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Roadtrip!!
Nov. 18th, 2006 05:29 pm...and me being a dumbass, I didn't take any pictures this time. Actually, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
emmalyon did, so perhaps she'll post some at a later date.
Emm and I decided that we haven't gone up to the North Bay area yet (she's been to the East Bay area, I've gone to the southern end of East Bay, and we've both gone to the southern coastline), so we decided a roadtrip was needed.
We started midmorning by heading over the Bay Bridge and up Route 80 up to Napa, which was easy enough to get to. It's kind of a smallish town center...that is, it's very narrow. We stopped at a few stores, had lunch at Gillwood's Cafe (good stuff!) and walked around a bit. We found a rather nice yarn store for Emm to go crazy in called Yarns on First, as well as a nice indie bookstore. I think we were there post-tourist-season, as there wasn't nearly as many people as I'd expected. Still, nice town with a lot of funky stores and architecture.
We then hopped on the local highway and drove over to Sonoma, which was REALLY nice. That city is sorta like a west-coast version of Keene, complete with common in the middle of the town, only much bigger. Very New-Englandy there. The town common is lined with all sorts of stores, so we just spent a few hours popping in and checking things out, including a REALLY COOL retro place called Tiddle E. Winks, stuffed with all sorts of candies (including Necco Wafers, SkyBars, and penny candy!!). I couldn't resist and picked up a bagful of stuff, most of which I'll be sending off to my family, as they will most likely get a kick out of seeing some of these things! We finished off the trip by going to the Sonoma Cheese Factory where we picked up some tasty white cheddar jack cheese as well as some Cheese Factory merlot (hey, we were in wine country, we had to pick some up!!) that we'll have for dinner tonight.
We didn't stop there, but on the way into Sonoma is TrainTown, which looks to be a reeeally retro-funky amusement park with train rides, a petting zoo, and all sorts of fun things. I'm sure this will end up being a place to bring the kid(s) if/when we decide to have them...Pete andhagbardc and quite possibly head58 and son would probably love to go there and hang.
We made our way back via a few rural highways and finally to US-101, which took us over the Golden Gate Bridge--after almost a year of living here, we've finally gone over it. Very nice views from the bridge, especially that lookout...I would have pulled over to stop there, but it looked completely packed so I wasn't about to try it. Besides, we both wanted to get home as we were both tired! And thanks to SF not wanting freeways cutting through the city, all we needed to do was stay on 101 until Van Ness Street, take a few corners, and we were home. :p
So yeah, it was quite a bit of fun, and wine country is indeed very beautiful, even if we did end up driving (a)off-season so most of the harvest was gone already, and (b)just through the southern tip of it and missing most of Sonoma Valley/Napa Valley vineyards completely...it was quite a nice drive and we're definitely going to do it again at some point. And it didn't take that long, either!
Thus once again proving that pretty much everything is "one hour outside SF." ;)
emmalyon did, so perhaps she'll post some at a later date.Emm and I decided that we haven't gone up to the North Bay area yet (she's been to the East Bay area, I've gone to the southern end of East Bay, and we've both gone to the southern coastline), so we decided a roadtrip was needed.
We started midmorning by heading over the Bay Bridge and up Route 80 up to Napa, which was easy enough to get to. It's kind of a smallish town center...that is, it's very narrow. We stopped at a few stores, had lunch at Gillwood's Cafe (good stuff!) and walked around a bit. We found a rather nice yarn store for Emm to go crazy in called Yarns on First, as well as a nice indie bookstore. I think we were there post-tourist-season, as there wasn't nearly as many people as I'd expected. Still, nice town with a lot of funky stores and architecture.
We then hopped on the local highway and drove over to Sonoma, which was REALLY nice. That city is sorta like a west-coast version of Keene, complete with common in the middle of the town, only much bigger. Very New-Englandy there. The town common is lined with all sorts of stores, so we just spent a few hours popping in and checking things out, including a REALLY COOL retro place called Tiddle E. Winks, stuffed with all sorts of candies (including Necco Wafers, SkyBars, and penny candy!!). I couldn't resist and picked up a bagful of stuff, most of which I'll be sending off to my family, as they will most likely get a kick out of seeing some of these things! We finished off the trip by going to the Sonoma Cheese Factory where we picked up some tasty white cheddar jack cheese as well as some Cheese Factory merlot (hey, we were in wine country, we had to pick some up!!) that we'll have for dinner tonight.
We didn't stop there, but on the way into Sonoma is TrainTown, which looks to be a reeeally retro-funky amusement park with train rides, a petting zoo, and all sorts of fun things. I'm sure this will end up being a place to bring the kid(s) if/when we decide to have them...Pete and
hagbardc and quite possibly head58 and son would probably love to go there and hang.We made our way back via a few rural highways and finally to US-101, which took us over the Golden Gate Bridge--after almost a year of living here, we've finally gone over it. Very nice views from the bridge, especially that lookout...I would have pulled over to stop there, but it looked completely packed so I wasn't about to try it. Besides, we both wanted to get home as we were both tired! And thanks to SF not wanting freeways cutting through the city, all we needed to do was stay on 101 until Van Ness Street, take a few corners, and we were home. :p
So yeah, it was quite a bit of fun, and wine country is indeed very beautiful, even if we did end up driving (a)off-season so most of the harvest was gone already, and (b)just through the southern tip of it and missing most of Sonoma Valley/Napa Valley vineyards completely...it was quite a nice drive and we're definitely going to do it again at some point. And it didn't take that long, either!
Thus once again proving that pretty much everything is "one hour outside SF." ;)
