We headed north from Novato to just south of Santa Rosa and headed west to Rt. 1 and the Pacific Ocean. We hit the ocean at Bodega Bay, the area made famous by Alfred Hickcock and his movie, "The Birds." ( The AMC channel has a seven day Hickcock special going right now, and when we got home "Vertigo" was on.) We drove north from there up to Stewart's Point. It's quite a ride; up hill and down dale, almost entirely on the ocean. We stopped for a picnic lunch, but had to eat in the car because it was too windy. We turned east at that point to head over to Healdsburg, a prominent wine country town.
To go east from the coast out here, you must go through the Coastal Range, a range of rolling hills and valleys about 20 some miles wide as the crow flys, but 50 following the road. The first section was through a near rain forest environement that broke into a redwood forest. A few old growth trees exist in this area, but not many. These zones are narrow and soon transcend into a drier zone of grass and scrub areas, and finally into the well known wine valleys of the area. As we came down into the Healdsburg area, vinyards were everywhere. It took about an hour and a half to cross the mountains and it was a beautiful ride.
We stopped at a couple of tasting stores to get some wine. The places are very professionally run. We ended up coming back south on Rt. 101 to our site. It was a very nice day.
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Mike and I met Greg and Barbara at the --- Country Store in Heildsburg when we spent the three days in the wine country this summer. I bought some goregous linen towels with olives embroidered on them at a little store. We also bought a lazy susan made from the top of a wine barrel. We had it mailed to us and saved the tax.
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