Saturday, April 21, 2007

Russian River


Last weekend Paul and I went on a nice mini-vacation in northern California, a place called Russian River. We left Friday night after work and ventured through scenic Sonoma into Russian River. The drive was amazing, many farms, Redwood trees and endless miles of vineyards. We arrived at a cute little inn called West Sonoma Inn; its currently off-season so all was quiet and the pool was closed. We did see some older men with beards down to their knees walking around the grounds. The Inn was absolutely beautiful with a stylish lobby with a stone fireplace, very rustic. Our room was even better, one of the most spacious rooms we have stayed in. The room had a fireplace, a full kitchen and a hot tub on the deck. Ooooh la la!


The inn we were staying at was located in a place called Guernville and it seemed like a small depressed town with very little to offer but nice inns and gay bars. It almost seemed like this town was so depressed and run down that they decided to try to attract the "gays" in hopes of turning the town around. As we walked through the small town their was a redneck/country bar having a pig roast in between two gay bars, what a sight! We wondered into a bar called "RRR" had a few drinks and played this addictive video game called "Chip-Away."


The next day we ventured out on a beautiful drive to the wine country in Sonoma. It was so much better than Napa!! Napa has many beautiful places to taste wine and the views are breathtaking but they charge for wine tasting, Sonoma wine tasting is free!! So we ventured to many well-known places to taste the juice. such as Korbel and Belvedere. All the places we amazing. Check out some of the pictures below. Of course by the time you reach the four wine tasting your buzz kicks and your stumbling around the vineyards!









After a long day on the road we headed home and had a great dinner at this place called the Roadhouse. The beautiful restaurant was an old cabin with high ceilings and stone fireplaces and the food was delicious. We were all stuffed and ready to check out the Saturday nightlife in Guerneville. We ended up back at the RRR and we played some pool and had a few drinks when we ran into some other San Francisco boys who struck up some conversation with us. We all decided to go to a different place called the Branding Iron...this is where the fun began.



The Branding Iron was like any typical bar, dark, tacky and filled with an odd assortment of characters. Two of the odd cats we ran into were two drag queens, "Debbie Derringer" and "Juanita Maria Lupita Fajita." Give me props for still remembering that name! They were both hilarious and we shared some laughs and several drinks with the. Debbie was actually the most attractive drag queen I have ever seen, pulled it off well. We all ended up going back to the "RRR" and danced to bad Karaoke.



Sunday came and we left the West Sonoma Inn and headed to a really nice town called Healdsburg. It was so beautiful with little shops, many of them massive antique stores and really nice parks. We ate lunch in one of the parks and then headed back home BUT before we could get home, I noticed Petaluma Factory outlets. UGH. We ended up stopping there and shopped like it was Christmas, ended up buying Zachary a ton of toys. We were excited to go home and se Zachary! All in all it was a great weekend to explore northern California!




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Neil - you are such a beautiful guy and I am inspired when I read your blog. I miss chatting with you. I am here if you ever need me.

-Julie

Anonymous said...

Now you smiling so hard like that cuz of the jet streams in that hot tub or cuz you know someone's taking a picture of you with nothing on underneath those bubbles? hehe... miss you guys. ~Tom n' Ray

Menky said...

You think I am nekkid in that hot tub..never! Tom and Ray! Miss you both too, will see you soon when we are in Boston this summer:-)