Sonoma and Napa to Grapes of Joy

Monday, we travelled north to Sonoma county to check out the vineyards. On the way up, we stopped at the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, a grove of redwoods. The biggest was over 100 metres tall. That's the bottom of it above. It's called the Parson Jones tree.

The forest was very quiet and Sienna did all she could to address that problem. However, when she was quiet, she could hear the birds and squirrels.

She was very quiet and she saw a little brown bird, a wren, with a really large chirp.

This is Sienna standing next to a tree slice. The markers on the trunk show different events in human history. At the edge is the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. In the middle is the signing of the Magna Carta in 1066. This tree is over 1,500 years old.

We stayed that night in Healdsville, having dinner in a bear-themed microbrewery. The next day we quickly visited three vineyards, wending our way south to San Jose via Napa Valley.

The country is beautiful right now with the grape leaves changing to yellows and reds before they fall off for winter. The area has transcended its initial French theme and is now firmly mock-Tuscan. Huge amounts of money make us wonder what the Hunter would look like if we had a US economy. We drank some nice, expensive wine.