Northern California Trip Part 2

Sunday afternoon my mom and I headed up to Santa Rosa to start our 4.5 day Sonoma/Mendocino County/Napa road trip. First stop was the Petaluma outlets for some back to school shopping (even Master's students need some love), then dinner at my cousin's in Santa Rosa. It was a fun reunion since my mom hasn't seen my cousins in over 15 years due to my parents divorce (and the cousins belonging to my dad's side of the family). It was nice that people can still get along and reminisce after so many years.

Monday my cousin Tala took my mom and I wine tasting in the Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys. First stop was Ferrari Carano for their delicious Fume Blanc and view of gorgeous gardens.

Ferrari-Carano Gardens

Next stops were Bella Winery, where you get to taste in their wine caves. Their 2009 Zinfandel was fabulous and we were able to taste and purchase it before it hit the sales and tasting floor. Score! Next stop was Qvuvira Winery who are dedicated to bio-dynamic farming and wines. We had lunch in downtown Healdsburg with the family (minus cousin Alex, he had to work) and then went to a few more wineries...After lunch I was a bit foggy so I am sorry I can't tell you where else we went, but that's wine tasting for you.

Family reunion

That evening my mom and I drove out to the coast to begin our trip North up beautiful Hwy 1. We drove down to Tomales Bay and up to Bodega Bay for dinner, then back to our rad hotel in Valley Forge. A note on the hotel; it was nice and would have been really cool had the bar been open so that you could mingle with other guests like you do at the hostels in Europe. But we think if we had been there another night the place would have been really sweet.

Bodega Bay Golf Course Views

Tuesday we rose early and headed up Hwy 1. We stopped at Timber creek lodge and had gorgeous views of the ocean during breakfast.Next we stopped at Schooner Gulch, or Bowling Ball beach, unfortunately you can only see the bowling ball rocks at extremely low tide and it was high tide when we were there. Then it was on to Point Arena harbor and the lighthouse. We had gorgeous views all the way up to Van Damme State park and the pygmy forest. Which was super neat because you are walking through a normal redwood forest and then you stumble upon these tiny toothpick  and sick looking trees that are over 100 years old. The soil they are in is so old there are no nutrients so the trees don't grow well. After visiting the little trees it was back up Hwy 1 and over to Point Cabrillo lighthouse then over to lunch in Mendocino. We ended our day touring Glass Beach in Fort Bragg. We were surprised that there were still glass pebbles on the beach, I guess back in the 70's you could find some real treasures. It's called Glass Beach because it used to be a landfill and the ocean has slowly eroded much of the glass that had been there and made it into beautiful shapes and pebbles. Too bad it's hey-day was in the 70's, there were still tons of glass pebbles but all the large pieces and really pretty blue and green glass was mostly gone, only brown and clear pebbles left. For dinner we stopped at North Coast Brewing Company, I highly recommend their Schrimshaw Pilsner, Blue Star Hef and Red Seal Ale.

 Sculpture at Bowling Ball Beach

Pygmy Forest, can you believe these trees are over 100 years old?

Glass Beach

Point Arena

Wednesday it was off through the redwoods towards Ukiah where we relaxed at Vichy Springs Resort. They have 100 year old baths filled with sparkling mineral water (I guess there are only 3 places in the world to find this water). It was a nice surprise find on our trip and a very relaxing afternoon.  Then it was off to the City of 10,000 Buddhas, which is a Buddhist College in the Redwoods, kind of ironic. Our final stop was Ukiah Brewing Company and I have to say their beer was DELICIOUS! I liked all six that we tried, fantastic. Oh and the food was phenomenal too. All organic, the food and beer. Yummy

Vichy Springs Baths

10,000 Buddhas

Ukiah brewing company taster beers

Thursday was my mom and my final day of our tour. We stopped at the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa before driving home through the beautiful Napa Valley. We even stumbled on this fantastic Argentine restaurant  so we stopped and had Choripan sandwiches, Torrontes wine, and Alfajores for lunch. Made me miss Argentina a bit, sniff.

Snoopy

Stay tuned for the last bit of the trip....Houseboats!