G is for go go go. Sometimes you have to step away from your surroundings to know where you are. How can we stretch out this metaphor? Climb a tree to see the forest? Take off your glasses to see? Fire yourself out a torpedo tube to get a look at your submarine? Good God, a vacation is a vacation from yourself and your routines as much as from your place, your hometown. So like the letter G I had to go go go.
Let’s start with a clue. If you live in the great state of California you pretty much can’t go wrong. It’s like the New Zealand of America, with snow-covered mountains, ferny forests, and rolling wine country. The latter is where I feel at home, a place like Hobbiton with grassy swells of hill tucked with private vales and dotted with live oaks that beg to have a bull like Ferdinand underneath in bovine repose. This place is Sonoma and when you take the Wild West, mix in some cows and sheep, bring in Italian immigrants to start up a wine and food culture, then let the whole thing simmer for a spell you’ve got Sonoma, wine country to rival any in the world for beauty and good health. Let’s put it another way: Father Junipero Serra dotted California with missions and when he got up here, this was the very last. For anyone and any time, Sonoma is one of the best places to hang up your hat and dusty spurs and say, “I’ve made it.” So our travelogue in Sonoma starts with a long exhale and a grass angel–just arriving here after 13-1/2 hours in the car is a cause for celebration. Over the next week we’ll see what there is to do in and around Sonoma. Kick off your shoes and find a flowered field, it’s vacation time.
Writer, architect, father, husband.