Second City: Sonoma, CA!

Hello there, Adventurers!

We numbered all the cities that we have (after taking out a few that happened to not be actual cities, and removing SF and Sac because they're just waaaay too big for us to do at the moment) and we have 98 cities yet to visit. We used a random number generator and came up with Sonoma as our next city! We were more than a little happy that it was actually not far to drive to this time.

   

There are a lot of beautiful things to see in Sonoma, including wineries, old town Sonoma, which dates back to the late 1800s, and Mission San Francisco Solano (the last and Northernmost Mission). A little out of the city area is the Jack London Park (we didn't get a chance to go) and the Quarryhill Botanical Gardens (which we did get to visit).

Did you know that when you search for a city on Google maps now, it outlines the city for you? Pretty cool. So prepare to see one of these for the rest of the cities that we do.

 

A cute little shop we passed on our way to the city. We'll have to visit in the future. It looked like a really nice coffee shop. And you gotta love the signage outside, with the mopeds.







Sonoma County (including Napa, which is nearby) is known for it's wine and olive oil. But Jason and I aren't much for drinking, so we didn't visit any of the wineries, and the olives are harvested and processed closer to late Fall/early Winter, so we'll have to go back for that. We will probably go to the wineries when Napa comes up.

We decided to visit Quarryhill first and head back to Old Town Sonoma afterward.

The driveway for Quarryhill is a little hard to spot at first. Good thing we met a family a little way down the long dirt path and were able to stop and ask them if we were in the right place. As you can see, they had a lovely cardboard box sign at the end of the driveway to point us in the direction of the parking.

 

 

 Quarryhill is a botanical garden/preserve that features plants and flowers from all over Asia, so the different areas were decorated with Asian themed items, such as this lion statue, that we enjoyed posing with.

I recently got my phone stolen and got it back (long story) so the lion was kind enough to keep it in his jaws for me while we took the photo :)

 

 

I'm a bit of a flower nut when it comes to photography because I love using the close focus, so enjoy the photos.

 There were hand written "wishes" hanging in the inside.

 From this garden, you could see the prayer flags hanging up on the hill.

 

 An important note about the Quarryhill map that they provide for you. The trails are crazy out of proportion. The whole set of trails is only 2-3 miles total, but on the map, it looks like it's 4 miles just from the front to the top of the prayer flag hill. Trust me, it's so much smaller than it looks. Don't let it throw you off.

 

 

 

We brought a little picnic & ate lunch.

 Jason is growing a Brian Wilson beard, so he did the hat salute in honor of him :-D and then we had some lettuce left over from our sandwiches, so he bravely finished it all in one nose-holding bite.

There was a spider web off to the side of the path, and a water fountain nearby, so there was a cautious moment of refilling the water.

I love daisies. And the light was perfect against the trees. It was beautiful.

The prayer flags were beautiful, and worth the short hill we lugged ourselves up. The view across the valley was amazing. It's crazy how far you can see when you're up there.

It was very quiet and peaceful up on the hill. The breeze blowing the flags was the only sound. I highly recommend making your way up there if you ever visit the garden. You won't regret it. The whole garden was gorgeous and a fabulous place to get lost (trust me, you will get lost). We were checking the map pretty much every two minutes to make sure we knew where we were going, but if you just walk, you will eventually find your way out.

The garden closes at 4, so we started making our way out. There was still a lot of Sonoma to see.

Next stop was General Vallejo's home. We didn't go inside because we wanted to have time to see the mission and the town, but it looked interesting.

We drove past the General's Daughter, which we thought was worth a picture because of how pretty it was from the outside. Then we got to City Hall.

They were having some kind of safety festival. There were booths about fire safety and a dalmatian jump house. A band was playing music in front of City Hall and some disgruntled ducks quacked away when I tried to take their picture. 

 

 We spotted this beautiful church.  

 Sonoma has many tiny pieces of art all around the city. 

We stopped by the visitor center, located in the old Carnegie Library. They are a great source of information if you are looking to find a place to eat or want to visit the wineries. They will know which one to visit. 

Although I probably learned it in 4th grade, when we were forced to study California History, I did not remember a lot of how California came to be. Sonoma played a large roll in California's development as a state. It was the home of the California revolution against the people of Mexico. Right there in Sonoma, across from the Mission and barracks, is where the first Bear Flag was raised.

The time capsule honoring the sesquicentennial celebration of the raising of the bear flag. We will actually be alive to see it opened some day.

 

Our final stop was to visit the mission. It is the northernmost mission in the chain, and one of the smallest ones we've ever been to. They were preparing for a wedding there but we were able to get in to see it before they closed it completely.

  

 

 

  How the mission first looked.

 It was beautiful inside of the chapel. I can see why they were getting married there.

 After the mission, we were getting tired, so we stopped for a snack at Top That Yogurt. They had really interesting toppings and their apple pie yogurt was so good! The perfect refreshment following a long day of fun.

We spotted Traintown on our way out, but it was closing. We'll visit that on our next trip to Sonoma.

 

Back on the road, and these goats playing poker caught our eye.  

We made a U-turn just to come back and take a picture of it. So far, both Brentwood and Sonoma have had murals. If the rest of the cities have them, we'll be sure to feature them in this blog. Sonoma's mural is so perfect. We cracked up on our way home.

Sonoma was a wonderful place to visit. People were very friendly, waving and saying hello to us wherever we went. We were asked if we were having a good time (probably because of my big huge touristy camera). We really enjoyed our time there, and I know we'll go back soon, and most likely, we'll revisit it for the blog and capture the parts that we missed this time.

Until the next adventure! Keep exploring!

<3 Katrina and Jason