Sonoma

So we're home. It was quite the deal getting back. Around 20 hours of travel...four different types of public transportation. Not fun at all. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather not step foot on an airplane or train anytime soon. But...our trip was awesome and beautiful and fun and relaxing. Lovely, really.

We spent the first part of our week in Sonoma. Um, we loved it. The small town feel was so quaint. The food was great, people were nice, and the scenery out of this world.

A little back story about this trip...we planned it several months ago. We wanted to go away after Devin spent his 9 weeks in Chicago. We knew our life and his job would be pretty up in the air. 

Devin quit is job right before we left. So taking a trip when he was unemployed felt a little weird. 

But, for some reason God chose to bless us with our ideal scenario. The night before we left on our trip, Devin got a call and was offered the job he had interviewed for the week before and we were really hoping he would get. If he didn't get this job we'd most likely be moving, which we had mixed feelings about. Halfway through our trip he had accepted a job as a web developer! I'm so proud of him considering it was just a year ago he started getting into development!

So anyway, we could go on our trip knowing he had a job when we got back. :)

On to the first half of our week...

We landed at SFO and decided to stop off in the city before heading up to wine country. We knew we didn't want to spend a lot of time on the wharf (too touristy for us) but thought we should at least see the infamous seals on Pier 39, so we did...

View of the city from across the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bay Area is incredible.

When we got to Sonoma and started looking for dinner options we happened upon their first farmer's market of the season. Oh my goodness...they know how to do farmer's markets in California (the SF one was amazing too). Devin had some duck tacos and I went for my dinner and dessert in one...

We stayed at a place through airBnb. It was a room/bathroom that was part of the house, but had it's own entrance and felt like a little apartment. It looks kind of crazy. It has a "living" roof and is totally heated cooled by natural systems. Very green (total hippie house). We really liked staying there. We briefly said hi to the husband, and never even saw the wife and kids.

We went hiking our first morning in Sonoma. Below I'm posing with our little Kia rental car, which we really liked driving. And we only used one tank of gas the whole trip which was amazing considering the driving we did.

Dev in our cute little room. :)

After hiking we went into Napa for lunch at a place called Grace's Table. It was phenomenal. I had this ahi tuna salad and Devin had a tamale that was out of this world. Food is definitely one of my favorite parts about traveling and I always come home dreaming about opening something cool in our city. 

We hit up our first winery of the trip, Scibe. It was definitely a low-profile winery. They say other wineries see them as the "renegades" of the area. Probably the best wine of our trip and best tasting experience. Really cool place.

The next day in Sonoma we took a wine tour on an old SF cable car. The tour included four wineries and lunch. I was a little worried it would be lame, but it was actually super fun and a great way to see the countryside. There were also some fun people that we enjoyed talking to throughout the day.

The roses and newly blossoming grapes were so beautiful.

After the tour, we sat on our bed in our room and ate the best Mexican food of our lives from a little award-winning local joint. Seriously, no mediocre tex-mex here, the picture can't convey how good it was. We talked about it the rest of the week...

Loved this place! Hope we can go back in the not too distant future! I hope to post about the second half of the week soon(ish).