The All Weather Coats: Muir Woods, Sausalito and Sonoma

Saturday was our busy full day for our trip and so that we could see everything that we wanted to and not waste a lot of time getting lost, we opted to book a day trip.

The van picked us up at our hotel in the morning and took us first across the Golden Gate bridge (a little locked in by fog at that time of day) and up to Muir Woods. We always say that we're not "tour people" but I do have to say that they have their advantages - like not having to drive - but they're also good for learning stuff about the area. Like did you know that despite their enormous size, redwoods' pine cones are only about an inch long? And did you know that redwoods propogate not only by seed, but they also have a kind of tuber system so that if a "mother" tree dies, a ring of new trees will grow up around the mom. They call these family circles.

Muir Woods National Monument is a national park dedicated to the preservation of old-growth redwood forests. The trees are so amazingly large and tall and beautiful. Yes, these are the trees that inspired Woody Guthrie to write the the line in "This Land Is Your Land" (believe me, the song was stuck in my head the whole day!)

Unfortunately we had only a little over an hour to explore the woods, but it was long enough to take a hike, see the sights and even buy our very own Giant Sequoia seedling (it's supposed to grow about a foot a year, unfortunately it's only about 2 inches tall on my back deck right now!)

At the end of our trail was the Cathedral Grove, the sight of the first United Nations conference in 1945. Yes, the woods were so peaceful that it seemed fitting to begin a new era of peace after World War II there.

Going into Cathedral Grove

The redwoods are so large and dense (the bark can be a foot deep) that most forest fires don't burn them down, just scar them as you can see.

Muir Woods was a magical stop on our mystery tour, but soon enough we were back on the bus and off to Sausalito. Sausalito is the quaint waterfront town on the other side of the Golden Gate bridge to San Francisco. It's a cute little town full of art galleries, restaurants and (apparently) famous people. Our tour guide must have been a music and film fan because he kept telling us about all the famous musicians and actors that live around there. I don't think I would have recognized anyone if I ran into them because most of the people were washed up rockers from the 80s and 90s.

So instead of star-gazing, we opted to grab some fish and chips and sit by the bay to enjoy a picnic lunch (accompanied by the seagulls, of course).

I was reminded of that scene in Finding Nemo...mine, mine, mine, mine

That's the Bay Bridge far behind us.

After lunch, we boarded the bus again to head out to the wine country - Sonoma Valley! We were going to visit two different wineries during the afternoon and do some wine tasting.

Our first stop was Viansa Winery - a gorgeous hilltop retreat that was just so beautiful and picturesque. We headed into the great room and shimmied up to one of the bars to be educated and instructed about tasting wine and the various tastes. It was great! We really liked the reds and, surprisely, one of the rose wines and ended up purchasing three bottles. When we had our fill, we sauntered outside to view the beautiful scenery and bask in the glorious surroundings. You could have left me there and picked me up same time next week!

But, alas, the tour moved on and we headed down the road to a smaller winery called Meadowcroft. This tasting session was a bit different and we quickly decided that our favorite winery was the first one. This was lots of fun too, but it lacked the romantic Italian feel of the first and the better tasting wines of the first!