west coast show-and-tell: cali

I'm back from a lovely 10 day trip to the west coast. It's taking me quite a while to sort through my photos, and I'm getting antsy to share, so I've decide to break this up into a few posts. So, first are some highlights from our trip to Sonoma/Napa and San Francisco:


We LOVE the cottage where we stay every year...feels like a home away from home. This year, the peach tree was full of fruit and the owners said we could pick anything from the garden that we wanted.


This trellice full of grapes was just outside the door.


And check out this giant garden dahlia!


This is a sunrise view from our cottage deck.


And this is one of the resident horses at the cottage, who came over to say hello.


We took a great tour at the Benziger Family Winery, where they practice biodynamic farming.


Here, they are extracting all the "good stuff" from grape skins that have already been removed.


This is their wine cave, which stays at just the right temperature and eliminates the need for refrigeration.


And this is the view from Rombauer Vineyards, one of my very favorite wineries.


This was a neat little spot where we stopped to have lunch at an Indian restaurant. I have a thing for red doors, and this was a good one.


I also have a thing for colored glass panes.


I also loved these colorful prayer flags.


On our way to San Francisco, we took a trip to Muir Woods. Our trusty GPS decided to play a trick on us and tried to take us the back way into the park. It didn't work in the end, and we had to turn around and find the "real entrance" but I didn't mind getting lost in the redwoods. I felt like we had happened upon a whole secret village of houses co-existing with the redwoods–it was really amazing to see people living in such a magical forest.


At last, we did find Muir Woods, and here are just a few of our very tall tree-friends.


I love all of the shadows and highlights that the dappled sun creates in forests like this.


I noticed that each of these numbered signs on the path were carved with a different pattern.


Driving over (and under) the Golden Gate Bridge in a convertible is the best!


Mmmmm...here's what was left of our "Happy Anniversary" dessert at our favorite San Francisco restaurant, the Slanted Door.

And then we were off to Portland the next day. So, check back in a few days for Oregon highlights.