Sonoma trip, day 2

The first thing to do this morning was to get coffee and get the football picks in. So I logged on to espn.com for the line and weather.com to check the temperature back home. It was 9 in Milwaukee and 46 in Santa Rosa. I'll take the 46. We got off the computer and headed in to downtown Santa Rosa for breakfast. We walked Main Street until we found a cute little place called Arrigoni's Deli. The staff was so friendly and the breakfast was good. We lingered over coffed then took a walk past Tex Wasabi's and a bunch of shops that had life sized Snoopys. They were all over town - it reminded me of the beasties that were placed all over downtown Milwaukee a few years back.

After the walk we headed to Bodega Bay. It was a gorgeous ride along the Russian River. The landscape was filled with charming little homes nestled between large vineyards and wineries. The trees were still full of green leaves, no sign of Wisconsin winter conditions here. Even though the local people thought it was unseasonably cold, it was very pleasant to us. As we rode the highway, I saw lemon trees loaded with ripe lemons. I've seen many orange trees when I stayed with my brother in Phoenix and the tropical fruit trees in Cancun and Maui but this is the first time I saw a lemon tree up close and in person. It was beautiful. We stopped at the Bodega travel booth for more information then drove back up the coast to the location where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds. We stopped and took some photos before we got back into the car.

Heading out of Bodega, we stopped where the Russian River meets the Pacific. The scenery was gorgeous no matter which direction we were heading. Jeff mentioned how wonderful the ride would be on a motorcycle. Between the hills and the winding roads, it would be pretty incredible but considering the cool temperature, I was happy enough to be in a car today.
We kept driving until we got to Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve.

We parked and took a nice walk through the redwoods. The size of these trees was amazing. It was a nice day to take a walk and we were really glad we took the time to see it.

After the scenic drive, we stopped at a few wineries along the way. We started at La Crema where we found some really good Pinot Noir. Then we headed to Kendall-Jackson and tried the exclusive wines they had. We bought more wine there. We learned the best way to transport wine back home so we bought an empty case to fill along the trip. We will check the box as luggage and mark it as fragile. The 15 dollar bag fee from the airline for all the wine is much more economical than shipping at each winery. So the nice people at Kendall-Jackson put our La Crema in the case and loaded it into our car for us.

After a long day on the road we went back to the hotel to relax a little then we walked over to the bar across the parking lot to watch the football game. We had forgotten that the time change would have an effect so getting to the bar at 8 meant the game was in the last quarter! Oh well, we still ordered a drink and appetizer and sat back until the game was over. It was a nice way to finish the day.