Wine country heaven! - Santa Rosa, CA
Santa Rosa, CA
Hey guys,
So I was off to Wine Country. I was so excited to get to explore up here. I have always wanted to see this area and now I finally was!
I was hiring a car, so once I arrived in San Francisco I had to take the monorail to the terminal where car hire was which at 3pm was a zoo! An hour later I was finally on the road in my Nissan Versa, or how they pronounce it in America 'NeeSan'. I love this car! I drove it in January when I was over there and I really liked it, so it felt good to be back in a car I knew. I was apprehensive driving in San Francisco because of all the hills, but luckily the route from the airport was a flat run, but still through the city so it was nice to drive past places like City Hall and so forth. The biggest thing I was excited about however, was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge. I have walked over it but I never thought I would get the chance to drive over it. The bridge has a toll on it, except when leaving San Francisco whereby the toll is free to cross the bridge.
So there I was, in Full House style driving across the bridge with the city in the distance. It was really cool! I caught some traffic though as it was the end of the work day and it added an extra hour to my trip to wine country in Santa Rosa. I was staying in a budget hotel/motel and it was so nice! Considering everything is at least $300 per night I paid that much for the entire stay so it was amazing!!! I got dinner and explored wal mart which is always fun, and as I was driving I saw the reddest sunset I have ever seen. It was amazing!! The sun was so big too. I wish I had of taken a picture of it, but the memory of it is still heaven. I then relaxed back at the room which was so nice after a long 2 hour drive.
I was up early enough the next day exploring so it was a big day. My first stop was Healdsburg, which was such a cute small town with a town square and everything. It was surrounded by hills so it was isolated but so neat. The pond in the park of the square was also used as a location in the horror film, Scream. So seeing things like this is so cool and since I love this film, it made me love it even more now.
I then headed to Sonoma which is about 30 minutes from Santa Rosa. I always wanted to visit here, so I was really excited to explore the town and have a nice lunch. Ever since I saw Sonoma on The Bachelor when Ben was on it, as it was his home town I thought it looked so nice and it was! Sonoma is bigger than Healdsburg but has the same town square in it so they look similar. I walked around and looked at all the shops and also saw a heap of small wineries in town, including Ben's so it was the perfect first town to visit in wine country.
After that, I drove to the Napa Valley area and took in the picturesque scenery and forests. I stopped on the side of the road at one point where I saw all of the crops laid out and after taking some pictures I realised that there were huge purple grapes hanging from the trees and the fact it was just on the roadside was even better. These pictures were some of the best pictures I have ever taken.
The next day, I drove to Bodega and Bodega Bay which was one of the places I have always wanted to see since I saw Alfred Hitchcock’s "The Birds". This was the setting and filming location for this film so it was so awesome to see this in the flesh. I was able to see the schoolhouse building where the kids all run from when the birds attack them (so funny!) and the dock Tippi Hedren arrives at and is attacked by the bird, as well as the location where the phone booth explodes by the gas station, though a different building is there now, this was where it all happened so it was so cool! Behind John Hughes, Hitchcock is my favourite director so to even stand where he has is incredible. I went to the beach as well which was cool. It was down below a cliff and had rocks along the shore, it was really nice and there were surfers out and people swimming which in the pictures you wouldn’t expect as it looks cloudy, but in reality it is all the fog mist that hangs around for half the day. That’s the thing about San Francisco and surrounding areas, the fog is heavy in the morning and then lifts by lunch and the afternoon.
After Bodega Bay I drove to the Sonoma County Fair which was in Santa Rosa. So I spent a few hours here, looking at all the rides, the animals, horse races, eating corn dogs and so forth. I finished the night watching a brilliant sunset again and watching the monster trucks which were so loud and so destructive. A few of them were damaged on some of the stunts.
The next morning I left Santa Rosa and headed back to San Francisco. I made one stop though first to the Scream bloodbath house which you can only see from the road as it is a private driveway. But just to see it is pretty cool, even though it has been renovated and looks a little different today. I then crossed back over the Golden Gate Bridge which had fog all around it so it was very mystical. I then drove up some gigantic hills, some that were so big I was scared I would roll back down! But I made it up in one piece so that was good. I didn’t want to drive up hills but it was the only way I could get up to the top of Lombard Street which is the Crookedest street in the world. It was a dream of my also to drive down this and not just walk down it so to do that even at 1 mile per hour was awesome!
My last stop was the Sister Act church. I couldn’t go inside as there was no parking, but just to see it from the outside was so cool. It was a dream movie location for me to see. I returned the car in one piece and then caught my flight out to Las Vegas.
Vegas was my final stop, so it was all coming to an end. But there were fun things ahead in Vegas so it will be a great final blog to read!
I loved my time in wine country and can’t wait to be back there again!
Toni xo