Sebastopol

 

Sebastopol

March 5, 2022 by Stevie G

Sebastopol

Drove down from Seattle to Sebastopol in Sonoma County, California. Packed up the car with all our stuff (minus a storage room of other stuff) and headed south. This place is surrounded by vineyards and close to the ocean, so we drank wine and went to the ocean.

It was nice to get back on the bikes after a long lay off. Great bike trails here and only the occasional “super busy highway that is terrifying to try and cross” thrown in for good measure. Oh and tons of places to drink wine and beer of course.

Ang had a birthday while we were here so she had the idea to visit a new winery every day. But as it turns out, that is way too much wine. We managed to visit a few. We rode our bikes, sat outside and drank wine while overlooking the vineyards. Not much else to say, it’s pretty great.

Shout out to Rosalyn at Fog Crest winery. Very good wine and a most gracious host.

On the weekend we went out to Bodega Bay. Very high level of beauty in this area. Walked around and then ate some fish tacos and crab sandwiches. It’s swell.

Bodega Bay. Fun fact – hiking through sand dunes is exhausting.

Drank some beer here too. We were staying in the Russian River Valley. My main point of reference for the area was Russian River brewing. I was pleased to be finding Pliny the Elder in basically everywhere beer was sold. The brewpub is in Santa Rosa, so Ang and I took a nice bike ride there down the Joe Rodota trail.

If you’re my age and drink “craft” beer you no doubt have heard of Pliny the Elder. This is one of the most famous IPAs. This has been around since before there were twenty microbreweries in every city in the U.S. and thousands of IPAs. I remember when I first starting getting into IPA the most well-known ones (for me) were basically all from California – Lagunitas, Green Flash, Ballast Point Sculpin, and Michigan’s Bell’s Two Hearted. But Pliny was more mythical. I remember people talking about it a lot with reverence. And one time I was at Brouwer’s in Seattle and they got a keg of it. There was a line of doods around the bar waiting for it to be tapped. So that went pretty quickly. I wasn’t buying into the hype as much because, why would I wait for one beer when there are like 40 others ready on tap.

So I was thinking of this as we went to the brewery, having the chance to drink the beer on draft, from the source, abundant. I drank the beer with a great satisfaction.

The colors, man.

I mean look at ’em.

The wind blasted grasses hangin’ on for dear life to the sand, soft like a little baby harp seal.

Two weeks in Sonoma County felt like too little. It really is wonderful. From a traveling perspective, two weeks was probably enough. Our place was great, but small. This is where noise cancelling headphones come in handy when you have two people working at the same kitchen table (love you Ang!).

For a person from a non-lemon growing state, lemon trees are endlessly fascinating to me. I mean, you got lemons growing in your backyard.

Walking down the beach – awesome. Nice firm sand, warm sun, cool breeze. Then you turn left to a trail and it is loose sand dunes. Really more of a horse trail I guess. Man that’s tiring. Yeah, shoulda gone back on the beach.