made up of a post office, a bar, a café, a letterpress studio, and an ephemera workshop- pretty much everything you need, right?

Coming here is always a special treat, like being in a private club, or stumbling across a secret fort.

Once in a while, however, a steady steam of traffic will make its way here for something special.  This weekend, that special occasion was the opening of Wendy Addison's Theatre of Dreams.

The little storefront, which opens but three times a year (once for Easter, once for Halloween, and once for Christmas), is stuffed to the brim with all sorts of whimsical decorations and artifacts, mirroring the quaint and magical quality of the town itself.  Inside, those blue doors is a cornucopia of fairies, toadstools and diving swallows.  My mom, a vertiable Wendy Addison enthusiast, was in German glitter glass heaven, and left with a big back full of sparkling stars, bees, and treasure boxes.  

After we finished gawking, Wendy suggested we go across the street, to this little place.