We’ve left Windsor and travelled to Colusa.
Our 4 nights in Windsor were supposed to be a bit of a treat in a slightly better hotel (hah) with a pool for a chill out. Let’s just say that did not happen and left us with a very unpleasant memory. However, Windsor is a lovely town, laid out around a town green, with some great people who reminded us why we were travelling!!! We had intended to go on an organised wine tour of the Sonoma Valley but discovered that there are wine tasting rooms in Windsor, so we just tried those – cheaper too!!! Well, in reality, we only got as far as one – Baldassari and stayed as we loved both the wine and the company there!
We popped to Sonoma (lovely town based around the old Solano Mission and Mission Barracks from the Mexican War) and Healdsburg (gorgeous high-end shopping area and lots of wine tasting rooms). We probably didn’t do the area justice as couldn’t quite get into the right frame of mood but hey ho – it’s taken 15 weeks of travelling to reach our first low point so we probably haven’t done too badly!!!!!
Sonoma County has links with Charles M Schulz, creator of Peanuts, so we kept coming across life size cartoon characters dotted around the town!
After Windsor we travelled inland to get around San Francisco (doing a loop around, going south then coming back up the coast to return the car to San Francisco before spending a few days there), via Clear Lake (apparently the oldest in the US) but should have been called Green Lake – it was very smelly too but seemingly this is a summer thing!! We did see an Osprey fly overhead with a fish in its talons. Then on to Colusa – a tiny town in the Central Valley, sitting in 38 degrees, so hot but where we met some lovely characters – yes, that’s what travelling is about – meeting new people and listening to their amazing stories. One such couple are driving a lovely 1949 Ford Shoebox around – they’re off to Montano soon in a convoy with 7 other hotrods!! Oh, and weirdly, we’re in rice growing country!!!! And as per Asian rice paddies there are white egrets here too.