Travel Log DAY THREE

On 06/29/07 I started off on a 4 day holiday up to central\northern California. The following is the travel log from the trip, broken up into four chapters. The regular scheduled blog will be back in a couple weeks.

I had a hard time waking up Sunday morning as I happened to be sleeping in the world’s most comfortable bed. Although I was wide awake, I stayed in bed watching a bad movie on HBO and ordering room service. While I normally don’t condone spending $15 on a sub par breakfast, it was heavenly. HBO, fuzzy bathrobe, bacon and eggs, and the world’s most comfortable bed….I truly didn’t want to leave.

I finally tore myself away around 11 AM and headed out to Santa Rosa via Hwy 116 to Hwy 101. Hwy 116 is perfectly hilly and dotted with cows and grape vines. Ever drive in your car, windows down, sunroof open, beautiful landscape out the window, warm breeze blowing in, something jammin’ on your kick ass Nissan Sentra stereo, smoking a cigarette, drinking a venti decaf iced Americano thinking to yourself a camera man in the backseat would be getting some awesome footage of you in that exact moment if only you had a camera man in the backseat? Just me then.



My plan for the day was to check into my hotel room at the Hilton early, then from there go to a few wineries. On the 101, I missed my turn off and had to stop for directions in a small coffee place with a tiki theme called Bad Ass Coffee. I didn’t have their coffee but I will admit they gave bad ass instructions. I was also grateful that I was able to check into my hotel before noon, even though it took me until the next day to figure out that they had given me a handicap room. You would think that the shower with the ramp and stool inside would have tipped me off, but no. As well, I choose to ignore the fact that they might actually have thought me handicapped.

After the luxury of the hotel spa the night before, I was really disappointed in the handicap room I received. It was dark and the sheets were scratchy. I poured over the winery map the front desk gave me and got out of there as soon as possible.

I decided my best bet was to hit the wineries closest to the hotel. While I truly believe that everyone in wine country is driving around drunk, I wasn’t planning on being one of them. If I did drink too much, I wanted to be close enough to take a cab. With that said I started off and managed to get myself lost. I got so lost that at one point I cried to no one in particular, “There are 200 wineries in Sonoma County! There are so many wineries you could spit and hit one! Why can’t I seem to find a single one?” Approximately three minutes later I stumbled upon Ledson Winery and all was good.

I was very impressed with Ledson, if only for the castle like atmosphere. The wine tasting came in three types: the Knights Tasting, the Nobility Tasting and the Royalty Tasting. Knowing it was going to be a long afternoon with lots of reaches for my wallet, I choose the cheap $5 Knights Tasting which included 4 wines. The bartender was very gung-ho about the wines and very interested in signing everyone up for the Ledson Wine Club. He was a nice kid and I had a great conversation with the couple next to me who were in town from Kansas…or Boston…or Florida….somewhere far away anyway. After the Knights Tasting, I realized that knights must drink strong wine and they probably learn to eat before they do.

About a mile down the road from Ledson is the Chateau St. Jean Winery. I was really excited about going to Chateau St. Jean as it was one of the few wineries where I’ve actually had their wine before (via the grocery store). The grounds here are lovely, with lots of places to sit out and have lunch and some wine. I got a bit confused with the sign at the entrance though, and ended up taking their $15 reserve wine tasting, rather than the $5 every day wine tasting. At the tasting, I had a brief conversation with a family from Long Beach. The wife was pregnant and therefore not drinking, but had a very longing look that said she wish she was. The weather was also getting very hot and the tasting room had all but one small fan. Because of this, the red wines weren’t going down very well but the higher alcohol content whites certainly were. I also had to eat or I wouldn’t be driving anywhere anytime soon. I bought a $6 chicken pesto sandwich (which was cold, soggy and awful) and sat out on the lawn.

From there I started driving more towards the hotel rather than away from it. The next place I stopped was horrible and I can’t remember the name nor did I take any pictures. I followed that up with St. Francis Winery which I thought was better than Chateau St. Jean in their wines. I bought two bottles at St. Francis and a bar of olive oil soap. Yeah, olive oil soap. I really wanted to walk around on their grounds for awhile, but it was getting late and I wanted to go to one last winery before I called it a day.

The last place I stopped at was Paradise Ridge which was a mile away from my hotel. This didn’t stop me from getting lost trying to find it. Paradise Ridge was by far my favorite of all the tastings. First of all, it was free. I was the only one there at first, so I got to know my bartender, Muhammad, really well. He had lived in Italy for 6 months and had just gotten back a few weeks ago. I told him how I thought everyone in Sonoma Country drives too slow and he complimented Newport Beach for being so bike friendly. He gave me a 15% discount on the two bottles of wine I bought and he wouldn’t let me tip him. I was leaving just as other people were showing up, which I was glad for. Everyone should go to Paradise Ridge if they’re in Santa Rosa.

Later on after resting awhile in my room, I had some dinner in downtown Santa Rosa at what appears to be one of only three restaurants there. For a college town it was odd to have so few options for eating out. The Mexican place I ate at was good but bland American-style Mexican food with lots of cheese. After dinner I walked around downtown but there wasn’t that much to see. I went back to the hotel but got depressed sitting in the dark handicap hotel room, so went to the hotel bar to read my book. The bar’s patio had big comfy sofas with a fireplace perfect for reading. I ended up getting in a conversation with the bartender, Elizabeth, and her friend, Seth, and stayed there a lot longer than I had anticipated. It was a lot of fun and a great end to the day. When I went to sleep that night, I turned the TV off.

Seth and Elizabeth