Wednesday September 11

Today we decided to stay in the Sonoma area and do a little bit of exploring and hiking with Sharon. The morning was a bit overcast so we took our time starting out and ended up at Kunde Winery, one of the oldest privately owned wineries in Sonoma. They have 1400 acres of grapes!

There is an area where you can walk in a part of the vineyard and sample the various varieties of grapes.

After that, we went to Jack London State Park where Jim & Sharon volunteer as guides. We walked a couple of the trails and saw the remnants of the experimental farm that Jack London had set up at the turn of the century. Here are the ladies in the pig pen.

A couple of other interesting pics from Jack London....

An acorn woodpecker....

After leaving there, we hiked the Sonoma overlook trail for some views of the town and surrounding area. The sun had come out and it turned out to be a nice day.

We saw one California Poppy, the official State Flower...

After hiking, we did a trip to the Supermarket to stock up on some supplies for our road trip. When we got back to Jim & Sharons, John and Janet from Orcas Is Washington arrived. We had not seen them for three years and it was great to get caught up on both of our adventures over the past couple of years. For those of you that don't know, Jim. John and I all graduated in engineering from U of W in 1973 and are from Kitchener Ontario.

After some wine, we went out for pizza at a nice spot in downtown Sonoma. Got to bed in a reasonable time, ready to continue with the road trip tomorrow.